Andrew Ellson, Personal Finance Editor:Twat!!

[POSTMAN]

Royal Mail has failed to deliver

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My young cousin absolutely loves Postman Pat. Whenever he hears the catchy theme tune he breaks into a little jig of joy. Sadly, I doubt whether young Bruno's affection for Royal Mail will survive into adulthood. It is, after all, extremely hard to remain fond of an organisation that treats customers with contempt.

When I visited my local post office the other day, I was shocked by the experience. (Of course, when I say local, what I really mean is nearest - the local branch closed down long ago.)

Walking into the branch was like entering a time machine and coming out in 1970s communist Russia. For a start, everything was grey, from the surly-looking faces staring out from behind the serving counter, to the carpet, which was so threadbare you could almost see the floorboards. There was also a queue of about 30 people, with each poor soul looking resigned to yet another lunchtime wasted standing in line.

But while the Post Office experience is bad, the Royal Mail experience is worse. Despite living in Central London, my post never arrives before I leave for work. In fact, I am lucky if it arrives before lunchtime, which is quite remarkable given that I live less than three miles from the country's largest sorting office. If The Times can deliver my morning newspaper by 7am each day, I don't see why Royal Mail can't do the same with my post.

As my mail arrives so late, I am never at home to sign for deliveries. Instead, I receive a little red note through the door, saying that I must call to rearrange delivery or go to my local collection office. Arranging another delivery would be futile, so I always have to traipse to the collection office, which is more than two miles from my home. As if this wasn't inconvenient enough, the office is only open on weekday mornings and for four hours on a Saturday.

The other weekend when I went to retrieve a parcel, I was met by a queue so long that it must have contained half of North London's working population.

The facts support my anecdotal evidence. Royal Mail loses about one million letters and parcels a month and is ranked bottom in the efficiency table of European postal operators. Postcomm, the industry regulator, says that the company is 40 per cent less efficient than some of its competitors. One result is that it has to pay about £12 million a year in compensation for delays, loss and damage.

It is very hard to believe that this poor service would be tolerated in a private company. However loath I am to admit it, Peter Mandelson is right. Royal Mail needs change at a “gale-force” pace.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Comments possible on this story so come on Lads and Lasses lets flood them with some. I have just waiting for it to be published.

[fmrPOSTIE]

He's right about the dull, out-dated interior of most POs.

He's right about the diabolicle long queues.

He's right about the unacceptable opening times of Callers Offices'.

[axeman]

[norbert]

Comments possible on this story so come on Lads and Lasses lets flood them with some. I have just waiting for it to be published.

Is this piece a surprise ? , The Times and The Sun are part of News International owned by Rupert Murdoch who just happens to own Sky with a certain :lfo on the Board .

Sky give :lfo a nice easy interview allowing :lfo to reel off his carefully prepared speech , RMC's favourite Bakery frequenter is like a naughty schoolboy sent for by the Headmaster on the BBC .
:cfo gets a pasting in the Tory papers because of his salary and managed decline of RM , with a bit of help from a RM Operations Director with a alleged history of orchestrating strikes , the Spanish Practices and Postmen making time due to job and finish story is run in the Times to get :cfo off the hook , all disingenuous smoke and mirrors and snake oil salesmanship of course ; what a fortunate coincidence - not !

There's Independent articles run such as " Reading Between the Lines " on the 10th of February accusing the Mirror and the CWU of riot incitement then " Postmen shooting themselves in the Foot " later in the month , obviously , the three www's aren't big enough ?

[resperin]

so many fecking clueless people writing in the newspapers these days

[BELIAL]

so many fecking clueless people writing in the newspapers these days

For newspapers ,read pamphlets

[k979aaa]

The man is a fool.

[trythat]

Royal Mail has failed to deliver


As my mail arrives so late, I am never at home to sign for deliveries. Instead, I receive a little red note through the door, saying that I must call to rearrange delivery or go to my local collection office. Arranging another delivery would be futile, so I always have to traipse to the collection office, which is more than two miles from my home. As if this wasn't inconvenient enough, the office is only open on weekday mornings and for four hours on a Saturday.

The other weekend when I went to retrieve a parcel, I was met by a queue so long that it must have contained half of North London's working population.
.

And is this going to change if we're made private? I don't think so, unless he wants his mail after he gets home from work, this is what happens when people don't give a s**t about something, until they have to try and use it. Perhaps if more people listened to us when we were on strike, then they wouldn't have to complain so much.

If they complain now about the price of postage, just wait until TNT or whoever, puts the price up to a £1 straight away, and then increase it by inflation +10% or whatever they can get away with, because as all our other private utilities they need to make a profit, you can't make enough profit just by sacking people.

[Puppetmaster]

Proably now one of the moast commonist complaints is post arriving around lunch time.So many people work from home now having post so late must be a nightmare for them.
I think what most people want is post delivered early and efficently.

Given the size of many rounds now,the preasure the poor Postie is under to complete on time its just not possible.

Think the guy has a point.

My Cosest Post Office was really busy a 2 conter operation always busy,it was near a a Big Town Center one ,so it was closed down ,yet another nearby PO that was a 1 counter operation was left.

But does any of this really matter have heard it said by many RM managers PEOPLE ONLY READ THEIR MAIL AT THE WEEKEND!

[IWW Fellow Worker]

But does any of this really matter have heard it said by many RM managers PEOPLE ONLY READ THEIR MAIL AT THE WEEKEND!

The line Crozier has told them to stick to goes '40% of responses to adverts is due to mail being delivered on Saturdays' because that's when customers are at home.
I don't know if there is any truth in this as statistics can be twisted to say anything, but the fact is, Royal Mail managers are so devoid of initiative they'll believe anything they're told just as long as the person doing the telling is a parasite in a suit and tie. It's not so long ago that they were being told Saturday deliveries were making a huge loss and it was only the regulator preventing their demise.
One statistic which is perfectly reliable is this : 100% of Royal Mail managers are useless, clueless, bone idle stooges.

[norbert]

But does any of this really matter have heard it said by many RM managers PEOPLE ONLY READ THEIR MAIL AT THE WEEKEND!

The line Crozier has told them to stick to goes '40% of responses to adverts is due to mail being delivered on Saturdays' because that's when customers are at home.
I don't know if there is any truth in this as statistics can be twisted to say anything, but the fact is, Royal Mail managers are so devoid of initiative they'll believe anything they're told just as long as the person doing the telling is a parasite in a suit and tie. It's not so long ago that they were being told Saturday deliveries were making a huge loss and it was only the regulator preventing their demise.
One statistic which is perfectly reliable is this : 100% of Royal Mail managers are useless, clueless, bone idle stooges.

the other line parroted out is the " They are only Granny parcels " - all those Silver Surfers exclusively using Evilbay & Amazon etc eh ?