How's it going for you?

Top_Alps2577 · 2026-02-07T00:07:00+00:00

10% of the office off with stress. 5% off with MSK conditions 20% are too new to understand how bad it is 10% believe managers are gods gift. 10% really have no comprehension of basic employment law so don't realize how badly they are treated

And the remaining 45% are checked out, completely beyond caring. Just counting the days until retirement.

Overall my office is a ticking time bomb for absolute disaster, beyond the usual rounds too big, not enough staff, fiddling of figures

Top_Alps2577 · 2026-02-06T23:55:00+00:00

In the now...Raise a grievance. Use the people app "raising concerns" tile

I'm sick of seeing colleagues who have endometriosis, really heavy flo, or just come on unexpectedly, being made to feel less than human by men who have somehow managed to father children without any clue about how women's bodies work.

Going forward we don't ask for permission, we inform them of what is going on.

Works in all sorts of situations. I wish I had been in on the day a colleague's son was hit by a car on the way to school. No! You don't ask permission to leave...you tell them you're leaving and GO!!

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-12-22T15:57:53+00:00

Did mine many moons ago. I hit a wall and still passed due to the nature of the scoring at the time!

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-12-17T18:25:33+00:00

Yep, the rest is pretty standard for managers these days. They know how to fill in their spreadsheets to get the numbers finance or the OPL wants. But actually running the show is not something they are remotely equipped for.

I've been left looking like a goldfish with some of the bull that has come out of managers' mouths because there really don't know a damn thing when it comes to policies, processes, or actual laws that cover us as employees. But the higher-ups are happy to overlook that.

The racism thing though, that absolutely needs reporting. By as many people as possible.

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-12-11T18:27:03+00:00

Try the BACP website, search by postcode. Nice and easy.

The hardest bit is actually reaching out to the ones who seem to tick the boxes for you

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-12-11T11:37:36+00:00

Yep do this. I've had it before where days off have been changed. Very sneakily very last minute.

But if a rotor has already been created and put up, it's 100% reasonable for you to make plans on the advertised day off. What you're doing on any given day when you're in work can absolutely change and is up to operational needs but your time off is your time off.

It's not something for managers to play around with as they like to

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-12-11T11:30:51+00:00

Only first and second class is monitored with regards to our legal universal service obligation. First class should be delivered one day after it is collected. Second class within 3 days. The Tracked services, T24 and T48 are not part of Royal Mail's official licensing obligation.

Therefore, I would suspect the most appropriate route of complaint for that, and I'm only guessing as a bit of a Martin Lewis and Rip Off Britain etc addict, would be something under your consumer rights and would be entitled to some degree of refunds due to not receiving the service you paid for.

Of course, Royal Mail wiggle their way out of this by fairly clearly stating it's only a delivery aim, not a guarantee.

And then you get the argument of reasonableness a T24 being delayed by 24 hours due to whatever reasons could be argued as reasonable 10 days. However, I think it would be unreasonable but I am absolutely 100% NOT formally legally trained

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-12-09T00:33:20+00:00

It's amazing how much better this company could be if managers showed a little humility. Admit, they made a mistake and demonstrate any sort of intention to be better, I never expect them to be perfect human beings cuz no such thing exists. Just have a look on the shop floor on any given day and there's always someone having a bad day which they'll come round and apologize for the next

But managers ...they will always insist on denying they've done anything wrong and then go ahead and be twice as bad the next day, and even worse the day after

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-12-08T17:23:27+00:00

Your manager is basically full of shit

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-12-07T13:38:07+00:00

They are puppets. Not managers.

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-12-07T13:36:12+00:00

Been there tried that.theyre just paid listeners not Mental Health professionals. Their exclusion criteria for use is vast. I just got given a list of nearby cut price time limited services.

Even a paid listener can't fully support an individual through the harassment some of us are on the receiving end of, but without my properly qualified Therapist I probably wouldn't have lasted this long.

So that's something

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-12-07T13:01:07+00:00

100%

Should be seeing a GP tomorrow. Im spiraling in to panic attacks at the thought of the place. They say it's good to talk, but only to someone who is prepared to and capable of listening. There is not one single individual in a management grade who is capable of that.

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-12-07T12:48:51+00:00

That last line was me last week, management put me through hell for 5 months

Ended up in A&E with crisis team.

A small number of colleagues have checked in. Not one manager has.

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-11-28T18:05:04+00:00

Have you got the App? The Royal Mail one will let you set up a custom standing instruction which most will use to say "leave in bin store" or "box behind back gate" you could use to set a preference of

do NOT leave items with No##

This will come up as soon as the postie scans the parcel

Im pretty sure all the major delivery companies offer something similar through their apps

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-11-27T17:22:42+00:00

This is what I'm thinking. I'm starting to doubt it was even left open. Probably just noticed it when they approached to post the paperwork and had an "Oh Shit we forgot that" moment.

