Where's all the work?

[FirstPost]

Of course it's busy for tracked but nowhere near as busy as this time last year. Also not seen a Christmas card yet

[scotchy1962]

Every year we get this, where's the work?
Just be thankful as the only day i can finish on time is Tuesday and we have a full quota and a spare man to take bulk off us.
Why would you complain its not busy enough?

[spen]

Plenty in ours, has been gor 3 weeks

[olilew]

We haven't completed our duty, not once since mid September. Now we can't even complete one side, just too many pkts, we have to leave most of the mail in. Where's all the work?

[Ren Hoëk]

We are rammed. DO is total chaos already. Walks failing all over and this week we have started failing the tracked items as well. Management clueless on what to do and the complete absence of any form of leadership.

[postslippete]

Mail is still failing daily in our office. Some staff have gone on sick whilst most of us are either working our hours or going a little bit over. The managers are clueless on to how to clear the backlog other than to throw more agency staff at the problem. Many of them are working well into the evening too.
It must be costing RM an absolute fortune.

[Mickeybrowneyes]

The oversized has been ridiculous the last two days.
Had to go out and clear a whole transit van load this morning before we even attempted a letter.
Tomorrow will be brutal.
Work failing everywhere.

[Smoothbackground]

And it’s not just the increased quantity of the oversized — it’s also the size of the oversized itself. I have delivered five huge dolls’ houses in the last week or so, not to mention a massive baby car seat box that surely must have been the maximum dimensions we carry as it was so big (though light). Strange thing is the dolls’ houses were Age Verification, meaning I had to ask for the customer’s year of birth etc!

Larger parcels of course take longer to sort, load and deliver, which in turn means we can do less deliveries, Daylight, or the lack of it, also limits us. The increased volume of parcels therefore needs more bums on van seats. We have it under control in our DO for the minute as managers are slowly bringing in agency to cover increased volume, splitting pairings up so one goes on a parcel route, etc. But the real Christmas peak period will start next week, I think, following November payday for most folk, and we will need more vans and people than we currently have if we are going to keep on top of it. Will be interesting to see if the much-needed more vans and more people to deliver materialise!

[SpacePhoenix]

No sign yet of any Xmas cards, I'd have expected to start seeing a few pass through the system by now.

The Amazon stuff, a lot of it now arrives in MCs on pallets.

I heard (don't remember where) that most of the other couriers are already maxed out for capacity so we can expect to start getting shitloads of Amazon through from now right up to Xmas eve

[crazyshrew]

Today I left over a row in the frame, ended up putting a row back in when I got back. Still booked a small amount of extended due to threats regarding getting all the packets done, and having to still travel to all corners of my delivery to do the customer collections.

90-130 parcels on my HCT duty has been pretty standard for the last couple of weeks

[crazyshrew]

complete absence of any form of leadership.

This.

Busy and manic chaos I can handle no sweat....as long as someone is taking charge of it and making some attempt to create some order.

Note to those who have the audacity to call themselves managers
Telling people "Do your best, but get all the tracked done or else" is not leading or managing.
It is not inspiring, empowering or motivating.
It is lazy, pointless, less than useless, bullying; And achieves the complete opposite to what you want it to

[WalkerX]

Last Weds/Thurs/Fri even Sat were the same huge levels on the walk I was doing.
I`m on there this week as well. It`s a horrible walk. Even with the parcel jockeys taking a York of oversized, we struggled to get back for my partner`s SA today , and that`s on a quieter Tuesday. Lots of collections, some had been cancelled but were still on the PDA, and one firm had 7 heavy boxes of papers to collect. We`ve got plenty of time for this s**t haven`t we?
What`s tomorrow going to be like with my partner on an SA? She`s got foot issues and is going in for surgery next week, so she`s struggling.
Bollocks, we`re leaving half a walk in tomorrow.
Bosses want part timers in early. Bollocks to that as well.

[RTP]

All rounds are too big due to the added extra put on to all frames in the summer and we are busy, but nowhere near peak pressure yet. Anybody got a spare paddle?

[Mickeybrowneyes]

Royal Mail have been systematically making the walks longer now for a number of years projecting the decline of letters a factor.
Maybe they should have thought of the time constraints winning multiple contracts with the likes of Asos and Nike will have on our workload.
Short sighted textbook privatisation maneuver.
Cut resourcing to the bare bones and don't plan for any potential growth.
Thing is we are the best of a bad bunch right now so cant see these companies going elsewhere.

[guardianangel]

This was all INEVITABLE after the shitshow in the last year by royal mail and the cwu .