General Chat

recieved a letter today from the royal mail which wasn't too happy with.the letter stated that first and second deliveries would be combined into one delivery.if i can remember rightly the morning delivery was first class mail and the later one was second class.if this is the case people are paying for first class at a more expensive price and second at aless price.where is the logic.you might as well send your post second class and get the same delivery as first class.the letter also stated that the the mail will be delivered at noon or if we are lucky it could be before.what ashambles.gone are the days when your first class mail was delivered at 7.oo in the morning.i get mine at all different times and the earliest is 9.30 a.m.the thing that really made me laugh was the new service they have out at the moment.mail collect where you pick up your own mail after 8.30.i thought to pay for your stamp you have it delivered.does the person who sent it get there money back.there is only one thing i can say about royal mail.it is a totally crap service.i am not slating the post men and women because they are doing there best but as a company they aren't doing enough for there customers.they are thinking about no.1 themselves and the shareholders.just remember if you didn't have customers you wouldn't have a company.anyone else recieve this letter today?what do you think?

We did have a similar letter about 3 months ago. We thought "second delivery, what's that?". We haven't had a regular second delivery for about 2 years. In fact we're lucky if the post gets here before noon! We live in a village about 2 miles from the sorting office and the postie comes up here in a van, parks it at the end of the road, and walks up delivering the mail. Some days we don't get any at all and then find out it was delivered next door! All our houses are clearly numbered - is reading not a requirement for postmen any more? A neighbour was told that postmen do 4 hour shifts and if their post is not delivered in that time it goes back to the sorting office for the next day's delivery! I don't know how true that is though. Another thing that really makes me mad - we have 3 postboxes in Langley Vale. The collection times are shown as between 5pm and 5.15pm. Why then did the postman empty the box at 1pm on Friday? Good job I posted my letter in the morning - not that it got there on Saturday anyway! When I first moved here in 1978 I could post a letter to catch the 8.30am collection and it would be delivered in Epsom (nearest town to me) by the 2nd post! Any postmen/women out there care to comment or perhaps give us some answers? Sue

We had a similar letter aswell, my post never arrives until 10am and then the dog gets it. I think it is todo with SAVING MONEY oh well nat

sue i am absolutely disgusted with the postal service at the moment.made three complaints about my mail not being put in the letterbox properly.important documents hanging out,and my local postbox (considering i live in portsmouth)was full up and letters hanging out at3.00p.m which i assume hadn't been emptied at all.there were birthday cards and what i can see peoples bills.i had to complain twice.also we have had five postoffices close in the space of three months in our area which has been awful as people whose postoffices have closed are coming to ours and we have to Queue up tp half an hour just for a stamp.royal mail get your act together!

hi lisa i thought i had been seeing things!!! they also changed our post a few months ago, use to get on way out to school before 8.30 which was great then i knew what bills i had to pay if any, so if i went shopping i pay bill first then i didnt over spend(tight budget). on several occassions i have not received any post till after 3 in the afternoon which i find a waste of time. tracy

Also forgot this we have 3 post offices in our town, which is growing with house building ,all 3 are a distant apart yet they are trying to shut 2 and have just the 1 in the town, where pensioners have to try to get too which i feel is out of order. tracy

Put the blame squarely on managment. The whole postal service is appalling. My husband has just resigned as a postie because of the shambles of the new upheavals. He is now suffering with depression. There are too many managers, not enough staff, training is not good enough and those at the very top need to live in the real world. Grrrrrrrrrr*#*#*#! Sorry, now I've got that off of my chest .....Have a lovely day all. Viv :-)

