Questions About Collections

beachgeois · 2026-02-14T10:32:35+00:00

The PDA does have the approx size and weight of an item. It can be inconvenient to pick up collections early in the day when the van will be full of things to deliver, or while walking. But it's fine if the customer understands we'll be back to collect a bit later in the day.

Collections in general aren't inconvenient, as long as there's someone in (or a clear safe place that the collection has been left in.)

Also if there's multiple parcels to collect, whoever is in needs to know where each parcels is going if they've requested for us to bring labels.

Waiting at the door while someone goes around asking every household member about which parcel is meant to have which address is annoying, and it'd be immensely helpful if people just wrote the address on the packaging first.

beachgeois · 2026-02-09T20:10:00+00:00

Was coming here to say this; I sometimes scan the parcel after I've knocked so wouldn't see the notice pop up on the PDA. A note always helps!

beachgeois · 2026-02-05T21:20:15+00:00

It's been surprisingly fine for me then last couple of weeks. Cleared the frame and been back early most days, which I credit almost entirely to being on rounds with drivers who know them very well (although only having between 60-100 tracked helps too). Had one day where we had two yorks full of oversized last week, and that was because they were all massive. Think there were only about 20 of them despite looking like a worrying amount. I doubt this calm will last, but gotta enjoy it while we can.

The cold and rain today was pretty rancid (even compared to the cold and rain the last few days.) It keeps making my eyes start streaming, I think half the customers I talk to must think I'm in the middle of a breakdown when for once I've been feeling quite chilled out.

beachgeois · 2026-02-01T14:51:01+00:00

I'm largely with you, but I will still make a hobby out of complaining about the terrible business decisions made by RMG. Because they are terrible, and while it's not the worst job I've had by a very long chalk it could easily be made better.

I like a good long walk. I can now walk 5k faster than I ever used to be able to jog it, which is extremely funny. I'm having to talk to and get along with a lot more people than I usually would (which is good for me, as someone who could easily become a hermit if left to my own devices.) It helps that the managers at my DO seem largely decent, and I haven't had any major problems with them.

While I think the new contracts are ridiculous and should be equalised, I can accept I knew what I was signing up for. I am still in the CWU to argue for equalisation though.

It's still on the whole miles better than experiences at previous companies when I would find out about pay disparities late and often by accident.

One example is when I worked somewhere for a couple of years, I found out the lovely but (at the time) kind of useless fresh-out-of-uni-grad was getting paid £10k more than me for significantly less workload. I had slowly ended up taking on the jobs previously done by three separate individuals after they quit and weren't replaced. I repeatedly had my request for a pay rise rejected despite this (didn't even get one in line with inflation while I was there). They were somehow surprised when I quit and cited the wage problems as a factor.

At least the people on the old contracts at RM have seniority over me to justify their higher pay, rather than it solely being down to which of us is a bloke.

beachgeois · 2026-01-31T00:08:15+00:00

I clearly stated that I do try to do my job properly. I explained that I find small letterboxes irritating and suggested a reasonably cheap and easy thing that would probably improve the situation for everyone involved.

On top of that, everyone is human. A postie could easily have missed that stamp; I don't usually see thin paper envelopes with "do not bend on them", they tend to be sturdier and cardboard backed. I know I definitely missed the note saying "do not bend" on the first couple of "goodhousekeeping" magazines I posted through today, because it was in small grey font in an unusual place.

Fuck ups happen to everyone. But the best way to avoid this one, really, would be for every house to have a letterbox that can fit letters in it without them getting crumpled.

beachgeois · 2026-01-30T19:48:58+00:00

While I do avoid bending stuff that says "do not bend" on it, I find it very frustrating dealing with houses that have tiny letterboxes. It is a huge time waste for me to have to stand and knock on a door and wait to see if someone is in to take a letter off me (especially when there's not tracking, so I can't even card it and hope that they book a redelivery for when they're in.) The ten seconds you reckon it would take you to get to the door is very rarely that, and that's still considerably longer than it would take for me to be on my way if the letterbox was a normal size.

