How hard do we actually work compared to other jobs

[mh80]

well i have done a fair few jobs over the years from workin in england on the roads and on the sites right down to caretakeing jobs to takeaways now am with rm diss.and i will say this it is as hard as you make it .yeah sure you have to sling bags all day and some days are stewed under now i love a good days hard work but some days well you can just do what you need to do and not do your back in so i wont say it is the hardest job i have ever done but its up there. but it is the best job i have had by far

I agree with that , if you want to you can make it reasonable by doing your job properly, taking your breaks, working your hours, but the hard/stressful part of that is battling with the pig-headed managers & posties who come in early and then RUN round and finish an hour early. Also depends on which delivery you are on, I have done all but 2 of the deliveries in my section and they vary greatly (even on the same day each week) despite the geo-route. Some you can finish on time no problem and others you have to go over because the person on there kills it by running round and working for free!!

[heapsy]

There are many answers to the question "How hard do we work?" This depends on such factors as what type of office and job do you actually do. A colleague of mine was sent to the mail centre for xmas a number of years back. He couldn't believe the number of breaks they took. I am in delivery, as many of you will know, there are no hard and fast rules on your working day. By this I mean that if it is a busy day, and you get off the ips late, then you are pushed for time to complete within duty. This doesn't happen in other areas or RM where, say in processing, once you do your shift, you go home and someone takes over. I have worked in delivery for over 20 years at the same office and the changes have been enormous. For a start, the amount of mail. I now have twice the number of bags than all those years ago. The walks are bigger than they were back then. We used to have 65 walks when I started. This crept up to 72 over time as new estates were built and the traffic increased. We now have only 55 walks! Something else that has changed, which has created more problems than anything, is the amount of time spent INDOORS.
When I started we did no more than 30 minutes ips, 45 on a busy day, unless it was xmas pressure. Now we do about an hour and a half, to two hours depending on traffic, more at xmas. On top of this we now deliver to bigger walks which take longer. THIS has created more problems than anything in the delivery function of RM. It makes a huge contribution to the overtime that is claimed within an office. The main problem is that we do NOT have a cut-off time from the ips or the ability to stream the mail due to the need for quality of service. Those of you who deliver will also know that the time your duty takes can vary from day to day due to traffic, recorded signatures, number of packets to knock for, the list goes on. Unless something is changed then there will be continued problems.

The cutting off from IPS is a good point. We used to cut off after a max of 1 hour IPS and what was left went onto the 2nd delivey, of course with that gone we now carry on until the managers think we have had enough. This does lead to added pressure to prep and get out esp when you already have mech trays stacked on your bench. With the introduction of the automation of flat sorting and frame sequenced mech we should be able to get out onto the rounds earlier. BUT of course this new tech needs to be paid for and will no doubt lead to a loss of man power which will end up with more indoor work per head meaning we won't gain anything but longer rounds.

I have heard, but not sure if it is only rumour, that they are talking about splitting the rounds, doing about 2.5hrs then another 2hrs, after your break, but like I say, maybe it is only rumour.

[NWpostie]

Ifthat happens it wouldn't surprise me if the Idoits take the whole lot out and deliver them for a straight 4.5 hrs, no breaks and the DOMs will use this stick to hit us with it, "if he can take it all out why can't you ?" line while conveniently ignoring the "illegal" part.

[krussel]

I have heard, but not sure if it is only rumour, that they are talking about splitting the rounds, doing about 2.5hrs then another 2hrs, after your break, but like I say, maybe it is only rumour.[/quote]

I would quite welcome this if they had not closed our canteen. Trouble for me just going back to the office is a 35 min round trip so i would never get around if i went back.

[johnny_fartpants]

Wait till you start operating the 500 sequencing machines that are allegedly on the way.

Hardest work I've ever done !!!!

Why? tell us more

[24601]

Wait till you start operating the 500 sequencing machines that are allegedly on the way.

Hardest work I've ever done !!!!

Why? tell us more

I'll copy and paste from my post of about 18 months ago.Nothing much has changed except the amount of work we are expected to put through has gone up by around 75%

We usually have around 20 -22 trays for each batch when we start our shift at midnight.It then takes around 30 minutes to seg the trays into batches as it all arrives in yorks as mixed batches or 2 batches per york.

After that each lorry arriving from the mail centre brings one further york of 20 trays which amounts to about 2 or 3 trays for each batch.

The last lorry arrives at 7 usually carrying 2 yorks or 40 trays.We finish at 8 so obviously with a full batch of 5000 letters taking around 35-40 minutes to sequence most of this mail gets walk sorted or put on the ips to be hand sorted.

The mail has to be put through the process 3 times to be sequenced.

With 2 machines,if the mail arrived in 2 waves,one when we arrive and the other one around 4am we could easily sequence up to 80,000- 90,000 items per night but the problem is with the erratic arrivals from the MC.

Our reject rate is nothing like as bad as 10-15%. The bad quality of the printed bar codes is the main reason for rejects and we tend to think that using ageing LSM's in the Mail Centre to service brand new machines in our DO is not the brightest of ideas.

in Kirkcaldy "Apparently there is only one person staffing each machine,which is completely contrary to our agreement" - walk sort machines are staffed by one person.

