Now London postal workers are going on strike

[oracleslave]

WHS

Revolting crime ridden dump.

You sound bitter because you can't upgrade out of Swindon.

[DaveB]

"Summer of Discontent" anyone?

[DimPrawn]

You sound bitter because you can't upgrade out of Swindon.

The only upgrade from Swindon is heaven itself.

[Bagpuss]

Easiest job in the world London postie.

5 am pick up mail, walk to round, make a few token deliveries.
5:30am break
6 am find hedge to disguard the rest
6:30 at home asleep.

[sweetandsour]

Easiest job in the world London postie.

5 am pick up mail, walk to round, make a few token deliveries.
5:30am break
6 am find hedge to disguard the rest
6:30 at home asleep.

Why pick on London posties? Wouldn't it be the same throughout the rest of the country?

I thought that they get paid about £285 per week in London and the one major perk - that they can **** off home early if they have finished their round - is going to get the can in the reform of their working practices.

[Bagpuss]

Well, according to panorama a couple of years ago the London postal service is very corrupt. Credit cards stolen from the post, mail dumped and other nefarious activity much higher than national average

[TykeMerc]

Is there any point in a postal service these days, everything useful can be send/processed over the internet.

When was the last time you received a letter in the post that was:-

A. Useful
and
B. Could not have been transmitted electronically??

This week I've had several items in the post that fit both of your requirements.

Replacement credit card.
Signed contracts.
Some enlargements of photos.
Security forms that required signatures on originals.
A DVD with loads of info from a client.

Admittedly I'm a long way from London

[TimberWolf]

I was a postie not so long ago, and the hours were loooong for new starters, but got quicker once you had your own 'walk' (delivery round), which likely wouldn't happen for ages unless you was slow or fick. As a newbie you may not be on any particular walk for more than a week at a time, and you might be on a different walk each day. Not knowing a walk significantly increases the sorting and delivery time for various reasons, and I and other newbies (and some old timers) would often arrive an 1/2 to 1 hour early to start sorting early (not possible if you haven't been allocated a walk that day yet). In our first week, all first timers were still out delivering at 6pm! Half left in the first week and all but me were gone after 6 months.

The day starts with you sorting your own walk into a frame containing slots for individual addresses. After about an hour of that you collectively sort letters into walks (each walk comprising say 15 streets), for about an hour. That's about 500 street names to remember. Then you go back to your frame with all your luvvly letters and sort these into the house slots, do redirections, etc. This becomes fast when you are familiar with a walk, and is slow when you aren't, as house numbers are often scattered all over the frame and there are often similarly named streets in a walk. Bearing in mind an extra second or so for each of the hundreds of letters you'll be sorting will add up to an appreciable amount of time. With experience it becomes fast and mechanical. Delivering the letters is the best and last 4 hours of the day, after which you can go home unless you have mail to return. I would typically be doing 2 hours unpaid for the first few days on a walk, and after about 2 weeks familiarisation would typically break even or even get home early. But that's without taking any breaks in the day, which was typical. Most walks were about 7 miles. A postie from another district did say that our postal district was one of the worst in the area though.

[Menelaus]

The only upgrade from Swindon is heaven itself.

Does that account for the suicide rate then?

[Menelaus]

Well, according to panorama a couple of years ago the London postal service is very corrupt. Credit cards stolen from the post, mail dumped and other nefarious activity much higher than national average

WHS

One of the easiest models I've ever built was a credit card despatch model. It's telling that the Royal Mail have one person per region whose job it is to liaise with the banks (etc) about mail being stolen.