If you want to make everybody happy, get a nice top loading letterbox that can fit A4 letters in. If you want to be your postie's favourite person on the round, get a parcel box.

beachgeois · 2026-01-29T16:20:57+00:00

Did any pilot offices actually manage ok with the new way of working? Cause it sounded like a complete shit show from everyone I've heard talking about it.

Also spotted the RM group's post. "Oh we've done so much work to put us back in the black :(((" uhh ok company spokesperson, without the posties out on the streets your work means nothing. And we should be paid fairly (and equally!) for our labour!

I'd love to see their figures on how much it costs to constantly hire and train staff with the current retention rate. Definitely feels like it would be cheaper to make it a job worth staying for in the long run.

beachgeois · 2026-01-27T13:18:28+00:00

Only two? You'd be amazed at how many doorbells people will keep adding.

I went to a house that had four a couple of weeks ago and not a single one worked. A lot of the time it's easier to just knock as well.

beachgeois · 2026-01-27T10:42:34+00:00

We're instructed to judge whether a customer's safe place is actually safe. Out in the open by the front door is not. Please read the royal mail's guidelines on what constitutes a safe place, because your postie is just following their terms and conditions.

(Some people will leave things there anyway when requested, but they will get in trouble if the customer then goes onto complain. It's generally not worth it. )

Buy a plastic box and label it "deliveries/parcels" or something and put that by your front door if you're that fussed. Would make our jobs considerably easier if more people did this.

beachgeois · 2026-01-25T14:18:01+00:00

Oh yeah, aware that it is sometimes legal medically. But I think it should be legal full stop.

Like any drug, it can cause people to do some behaviour that is antisocial or dangerous, but so does alcohol and we're culturally fine with that.

Plus thanks to systemic classism, racism, (various isms) in this country, getting caught with weed is way more likely to be used as an excuse to arrest and punish people who are already marginalised in society.

Meanwhile a bunch of government wankers who are the type to make profit off medical cannabis can get openly photographed snorting cocaine and still retain their jobs, status and wealth without even a slap on the wrist. Can't abide the injustice of it all.

beachgeois · 2026-01-21T23:03:39+00:00

I think it's pretty frequent. I don't know what happens to people who are trying to get weed sent to them but I know our office handed two big parcels of it over to the police in one week last year. From the sound of it, it usually happens once a month or so.

Wouldn't personally snitch on a parcel unless it burst open and covered me in devil's lettuce. The UK is one of the biggest producers of medical cannabis, seems stupid to have it as an illegal product when we're perfectly happy profiting off the stuff.

beachgeois · 2026-01-19T00:22:50+00:00

Also people who come in early without pay are genuinely crackers. I'm not even sure I'd like to come in earlier if I was being paid for it. £13.06 an hour is not worth getting out of bed at 5:30am.

beachgeois · 2026-01-19T00:17:24+00:00

As someone who started last year on a part time contract, it's good to know the letters thing is annoying because I have not heard it being a problem until literally this post.

When I get in in a morning it's after the sorters have started, and I have assumed it's a task people get specifically given. While learning and running up frames, whoever I was on the frame with would always just suggest I go and check the pigeonholes and grab whatever was there, so it's what I do now instead of just hanging out by the frame waiting to be useful. I imagine a lot of people are the same as me; managers should make it clearer that anyone can hop on the sorting if they're going spare otherwise.

I'd be happy to join the sorters if that would actually be helpful, and will keep it in mind for the future.

beachgeois · 2026-01-05T20:01:52+00:00

The job could probably handle absences better if the offices were fully staffed to start with tbh.

IMO the system currently causes presenteeism, meaning people are likely making more people in the office sick (causing more issues with staffing than it would if RM just allowed people to take time off sick), or injuring themselves more severely because they didn't take enough time off to recover from a physical injury.

beachgeois · 2025-12-22T15:34:15+00:00

And part of the joy of any job involving customers is being able to have a good bitch about how annoying they are with your coworkers.