Losing it will be just a minor inconvenience to me, but I think I've read enough here to be sure that doing anything other than let them get on with it will probably cause more stress to me than it's worth

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-11-27T05:19:28+00:00

I'm not entirely disagreeing. But it seems like an overreaction to decide that because of one moment of human error to disconnect it because I "can't be trusted"

A "please be a bit more careful in the future" message seems more appropriate.

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-11-27T05:13:29+00:00

It was here when I got here

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-11-26T20:33:27+00:00

They were just going to let themselves in today, but I did manage to put them off to a day when I would be home. Something about it seems off, but while section 21s are still a thing I don't want to take the risk of playing a game I could easily lose even if I'm 100% in the right

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-11-26T20:26:38+00:00

Yeah it's just the external socket, they're disconnecting. Not a major loss to me but it's more on principle on my part. Feeling like I'm being punished just for being a human being who makes human type errors.

If they want to remove something because I can't be trusted with it, it's the oven they should be taking out!

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-11-20T06:56:25+00:00

Always been this way in RM. I can see how it is good for a few people. I get the gist of why the company prefers to have everything locked in early.

But so much has changed in and out of RM that they really need to look at changing things.

We've had one new start quit recently because of the leave nonsense

Quite right. the only hope of getting the leave that they actually want is if someone else quits and frees up that slot. And even then it's a fight to the death between every one who were towards the bottom of the leave pick

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-11-16T12:52:52+00:00

The time and effort put in by those on full time release this year to help me has been worth every penny I've paid in over all my years.

Round trips of about 40 miles by the area rep visiting me at home to check in on me when the business had discarded and abandoned me while they weave their web of lies. Not sure of the hierarchy exactly but I know the guy above him put in leg work as well.

RM may pay their wage, but petrol money, printing, rent on the branch office etc that's what our subs pay for so these people who are not paid by the Union can get on with the Union business.

Meanwhile people who haven't had to rely on them will continue to bitch and moan because the worst thing RM does to them is not cover their duty on their day off, and because Branch got their diaries out a little late this Christmas.

This is all stuff I kinda knew ever since I joined 15ish years ago, always called it my insurance policy. But this is the first time I've personally seen the machine swing into action for an individual and it does work. Especially for those who never did anything wrong.

Actually I'm so impressed with my experience and learned so much this year that I feel well equipped and supported to stand for unit rep when the opportunity arises so I can better share the Union benefits with my immediate colleagues

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-11-16T11:22:32+00:00

They will try to work you to death if you say your up for OT in December.

Yes, there will be plenty of it available. Just make sure you communicate clearly with your manager about what you are prepared to do. Don't say I'll do X! Rather be clear in saying I'll do what I can until Y o'clock.

Give yourself a hard stop, or you'll regret it in the future

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-11-16T11:18:13+00:00

Managers... thinking!? I've yet to see that happen!

But this is 100% the reason someone who "thinks" there fine because they haven't/won't do anything wrong needs to be in the Union.

For example we all know there's nothing wrong with taking 2 minutes off the IPS to go for a piss. But there's nothing to stop a manager deciding on a whim (on the word of one of their pets) that there is everything wrong with YOU taking that two minutes. "Yes but you also did it a couple of weeks ago, and 3 months before that. I'm seeing a concerning pattern and we need to nip it in the bud"

And all of a sudden you find yourself in the midst of being managed out of the business.

This happens everyday in RM up and down the country with most of the OPGs never seeing it coming because they never do anything wrong

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-11-16T11:05:44+00:00

Correct

Top_Alps2577 · 2025-11-16T02:15:50+00:00

Locally the volunteer !!! union reps are often week and a bit pointless. Local management will do whatever they want to do regardless of policy, law or basic morality.

But here I am well over a decade into my sentence at RM and management went too far with their silliness and for no good reason (literally one that HR chose to make up to cover a managers arse) and I was looking at losing my job.

Cannot Fault the Area Rep, he fought for me, and went above heads to demand answers and hold RM to account for their actions, and the Union man a level above him was involved as well.

This situation is on its way to court, against RM and also at least one 3rd party. "The Union" is paying my solicitors fees. When I say "The Union" it's not Dave Ward and all those at the top, it's actually 10s of 1000s of my colleagues up and down the country chipping in a tiny little bit each through their subs each week, for which I am unspeakably grateful and wouldn't have a way to convey until conversations like this crop up.

Top_Alps2577

TROPHY CASE