The "How was your day" thread.

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 07 May 2019, 17:33

norris9 wrote:Had my first dog attack today. A tiny fluff ball comes running out yapping as a dude just back from the gym opens his front door.

The little fluffer went and bit the back of my legs....I was wearing trousers, so no damage. If I hard worn shorts I think it would have drawn blood.

This job is going to be so much fun. I can't wait until an Alsatian attacks me, seems inevitable.

Best to not let a dog get behind you if you haven't encountered it before and make sure you can see what it is doing. Small dogs tend to be more of a problem than larger dogs generally speaking.

norris9 · Post by **norris9** » 07 May 2019, 19:27

Celgar wrote:
norris9 wrote:Had my first dog attack today. A tiny fluff ball comes running out yapping as a dude just back from the gym opens his front door.

The little fluffer went and bit the back of my legs....I was wearing trousers, so no damage. If I hard worn shorts I think it would have drawn blood.

This job is going to be so much fun. I can't wait until an Alsatian attacks me, seems inevitable.
Best to not let a dog get behind you if you haven't encountered it before and make sure you can see what it is doing. Small dogs tend to be more of a problem than larger dogs generally speaking.

I just think it's unbelievable that dogs are free to do what the hell they want. Owners don't give a crap. If you have a dog, you should have a porch, or some door/gate in your corridor to stop the dog running out the front door, or attacking letters/posties fingers as the post comes through.

Some dogs are scratching and barking at the front door like some lunatic zombie that wants your blood. Most bark, but there are silent ones where you put the post through and boom it's ripped out of your hand with force.

Post by **rambo1** » 08 May 2019, 09:44

Caesar wrote:
norris9 wrote:
yellowbelly wrote:'that would help us out' - yes - at your expense - has the manager authorised the extra 15 mins overtime because another postie said to come in early?

If your partner is regular on the round surely they can assist you? I've worked two to a frame when I've got a newbie on a van share. Invariably it's when we're catching
up on putting flats into the frame and if it's addressed to his/her end of the frame I just chuck to the left/right as appropriate saying 'your side' or I just say 'carry on I'll work around you'. Then when all the flats are in I move back to my frame to do packets and parcels - time made up, no dramas.

No authorisation from the manager.

I am not sure why, this round is not that bad, or at least doesn't feel that bad, but we finish late every time. I think I have got my speed up to close to the best I am going to ever get as a reserve. With other Posties I have been out with they seem a bit more proactive, don't need pee breaks, and usually all finish their loops before me.... apart from this dude. So I actually think that if this guy wants to save time then he should speed up and if he drinks a load of tea and coffee in the morning then he should cut down and not expect me to save him time by coming in early.

But to be fair to us, I think I am usually with him on the busy days. Not sure we have had a single light day yet.

When I get in to the DO the parcels have been done or more or less been done. I just do redirections and bag up. I don't need help with that.

I have done the marking up of parcels with a Postie before and honestly I think the Postie who is familiar to the frame would get it done faster if I wasn't there in his way dithering trying to find where the heck number 69 Bing Bong Lane is. Sometimes Bing Bong Lane is actually on another frame the other side of the office and I wouldn't have a clue, I'd be there for 1 minute trying to find the effer on my frame.
I got authorisation from the manager to come in early. My contracted start time is 9 am but was asked to start at 8.30. I found that my partner and I where usually late leaving office. Often there would be more sequenced mail to put in the frame plus mis sorts and then the packets so I got authorisation to start at 8 am.
I often start 10 or so min early, mainly because it takes me 30 min to get to the depot so I leave home early in case of traffic problems. Starting 10 min early allows me to take it a bit easier.
We often finish our loops at different times due to my partner delivering some of the larger parcels on his own.
Next week is my 6th week on this walk so after that I'll probably get moved around but doing a lot of my own prepping has given me a little more experience although I'm still unsure of the prep sequence and never really know when to start tying up.

Your 10 mins a day 'to make your life easier' may not seem like much, but just add it up. If you continue to start 10 mins early every day for the next 10 yrs you will have given royal mail 400 hrs of your life for free and missed out on about £4500 pay at today's pay rate. I understand having to allow a bit of a cushion to get there if traveling from 30 mins away but doesn't mean you have to start early if you get there early. I'd sit in my car and chill. Each to their own though.

clashcityrocker · Post by **clashcityrocker** » 08 May 2019, 14:27

It rained. Heavily.

norris9 · Post by **norris9** » 08 May 2019, 17:42

Pissed down.

A Special Delivery letter got soaked, so soggy it split open at the seem. No answer from customer. Not sure if you get in shi* for wet soggy letters, not sure how you can keep them dry when it is bucketing it down and there is no cover.

Generally the day was a mess.

clashcityrocker · Post by **clashcityrocker** » 08 May 2019, 17:54

norris9 wrote: not sure how you can keep them dry when it is bucketing it down and there is no cover.

Put them in a redirection bag.

Post by **greengiant** » 09 May 2019, 16:48

Busy with election materials today! Looks like the mail merge system for a certain party has had a whoopsie, loads of badly addressed letters, right door number, but wrong street and residents name! So I suspect a lot of return to senders in the post boxes the next few days.

Curiously though, I got an email from Royal Mail today, giving me a two hour window for a tracked item I'm getting tomorrow..