My bro in law used to work for royal mail both as a postman and in the Birmingham sorting office. The whole business has been in utter chaos for years. That you get any deliveries at all is a surprise. Most of the staff are totally demoralised and have no interest in doing the job at all, let alone doing a good job. Postmen get paid 8 hours to sort and deliver their "walk". If they do it quickly they can do another one and get paid again. This means that they nip round as fast as possible to earn the extra and yes they do bring some back and put it through the system again, or stuff it in a post box. In the sorting office there are organised gangs of different nationalities (Bangladeshi, Gujurati, Nigerian... you name it) and the management are afraid of them so do nothing to stop the bad workers from sloping off, non existent workers being clocked on and many other abuses. All this backed to the hilt by corrupt union reps. (This is a bit like Longbridge in the bad old days of "Red Robbo") I could say more but this is getting libelous so here is a story from the old days... Back in the 60s I lived in a little village in Cornwall 18 miles from newquay. We used to leave our post in the porch with the money for a stamp and the postman would collect it, stamp it and, if it was on his way, cancel the stamp and deliver it. One morning a guest put out a letter to a London adddress and recieved a reply the next morning. It had gone by train from Newquay to London in time for the last post (they got 4 a day then) The recipient posted his reply on his way home in time to get it delivered the next morning.

Bob - re paragraph 4 of your post - I have heard exactly the same from a chap who has just retired from being a postie for most of his life - he lives in Essex. He says they do as they like because they know there is no come back - racial discrimination and all that ! And we wonder why the entire Country is in a shambles... Sue

I think you will find that all the cut-backs and combining "walks" so that each postman/woman has a longer round, (therefore less posties), and the closing of smaller post offices, also collections from pillarboxes being reduced etc. etc. etc. is in preparation for ensuring Royal Mail makes a profit and the Government will sell it off next year to private enterprise and get a healthy return. Of course, the poor souls who live off the beaten track will probably get no deliveries at all,and the rest of you will have an even worse service (think of British Rail etc!) Nothing ever changes for the better does it?? Dee X

Since the new delivery system our post al service has gone haywire Somedays we get a delivery at 7- 30 am then another one at about noon then we don't get any for 3/4days My daughter posted her Dads birthday card on a Monday to arrive in time for his birthday on Wednesday it arrived at noon on Friday. Somedays we get our regular post lady but on others we get young lads who have no idea as to where they are going or what they are doing half the time, so they wander around for ages trying to find addresses. I have been told that it is an agency that is taking on new posties and that they are not doing the security checks on the applicants before they engage them Also some of the full time posties have opted for redundnacy rahter than work to the new rulings Bren

i know what you mean, we get ours at all different times:9.00--9.30---10.00--10.30--11.00--12.00---all over the place it is!! i am waiting for an appointment to come through to see a specialist about a thyroid problem,just hope it gets through!!!!! chris.

Hadn't received any post for about a week, which is unusual for a church minister - then our friendly neighbourhood crematorium manager rang me! 'Please can you pop down to the Crem and pick up your mail that's been piling up here!' (It's about a quarter of a mile down the road from the church) I guess they thought I'd be going there SOMETIME!

Hi, everyone says us northerners are behind the times! It must be true as I've not noticed any difference in the delivery of my post. The postie always comes between 7.00 - 7.30am every morning, and i still get huge piles of junk mail!!

No company in its right mind would take the post office on even if it made a profit. What is really happening is that they are waiting for it to self destruct so that they can move in and start agin from scratch. TNT, UPS, Business Post, To name but a few (Most are foreign owned too).

Now this made me lol. I was talking to my godmother who is 82 about the postal service. She said that years ago when she lived in london if she got to work and they wanted her to work late she would quickly post her mother a letter saying "don't do dinner" and her mother would receive it with the second post Lynn

margeret and viv, thanks for your reply about your husbands working for the royal mail for a number of years .like them i have been in a job for fifteen years and have seen that company slowly declining.when this happens the workers get demorolised as the customer service and complaints always fall on the workers heads.the company have very minimal contact with there customers only over the phone ,but it's the workers who come face to face and have to take the flack.the companies make these changes but will not deal with customers views face to face.i too sufferd from depressin at one stage in this job and have decided to find a better company who respect their staff and treat them like human beings instead of dogs.tell your husbands that the general public me included know where the blame lies not with them but with the companys.they need to get their act together.

Totally agree, postal system is now crap. However, to clarify the situation, what has actually happened is that the Post Office has amalgamated the first and second class service, to adequately provide a third rate service. Badger Bill

We're lucky (at the moment), parcel that was was posted yesterday got to us this morning at 7.45. Postie knocked on the door to hand it over in case it was breakable even though he could have put it through without bothering about the contents.