Manky Monkey Motors

made redundant yesterday
finish a week friday
sparky by proffesion
but will try anything

Sorry to hear that Dave & sparky eh. Do you have the paperwork to work on houses Dave? I might just have a few jobs for you at our cottage once the flat sale has gone through.  ;D

Hi Dave. Really sorry to hear that mate. Hope something turns up for you soon.
All the sparky/building jobs around the Basingstoke area have been snapped up by cheap Polish labour. Got a block of flats being built on my Postal delivery at the moment. Apparently, almost the entire workforce are Eastern European. All the safety signs are in Polish.
Worried about my own job at the moment. The Post Office is looking distinctly iffy. If it actually folds there'll be an extra 130,000 guys looking for jobs & I'm not qualified to do anything.
I'll have to go back to selling my body.  :P

Sorry to hear your news Dave - I've been there and apart from the financial side, it's not pleasant being told you're not wanted!

 ??? ???

Try breaking it for spares, you always get more the older models when breaking up, if you do go that route can i have first dabs on a right ear lobe, my mate got his bit off at Rugby on sunday.
You know what them midlanders are like.

or building trikes for a living,have to build more than one a year though mank  ;D ;D

Livers & kidneys are in demand at the moment.

Hopefully with gravy & onions.

Mmm, monkey brains!   :D

rofl hmm would i get anything for mine...special ones they glow :)

I'm not old! I'm a classic.  :(

Keep your chin up Dave

polish workers all over the place wont be any jobs for english people soon

aint that the truth .... sorry to hear about yuhs s**t Dave at least u have a trade and from wot i saw of u on the wkend yer a damn hard worker too :)

yep me too!  I walked out on the post office today after a showdown with 2 of the bosses, regarding a van driver taking the piss out of me.  Just in time for the Xmas build up.  Not an ideal situation to be in, plus I shall miss out on the tips this year too.  Dave decided to come into work with me today (even though it was his day off), and witnessed what happened. 

As soon as I got home, I grabbed a set of front door keys and disappeared again.  15 minutes later, after enrolling at a nearby recruitment office, I find I'll be working in the army barracks on Monday as a kitchen porter.  Hope I'm not cooking in the fields.  :-\

NB: my new forum moniker

I bet you'll never regret it!

But if it was a situation where the bosses should have backed you up, you should talk to someone about suing them for Contructive Dismissal!

Not for the principle you understand, but for all the lovely lolly!

That's great that you found something else so quickly Janie. Well done for having the get up & go to ...get up & go. Plenty of people would've gone home & moped about & done nothing.
What are these Christmas tips you keep talking about? I don't get a bloomin' penny on my round.  >:(

I got approx £500 tips from the customers off my delivery last year, I had only been doing the round for about 7 months.  Lovely people. 


Yes BG, just waiting for the union guy to return my calls!  Also this morning, I had an email from a work colleague who I used to have a chat and a laugh with, he too has told me that he has to go careful not to upset this certain van driver as he feels he could be a nasty piece of work.  I cut out the colleagues email address and have forwarded this onto my ex-boss in Fleet, with a brief sentence saying, I felt he should also be aware of someone elses opinion of the driver.

Anyway, onwards and upwards guys and gals!  A big hug and an even bigger bar of chocolate, I'll be fine.  ;)

you should never be scared of anyone they all bleed the same as us all and i agree your boss should of backed you up

I work in a much bigger office than Janie, but we get exactly the same problem. We work in sections of 6 Posties, with one as the van driver. He has a shorter round because, in theory, it's his job to drop all the others' bags of mail off along their routes, (I've got 7 or 8 bags on mine), plus he delivers the large parcels we can't carry.
In practice, the drivers take full advantage of their little bit of power to make their lives as easy as possible at the expense of the rest of us -refusing to accept our parcels, insisting we travel round, dropping our own bags off before we start delivering etc. Then pressuring us to get done as fast as possible as we've already done half their job for them & they want to get finished so they can go home.
There's a lot of bullying & harrassment in the job, from both management & your fellow Posties.
It's not a pleasant job at all these days.

I texted my manager this morning to check what time I have to start when I go back on Monday -I've been on holiday for 2 weeks & the start times have been changed while I've been away.
He gleefully told me what a cr*p day I'm going to have on Monday. My sorting bench is apparently piled high with mail that hasn't been delivered while I've been off. Thanks for ruining my weekend mate.  >:(

Was the same when Mike was driving for an agency and they sent him to Parcelforce.

The bosses had a go at him cos he wanted paying for all the hours he worked or when he stopped getting paid he stopped delivering, and the Union bloke had a go at him for not being in the Union!

He told the agency he was NEVER going back after a couple of weeks, and he never did!

I think we have taken you postie guys for granted for far too long. Does anyone ever give a thought to what goes on before the mail is put through the door? I doubt it very much, we put our letters in the post box and expect them to be delivered to the address on the envelope without considering what happens to them between here and there. The delivery guys I see round here always look peed off and reading what you guys have to say it's no wonder.

I have worked in the mailroom of a naval establishment handling four or five bags of Royal Mail a day letters, packages and special delivery items (quantity variable according to time of year)  plus fleet mail that is run by the MOD so I have some small knowledge of the postal business.

We're told we each deliver around 2 1/2 thousand items a day -but that's by the same managers that keep telling us the mail volumes are down & they need to make cuts -so how come I'm delivering 2 bags more this year than I was last year? I wouldn't be suprised if we carry a lot more than that. Yet I've still got people on my delivery who genuinely think the one bag they see me lugging up their street's the only one I have & that I've got time to stand & natter with them.