PostmanBitesDog · Post by **PostmanBitesDog** » 09 May 2019, 18:24

Perfect day today. Everything went according to my master plan: back on time with no issues. Even the rain was on my side.

Collapsed loops were completed, door-to-doors dished out to the assigned loops, all the collections gathered up, and the garbage removed from the van like the responsible human I am.

norris9 · Post by **norris9** » 09 May 2019, 19:59

PostmanBitesDog wrote:Perfect day today. Everything went according to my master plan: back on time with no issues. Even the rain was on my side.

Collapsed loops were completed, door-to-doors dished out to the assigned loops, all the collections gathered up, and the garbage removed from the van like the responsible human I am.

Wow, congrats.

Was an ok day for me. Rained a lot though which sucked.

Hopefully post bank holiday mayhem has passed us, and tomorrow will be nice and easy.

norris9 · Post by **norris9** » 09 May 2019, 21:41

These foreign Specials....

I understand they have to be delivered the same day....but I am curious - is this just a rule between Royal Mail and Posties, or has the sender paid for delivery to be on that day?

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 09 May 2019, 23:35

norris9 wrote:
PostmanBitesDog wrote:Perfect day today. Everything went according to my master plan: back on time with no issues. Even the rain was on my side.

Collapsed loops were completed, door-to-doors dished out to the assigned loops, all the collections gathered up, and the garbage removed from the van like the responsible human I am.
Wow, congrats.

Was an ok day for me. Rained a lot though which sucked.

Hopefully post bank holiday mayhem has passed us, and tomorrow will be nice and easy.

Going to probably be heavy rain on Friday and maybe Saturday as well. I think my boots are still a bit sodden now. After Saturday the better weather is meant to be on the way. I think the rest of May is due to be good in terms of sunshine.
Regarding mail the rest of this week will be busy I think. Certainly Friday anyway and the election stuff is starting to come through now too.

Celgar · Post by **Celgar** » 09 May 2019, 23:39

norris9 wrote:These foreign Specials....

I understand they have to be delivered the same day....but I am curious - is this just a rule between Royal Mail and Posties, or has the sender paid for delivery to be on that day?

Currently the foreign packets that get selected to be SDs can be delivered after 1pm without any problems. Our DOM told us though that RM are still monitoring when they get delivered & it is expected that they will also have to be delivered by 1pm as well at some point. If you are worried about it then make sure you deliver the foreign ones before 1pm as well.

norris9 · Post by **norris9** » 10 May 2019, 06:59

Celgar wrote:Currently the foreign packets that get selected to be SDs can be delivered after 1pm without any problems. Our DOM told us though that RM are still monitoring when they get delivered & it is expected that they will also have to be delivered by 1pm as well at some point. If you are worried about it then make sure you deliver the foreign ones before 1pm as well.

I was just curious as to how important it is to get them delivered the day they are handed to you....and if the shiz hits the fan if you don't, or if it's just a light slap on the wrists.

One thing I think I may have done a couple of times is that I had assumed all these 'Specials' needed a signature, so I may have not been checking for the black dot on the PDA and therefore I may have automatically written out a docket if someone isn't in, sending them down to the depot to collect something that I could have just put through their letterbox.

Post by **SpacePhoenix** » 10 May 2019, 07:08

Celgar wrote:
norris9 wrote:These foreign Specials....

I understand they have to be delivered the same day....but I am curious - is this just a rule between Royal Mail and Posties, or has the sender paid for delivery to be on that day?
Currently the foreign packets that get selected to be SDs can be delivered after 1pm without any problems. Our DOM told us though that RM are still monitoring when they get delivered & it is expected that they will also have to be delivered by 1pm as well at some point. If you are worried about it then make sure you deliver the foreign ones before 1pm as well.

All customs charge items also go through the system as SDs

yellowbelly · Post by **yellowbelly** » 10 May 2019, 17:44

norris9 wrote:
Celgar wrote:Currently the foreign packets that get selected to be SDs can be delivered after 1pm without any problems. Our DOM told us though that RM are still monitoring when they get delivered & it is expected that they will also have to be delivered by 1pm as well at some point. If you are worried about it then make sure you deliver the foreign ones before 1pm as well.

I was just curious as to how important it is to get them delivered the day they are handed to you....and if the shiz hits the fan if you don't, or if it's just a light slap on the wrists.

One thing I think I may have done a couple of times is that I had assumed all these 'Specials' needed a signature, so I may have not been checking for the black dot on the PDA and therefore I may have automatically written out a docket if someone isn't in, sending them down to the depot to collect something that I could have just put through their letterbox.

From the letters page of Courier, July 2014:

Helen Williams, service improvement manager, replies:
Thank you for raising your concerns about ensuring we deliver all of our items to the correct speciﬁcation. With regard to the
USPS item you refer to, I can conﬁrm that we do not have to deliver these items, or any other
inbound international items, to a speciﬁc time. What is imperative is that we use a PDA to scan these items at
the delivery point, and we don’t just post them through the letterbox. This will ensure we are subsequently paid for
the delivery of the items and provide a delivery status event track for the item.

Don't waste time going off route to deliver a dogs squeaky toy from China if it came through in the 'Specials'!!