ROYAL MAIL

[samuria]

whats going on at the royalmail??? i posted 2 letters sunday 31 one to josh and one to dublin. both were first class my letter arrived in ireland 2 day but not to josh??? snail mail or what

[PSL184]

I'm still waiting for a parcel that was posted to me on Dec 12th last year

[rayofleamington]

I ordered some trailer parts Tuesday and both deliveries arrived today with Royal mail - one via the postman and the other via the parcel van (that did confuse me!)
I posted some ebay stuff Friday afternoon and it arrived Saturday morning down south, so no complaints from me anymore.

We did have a big problem Christmas 2008 as loads of our stuff vanished (Play.com DVDs etc...) but that seemed to be due to their agency staff with sticky fingers So last Christmas we bought all the presents in shops instead.

[dalebrignall]

if you posted sunday it wouls not be collected untill monday.there might have been a problem at the ireland end.if it was 1st class we have a 99% quality figure over the uk.not bad for the price of a stamp .i notice there is another despatches program giving us posties a grilling again.i know there are some problems in some of the large offices ,i work in a small one and there is a real team spirit there.our mail volumes are increacing despite the spin they tell us ,because we have to deliver the comptions mail as well as our own for a third of the price how does that work .we now make a profit every day rather than a loss.also most of us delivered in the snow having battled to get into work going through snow drifts and digging ourselves out.a lot of us do a very good job to a high standard i get tired of this lets have a go at the postman .

[Blaketon]

I ordered some trailer parts Tuesday and both deliveries arrived today with Royal mail - one via the postman and the other via the parcel van (that did confuse me!)

Royal Mail dont do over 5kg; that has to go via Parcel Force.

The Post Office may have a proven record of making mistakes but when you look at it, it's not always surprising. Some of these other firms, who are now allowed to deliver mail, will sometimes just dump letters in a Post Box and poor old Royal Mail end up delivering it, yet get nothing out of it . If a boxer was put in the ring whilst hand cuffed, could he be expected to perform well?

Often carriers are only as good as the local depot. In the area around the shop, Parcelforce have a very good driver (Drivers of other carriers refer to him as "God" because he knows where everything is and a phonecall to him will help out many a lost delivery driver). In other areas you could call them Parcelfarce. We use Interlink Express and they are pretty consistent.

[samuria]

my late father worked for the royal mail for over 40 years, from hand delivery. to artics, then was chief union man etc.so ive heard it all. why say first class mail when you now get second class service??? sad i know, but the lads on the rounds get no support from the jobs worths in the office. my postie who uses a bike, his seat broke last week, he called them up,to come and fix it, they replied sorry no van was available, if he could RIDE, it back they would look at it

[millerman]

Support Royal Mail the alternative will/could be a disaster

[bmcecosse]

No problem with the Postie on the beat - it's the organisation above him that causes the havoc. To twist the thread around slightly - does anyone know of a less expensive service for parcels ? I had to pay almost £10 yesterday to send off a manifold..... Which seems a LOT - twice what the manifold is worth!

[aupickup]

cost me £9.75 to send a manifold today

couriers are normally cheaper but as i work it is sometimes difficult for them to come to me so parcel force is convenient

[bmcecosse]

Well - if anyone knows of a cheap and cheerful courier.....

[Timbohan]

You could try one of the discount courier services. They resell excess space from the big courier companies (DHL, Fedex,UPS etc). www.parcelbee.co.uk have good reviews but I've never used them myself. They charge around £6 for up to 30kg for UK delivery.


Tim

[Matt]

Standard parcels can be up to 20kg and go with the posty....

Generally I think Royal Mail does a really good job

[bmcecosse]

Yes - the cost for a 20Kg parcel is very good - but cost seems high lower down the scale especially if the parcel 'just' tips into the next priceband.
Parcelbee looks great (thanks for the link) -does anyone on here use them ?

[Jefftav]

I can't complain as I posted a parcel to a site member on Wednesday and he had it on Thursday and like wise a fairly important 1st class letter posted on Friday at 5.50pm was there (300miles away) on Saturday Am can't complain at this. Our postie is always pleasant and always has a heavy looking bag.

BMC I have used interparcel.co.uk quite succesfully for a while. They advertise £6 for small parcels but I have never used this particular service. When I did have a problem and a part was broken they refunded the delivery charge and compensated me for the broken part.

[nigelr2000]

Another cheap reseller I have used is http://www.parcel2go.com/ I found them quite cheap for international parcels as well.

[MarkyB]

Shamelessly pinched from elsewhere, but true enough from what I've seen.
No idea what neo-liberalism is supposed to mean though.



"But what has happened, and is happening, to Royal Mail is a textbook
case of the destructive impact of neo-liberalism. It starts with a
publicly owned service run for the benefit of society as a whole. It
works pretty much ok, and even generates a surplus for the public
purse (a surplus that is not, however, used to invest in changing
technology etc). But of course it can't be left alone. The ideologues
know that private is better than public, and anyway, it is unionised
so has to be 'brought to heel'; the pragmatists think that this could
be a source of some short-term cash. So the service is de-regulated,
the most profitable bits sold off (and indirectly subsidised), and the
service begins to deteriorate. Up pop the ideologues again, this time
announcing that the deterioration of the parts of the service left in
public hands 'proves' that private is better than public and so
further privatization is the only answer. That the unions oppose it
only 'proves' their point.

And so the end point begins to emerge (it's still a work in progress
of course). the public service rump of universal delivery becomes
unaffordable. The privatized bits continually screw up (no? remember
how your postie who knew you and delivered every day for years used to
leave your parcel in the porch whereas now the casual contract in his
van leaves you a little card entitling you to hang on the phone for a
few days before discovering that you must collect your parcel from the
depot 30 miles away, where it has been lost. But, hey, that's
efficiency!).

And then there it is. Another little bit of decent everyday life
chipped away. The postie noticing that granny isn't answering her door
has gone. The feeble daily joke he shared with the dogwalker is gone.
The continuity of employment and link with community is gone. The
sense of pride at working in a public service is gone. The huge
overseas conglomerate owns another little piece of our lives, to be
disposed of at a whim. Not huge things in themselves, but huge in
their cumulative effect, and when that cumulative effect is felt, what
do the ideologues do? Cry crocodile tears about 'broken Britain' and
(according to taste) devise ever more elaborate 'strategies for
community cohesion' or ever more aggressive complaints about
immigration destroying 'or way of life'.

With variations, this - from out of hours doctors' visits to utilities
to demutualized building societies to town planning - is the world
that the neo-liberals have created for us - and urged on by a
significant minority of us. It isn't diabolical or impossible - just
step after step away from the good life - or not yet, anyway: but when
the last piece of public infrastructure built from the effort and
sacrifice of previous generations is finally sold off then we will
indeed know what broken Britain looks like."

[chickenjohn]

I think Neo-liberalism is supposed to be the opposite of Neo-Fascism, but the impact on the ordinary person is not good either. Might I add to the list the continuing erosion of our town centres and local shops and the inexorable and corporate faceless rise of the out of town shopping centre.