When i was a postie,if i was'nt back home by 10,or back in the delivery office by 10.30,there was something wrong . Now ,i dont even see my postie till after 10.30 on a good day. Im glad i left when i did,about 15 years ago,at one point we all had to weigh our bags,to make sure we were'nt carrying over the limit of weight,that was the new rule.It lasted for about 3 days.There allways seemed to be one thing ,or another that we had to do ,which did'nt make any sense.As for people continuously complaining about wages,conditions etc,GET ANOTHER JOB,if you dont like it,nobody's forcing you to do it,there are much worse paid jobs with worse conditions.Im not getting at anyone on here,just the Post Office system as a whole,to me seems to be going down the pan,but what other options do we have,NONE.Rant over.

getting back to original thread,self employed electrician ?

Yeah, how's the job hunting going Dave?  Well done Janie,don't let them grind you down, and if you want me and my old army buddie "Thug" to have a word with said wan* ooops driver not a problem, and good luck in your new job

This was my sorting bench at work when I arrived this morning. 13 sacks of parcels & 16 trays of letters. Each tray holds 500 letters & the sacks stand about 4 foot tall. This is the backlog from the last 2 weeks while I've been on holiday. On top of this lot I had the mail that'd been sorted by the night shift. They had a new "cadet" Postman doing my round. One of my business customers told me today they haven't received a single letter since I've been gone. It'll take weeks to clear this lot cos every day another lot arrives & it just snowballs.
O.K, no more Post Office ranting, promise.  ;D

Anyone else had a good laff at the Post Office advert they keep showing on TV?  Ridiculous to advertise the Post Office when they're closing them as fast as they can!

the manager wants a good kick up the arse if he has allowed post to backup awaiting delivery >:(

its a good job you didnt die :o as it would be from floor to ceiling ::) ;D

thats the post office for you blind as to what's realy going on.always will be.

Thats what I said. It should not have been alowed to get that bad. They won't let anyone help him either and He still has to so and do the other sorting before going tohis station to do just his bit. He asked if he could leave the main sorting to go and sort out some of his backlog that they had left him and they said no. He is also not aloud to do overtime to catch up with it all. Next Saturday if my boss is away I will go in and help him as we can deliver more together and help him catch up. I can't go to the office but I can meet hin on the round. Poor Manky is so shattered when he gets home.

Manky, I can't believe your desk!  That is just outrageous!  Are you in the Union?  Honestly you need to speak to someone about that.

Well I'm happy to be in a job, even if I am stuck at the sink all day washing up.  There are about 15 of us all working for the same agency, except I don't seem to fit in with their conversations at lunchtime.  Their only claim to fames are knowing the biggest criminal wot done the wors fing in de neighbourhood right.  One guy
asked me how old I was, I in turn asked him how old did he think I was, er bet yer not much older than me, he said.  This guy is 17, and he couldn't work out how many years there were between him and I (me being 38),  its so sad.  He quit school 3 years ago with only a music qualification.  Tinging the triangle I suspect.

I look forward to getting home each day. 

All part of life's rich pattern Janie!

Manky, if you put up with that sort of treatment you're a fool.  There's nothing to stop you getting a different job except it's easier to moan about the one you've got.  DO something!

Granny knows best.   :-*

Sheesh! I'm getting nagged on my own forum! Not just me. There's 300 other Posties there, all getting treated the same. I wasn't in the Union but rejoined during the strike to cover my own back. Haven't see the Union rep for weeks though & we've not been officially told anything about the strike outcome & negotiations by either Union or Management.
My managers, (all 6 of them), seem to have given up now. Today they told me "Just do whatever you think will clear the backlog quickest". So I just sorted my own mail, concentrated on just doing the letters, not parcels or "flats", (A4 sized stuff -magazines, brochures etc). I've delivered them all & nipped home for 5 minutes while waiting for my van driver to pick me up again. It'll still take days to clear the backlog.
The managers get paid 100 quid a week more than I do.
God knows why.

Sorry, didn't mean to nag.  But it does seem a bit pointless carrying on with a job like that.

Poties? Have you all gone mad?

Todays lunchtime conversation consisted of whose mobile phone holds the bestest music?  When I said I couldn't do anything with mine and showed them, one girl said, "man, wot ya doin wiv that, thats useless man, get yersef a real phone man". 

So it seems I've also changed sex overnight too! 

Ah kids, couldn't you just strangle em all,oops I slipped into my best Victor Meldrew

I remember many years ago I went to work in the local pie factory, no mobiles in those days but all the girls could talk about was what kind of mascara was best and Coronation St.  Spent the first morning taking pork pies out of tins and the afternoon putting meat in the pies (well pulling a lever on a machine).  There was a girl started the same day who had worked there before she moved away, now she was back in the area she was THRILLED to be working there again!

 ::)

And those people are allowed to vote & drive cars & all sorts of things. Scary ain't it.
I'm old school Bobbie. I still think I'm providing a public service & genuinely do my best to do a good job for my customers, but it's getting ridiculous now. Ever since they started telling us we're a business & not a service, the management seem to be going out of their way to bugger up the job wherever possible. I'm convinced they're trying to run the business down enough to justify selling it off.

I'm sure you're right. thought so for years.  They kept bleating about losing money but didn't put the cost of sending letters up for years.  Most people would have been happy to pay a few pence more for the service we used to get, when the post arrived first thing and there was a second post before the time we get the first one nowadays!

Any news on jobs yet davesatan?

nice avator Janie