Posted By Allan St.John Holt I would like to be the first to post Christmas and New Year greetings to all and sundry fellow knowledge-seekers on the Forum, with a special wish for your personal success with all your goals for the coming year. Please remember to post early for Christmas, as it really does ease our Royal Mail manual handling situation if the load gets spread out a bit! And for those interested in spicing up training by throwing in the odd joke, I do have a slightly off-colour one about a monkey and risk assessment which I will be pleased to email to anyone who emails me and asks for it! Best wishes, Allan

Posted By NIGEL REE I would like the joke as well please. Seasonal Regards to all Nigel

Posted By Mark Cook I would like the joke as well please. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all. Best Wishes, Mark

Posted By Kevin West Allan, Merry Christmas to you and your hard working troops. May I also extend that wish to everyone also... Merry Christmas to all and May I wish you all a safe and successful Newyear. Kev PS Can I have the joke as well to help us all get into the Christmas Spirit!! 8o)

Posted By Jim Walker Dear Moderator, I think we should have an embargo on all this humbug until at least the 20th.

Posted By Ian Stone Merry chrimbo everyone Can I have a copy of the joke please?? ian

Posted By Malcolm Hogarth ooooh, is this me - I don't get called Mr very often!! I think my e-mail address is now up and running and I await the monkey business (I just hope it is not anything to do with nuts)

Posted By A Cathro Hi and Merry Christmas to you too. Can I have joke. A.Cathro@dundeecoll.ac uk

Posted By Simon Wright I'd like a copy of your joke please Allan. Many thanks. Simon.

Posted By Jeff Manion I would add the seasonal greetings or winter greetings or whatever the potically correct flavour comment should be!! Well not really "Happy Christmas and a Safe New Year". I have an image of something that occurred recently send e-mail and wil send this to anyone. I am after an opinion on whether it is safe or not. Jeff Manion. jeff@groveservices.co.uk

Posted By Mike Miller Xmas! BAH Humbug! I'll have the joke please. And thank you Mike

Posted By Barrie M Dexter A merry christmas and a safe and prosperous new year to you all. PS i'll take the joke aswell Barrie

Posted By Allan St.John Holt Emma, The "watchdog" Pos[expletive deleted]ch put out the statement that it thought people should use second class post at Xmas. This is of course really unhelpful to our revenue at this time and if everyone did take that advice we would be £60 million short! So it is quite important for us. The facts are that first class always gets priority over second, even at Xmas, when we double our volume almost from 80 million items a day to 150 million. That's why we have 20,000 Xmas casuals to recruit and induct/train. The first class targets are being met now, but in simple terms across the business 9 fist class items out of 10 get delivered the day after posting - and don't forget the service runs from Bournemouth to Benbecula! The second class target is easier to hit and requires delivery within three working days. So you can do your own sums. If you are efficient and get the cards out this week, second will be fine. If like me you diddle around and find there are 50 to go out the week before Xmas, first would be the better bet. I expect most people could figure that one out for themselves, though. Pos[expletive deleted]ch has a job to do of course, but ...... Oh, and the trains are coming back into service - VERY quietly.... Allan

Posted By Maggie Atterbury Have a Merry and Safe Christmas everyone and pleas can I have the monkey/risk assessment joke! Maggie Atterbury

Posted By Jim Durkan Please send me the joke Seasons greetings to all Regards Jim :-)

Posted By Stuart Nagle Hi, Allan. Having heard the broadcast on Radio 4 the other evening on the way home from work, I'm glad you've taken the time to again explain the official company line on how Royal Mail needs the 60M to ensure it maintains its profits. A Postman I know who works in London starts work at 5am each day (he leaves at about 4am), and used to finish and be home by 12 mid-day (so I guess he was out of the building and on the road before 11am). He told me he sorted, did one 'walk' only (because he was a 'senior' and had the best walk) and that was that. He added that a new system was recently introduced, which would mean having to work a whole 7 hours (less lunch) and would mean he could not finish until his actual finish time (12pm), but all staff now also got one week off in every 5 weeks worked (as part of the agreement for introducing the new system - where employees actually worked all the hours they were paid for!!). I have noticed recently however that he is home early each again... When I spoke to him, he said that things are slowly getting back to normal - how they used to be - and that was good as he could get home early and still get every 5th week off as well.... If Royal mail was as efficient in dealing with the post and running an organisation as it is concerned with profit, perhaps my mail would turn up before 3.15pm each day - if it turns up at all because some temporary twit has put it through the wrong letter box - it appears they can't get the staff because of the poor salaries offered!! And I only live 1 mile from the local sorting office!! Have a Merry Christmas and a prposperous New year... best regards... Stuart

Posted By Stuart Nagle Hi, Again Jeff. Well you know what they say about sticking you head above the parapet eh!! Stuart

Posted By jom What is there to be merry about? Please tell me. J.

Posted By Allan St.John Holt Stuart - Royal Mail was neither efficient nor running at a profit before the reorganisation began. To stop bleeding money at every seam, some very obvious steps were taken and as a result we are now making just over a million a day rather than losing it. Not all parts of the Group are doing well, though. You need a solid financial foundation as a first step to change, in my opinion. The rest of the change is also happening, and the service delivery targets are going to be fully met - are being fully met in some cases. When you compare the price for the service and what you get for it in comparison to anywhere in the world, RM does a good job. I think it's time the knockers started to give the posties credit for what they get right, for a change. Look at it this way for a moment. The system is a black box with about 450,000 input points and 27 million output points. For the money (first class, let's say) you can put an item in one side of the box and get it delivered out at any of the 27 million points the next day, with a likelihood of that happening of just over 90%. Now that's a neat trick in my opinion, and includes all the output points from Bournmouth to Benbecula. Your mate who gets up so early does have a tough job, but part of the deal is that you work the hours you get paid for. That applies to everyone else, doesn't it? Some of our safety issues are around people hurrying - my job includes trying to make sure that planning etc is good enough to ensure that people aren't overloaded physically and have walks they can do without over-exertion or unnecessary risk -such as cycling on trunk roads. But this involves many managers and posties starting to think outside the box. Happy seasonal greetings to you! Allan

Posted By Richard L Allen, I recon the Royal Mail does a fantastic job. I for one get fed-up with the entire bellyaching crew going on about prices and service. I’ve never had a letter go missing or received anyone else’s mail in error and in fact; don’t know anyone else that has either. To all the bellyaching crew, deliver your own letter from one end of the country to the other for only 28 pence! Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year everyone. Richard