The machines are not crap,just do the maths.The mail has to go through an LSM,get trayed up and loaded onto a lorry.It is then driven 50 miles to be unloaded and segged.It then takes 35-40 minutes to sequence 5000 letters giving 8 to 10 walks 1 tray of mail. This saves each delivery officer around 5 minutes prep time per tray.

Also any rejected letters which have been through a machine process 4 times ends up being sorted by hand.

Update We now frequently sequence 100,000 - 120,000 items a night.

[Tman]

Our reject rate is nothing like as bad as 10-15%. The bad quality of the printed bar codes is the main reason for rejects and we tend to think that using ageing LSM's in the Mail Centre to service brand new machines in our DO is not the brightest of ideas.

Problem there is that most A400 printers are less than a year old, and at most two years old. Hardly "ageing".

The common statements on RMC that WSMs are "crap" or a "waste of time" are usually passed on by those who have no experience or connection, or some other axe to grind.
Reality is that if those Dutch working mums can make it work, anyone can.
Even old Stan at 64 1/2 years old, if he really wanted to.....

[24601]

Our reject rate is nothing like as bad as 10-15%. The bad quality of the printed bar codes is the main reason for rejects and we tend to think that using ageing LSM's in the Mail Centre to service brand new machines in our DO is not the brightest of ideas.

Problem there is that most A400 printers are less than a year old, and at most two years old. Hardly "ageing".

The common statements on RMC that WSMs are "crap" or a "waste of time" are usually passed on by those who have no experience or connection, or some other axe to grind.
Reality is that if those Dutch working mums can make it work, anyone can.
Even old Stan at 64 1/2 years old, if he really wanted to.....

The main problem is with the routing codes being printed too high for the WSM readers to see.

And yes you're quite right,these machines are not for 'now' their for the Dutch plan.

[heapsy]

Reading through many of the posts on here I get real feeling that every office is VERY different from all the others. Cannot believe that there are peeps finishing about 2 hours early on delivery duties. There has to be something wrong there.

[Tman]

The main problem is with the routing codes being printed too high for the WSM readers to see.
That shouldn't be a problem, as there is (or should be) the perspex letter gauge J Tool for the MC operators to check what's being printed at regular intervals.

[POSTMAN]

Our reject rate is nothing like as bad as 10-15%. The bad quality of the printed bar codes is the main reason for rejects and we tend to think that using ageing LSM's in the Mail Centre to service brand new machines in our DO is not the brightest of ideas.

Problem there is that most A400 printers are less than a year old, and at most two years old. Hardly "ageing".

The common statements on RMC that WSMs are "crap" or a "waste of time" are usually passed on by those who have no experience or connection, or some other axe to grind.
Reality is that if those Dutch working mums can make it work, anyone can.
Even old Stan at 64 1/2 years old, if he really wanted to.....

The common statements on RMC are what RM and CWU have said,they save about 10-20 mins (depending on which propaganda you're reading) on prepping.

[Tman]

But, as with most (if not all) automated processes, a little time-saving is merely a bonus. The real saving is in unit costs.

[fasterthanyou]

Its not about how hard we work or how easy the job is?
1 , We work hard
2, The job is not 2 difficult

But the problems are that all through my time at RM i have really enjoyed my job, i am an outdoors person and this is the field i would continue to do. But now if we claim overtime because pegasus nonsence then we are told our prep not up to scratch or this and that or your not going fast enough, talking to much, going to coffee machine, its all this that really annoys me!! Then they go and count your letters to test your prep! Come on!!

And i just see that nowadays they just seem to wanna pick on people who are prepared to stand up to there bully boy tactics, because that is all it is!! they are only do it boys managers who are only there to do as they are told no matter if they think different!

I always remember a DOM saying to me, if you do your job you will never hear from me!! I have always done my job well and im proud to say so, but nowadays it just seems that no matter what we do they wanna find fault!
I just think its a ways and means to cut numbers by staff who walk out because they are not able to stand up to this bullying!

Well i have stood up and will continue to stand. So lets all take a stand

HEAR HEAR.

[clagnet]

Its started to get physically tiring for me these days.
Sometimes out for near 4 hours and i feel drained at night.
I know its not mentally challenging or boring like a production line but the weight we carry and the miles we do start to tell when you get older.
Many times i might work with out a break if its busy and missorts come early.I finish early but obviously the break is on the back end.7 hours on your feet isn't easy work.
I've worked in an office and done laboring and you tend to work in spurts and have more breaks.

[Yahoorsur]

Its started to get physically tiring for me these days.
Sometimes out for near 4 hours and i feel drained at night.
I know its not mentally challenging or boring like a production line but the weight we carry and the miles we do start to tell when you get older.
Many times i might work with out a break if its busy and missorts come early.I finish early but obviously the break is on the back end.7 hours on your feet isn't easy work.
I've worked in an office and done laboring and you tend to work in spurts and have more breaks.

I think folk like myself getting into mid 40's are the same,on a Friday afternoon all I want to do is vegitate in front of the telly,2 Saturdays ago,I was in my bed at 2145 on a Saturday night ,simply because I was cream crackered,starting at 0530,then not having a sleep in the afternoon,god I hate getting old