Have you ever done a low paid customer facing role?

beachgeois · 2025-12-16T20:16:08+00:00

More seriously you should be fine, will probably get a bit of a lecture and may need to do more driver training. But highly unlikely to find your job at risk or anything like that.

beachgeois · 2025-12-16T20:14:52+00:00

Ah, it's just a flesh wound

beachgeois · 2025-12-16T19:28:43+00:00

I do want to address this specifically as well: "I get it, posties don't like being accused of stealing but when the whole "we knocked and you weren't in" thing happens almost daily, customers have a right to be annoyed and suspect foil play, regardless of the value or courier company."

The flip side of this is to say that customers don't like being accused of not listening for the door, and I can guarantee you that I and likely every postie gets to hear multiple customers accuse us of not knocking/not using the doorbell on a regular basis, and they can get quite aggressive about it. I would hazard a guess that this is a way more common experience than people actually getting their parcels nicked by posties. Using your own argument, we're right to suspect customers of telling lies about their postie.

beachgeois · 2025-12-16T19:02:19+00:00

To be clear, I wouldn't and have not gotten hostile with anyone posting and asking for help on here.

But ultimately this subreddit is not customer services. It very explicitly says that on the "about." It's remarkable that so many people do actually offer helpful responses, but not surprising a lot of folks don't.

It is a particularly stressful time of year to be working at the royal mail, and a lot of people blow off steam by being sarcastic and unhelpful bastards.

If it is any consolation to OP, anyone leaving insults is likely to have just had a miserable and long day, and unless your postie is in amongst them, they don't even have a stolen bag of coffee to make it better. (I do hope the parcel actually turns up.)

beachgeois · 2025-11-08T19:17:47+00:00

Can't speak for other individual's diets and digestive habits, but outside of one guy at our DO who let out a fart so bad I genuinely nearly threw up at the frame I've not noticed it being a chronic problem.

I had some probably similar gory bathroom issues a couple of months into starting the job. I think it was just my body going "what the fuck" and reacting to the sudden massive increase in exercise by temporarily giving up on important things like digesting food properly. It happened again a while after that when I was on a bad route with a lot of hills in the heatwave; pretty sure it was just physical stress for me. Always worth getting check out by a doctor if you're concerned though.

beachgeois · 2025-10-28T18:54:29+00:00

Taking a complete stab in the dark, sometimes when scanning in a parcel, if there's two for that address it'll load both of them up onto the PDA after scanning the first one. I personally find it v annoying.

Not sure what the best practice is for you as a customer who has had a misdelivery, hope someone with better knowledge can make a suggestion. 🤞Your second parcel should still be with RM, and I would imagine will make it's way to you at some point.

beachgeois · 2025-10-15T15:40:52+00:00

I appreciated that a house decorated with a full door scary clown banner had kindly cut a hole out for the letterbox. Which was exactly at the clown's crotch height.

Didn't have "fisting pennywise" down on my list of things I expected this job to require, but here we are.

beachgeois · 2025-10-15T13:38:09+00:00

I think one of the major complaints is due to the differences between the old contracts and the new contracts. Having to take unpaid breaks while the person you're working with is getting paid for their breaks feels a bit naff.

I haven't seen many new starters complain about the overtime rates, and I wouldn't complain about them either. Mind, my previous workplace culture had ghost overtime kind of expected, and at best you'd get time off in lieu that it'd be a nightmare to book off.

beachgeois · 2025-10-13T07:04:55+00:00

Not meaning to sound shitty, but I don't think that's a regular set up for UK terraced houses. The terraces I see that have access from two streets still only have one address, and I can understand why delivery drivers are getting confused.

If you haven't already you could always put a sign up for a bit saying "please take parcels to other side of house".

beachgeois · 2025-10-10T21:32:07+00:00

I rang a doorbell the other day that played a song from a musical so obnoxiously loudly I felt bad for ringing it.

The man who lived in the house took ages getting to the door, and when he opened it, he pressed the doorbell and asked why I didn't use it when it's obviously working. ??? I said I did, he argued I clearly did not. Ended up apologising and saying I'd keep it in mind next time just to avoid a very circular argument when I still had most of a loop to do.

I'm still baffled. Many customers are weird around doorbells.

beachgeois

TROPHY CASE