P&O Cruisers - What are things like where YOU are?

[Angel57]

39 minutes ago, brian1 said:

My dad was a postman,he said he was proud of his job and back in the day they were mainly exsoldiers after the war.He didn't like the temps at Christmas cos they got all the  tips off his round he'd worked hard at thru the year.Full uniform then,not the scruffy sods you get now,lol.

We had the same postie for 20 years. You could set your watch by him. Always efficient and always got a tip at Christmas. 

[zap99]

3 hours ago, Angel57 said:

Last year we were lucky to get one postal delivery a week. I think we now get two.  The permanent posties try their best to deliver, but with being so short staffed and with lots of sickness it is near impossible for them. One said to me they now have agency workers to help, but they do not know the area so quite a lot gets mis-delivered. I’m not far from Poole and Bournemouth so not exactly in the middle of nowhere.

We have a big 75 on our door, next door have 76 and the house after that 77. Perhaps they need to explain things better in their training. Next time we get a delivery I will immediately check......Oi....see that big silver 75 on the door.

[Harry Peterson]

We’re very lucky in that we have a regular postman who we’ve known for some time. Round here they tend to stay for years - at least the older ones did.
 

There was a time not so long ago when deliveries were being regularly missed, entirely due to staff shortages in the nearby city, and the rural guys were being switched out of their normal rounds. If it had been properly organised by the local managers so that we were getting deliveries on alternate days I could have lived with it, but there were gaps of several days at a time. What got me though was the extent to which the managers were prepared to lie about it when formal complaints were put in. I knew we’d had no postmen in the road, the postmen themselves confirmed that, but there were barefaced lies from the Delivery Office to the central complaints team, who were equally happy to lie to the local MP. 
 

The guys doing the deliveries are all great though. Even to the extent of signing for stuff when we’re out. Absolutely against all the rules, I’m sure, but you do get to know who you can trust, and we know them all pretty well. Ice creams on hot summer days help too!

[zap99]

2 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

In the run up to Christmas our postman delivered an advertisement with our mail asking us to consider becoming a postie.  Apparently RM hoped to grab people's ' interest by direct approach.  It made interesting reading. A 30 hour contract with Saturday and Sunday obligatory working, hours between 8.00 and 14.00 and 12.00 to 18.00.  It stated the pay was 10% above market average in their sector and was £12.20 or so an hour, overtime at 1.25% of this rate.  If you stayed three months you'd get a uniform and 22 days annual holiday pro rata.  This job apparently was a driving delivery postman, not your average walking/biking delivery guy who according to our lovely man gets less pay.

 

So basically the postmen are now contract workers on low pay and pretty rubbish terms it would appear, yet a pretty easy target for the media etc to put in the line of fire.

2 of our town centre coffee shop owners have shut up shop due to rising costs and large chain competition. Both former owners have become postmen. We spoke to one of them a few weeks ago. He wishes he had done it years ago. Good money, regular hours, no stress and no VAT.

[Megabear2]

53 minutes ago, zap99 said:

2 of our town centre coffee shop owners have shut up shop due to rising costs and large chain competition. Both former owners have become postmen. We spoke to one of them a few weeks ago. He wishes he had done it years ago. Good money, regular hours, no stress and no VAT.

Good for him, hope it goes well for him. 

 

Out of interest I just looked at Royal Mail careers group to see if the pay and conditions varied by region.  It appears not, but they are advertising 292 postie vacancies countrywide!

 

https://jobs.royalmailgroup.com/go/Posties-and-Sorting/4480301/

 

[mercury7289]

56 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Good for him, hope it goes well for him. 

 

Out of interest I just looked at Royal Mail careers group to see if the pay and conditions varied by region.  It appears not, but they are advertising 292 postie vacancies countrywide!

 

https://jobs.royalmailgroup.com/go/Posties-and-Sorting/4480301/

 

Megabear

Apologies for my last contact, had not picked up that you were afloat.

Hope you are feeling better.

[9265359]

20 hours ago, zap99 said:

Some..many organisations, need a kick up the backside. Post office/Royal mail are finding things tough so would like to deliver 3 days a week.

Royal Mail is struggling because few people send letters anymore and the only profitable part of their business is parcels, where they are in competition with Amazon Logistics, Ervin, DHL, UPS, etc.

 

I have been away from home for just over a week and in that time the post lady has delivered one item to my house (Ring doorbells are great) and that might not even have been a letter but the weekly delivery of junk leaflets destined for the bin.

 

I expect when I get home in a couple of months time there will be only a dozen items of actual post, and likely only a couple I actually needed to receive and that were not advertising material.
 

No way can a business operate where they need to deliver six days a week everywhere in the UK and charge the same cost to deliver it whether it is going two streets away in London or from Lands End to Shetland, and damn all people actually use it to send any letters!

 

Anyway getting back to the subject in hand, a glorious 25c here in Santa Cruz Tenerife.

 

Only an Aida ship in today so the town is relatively quiet, and after a late breakfast on the terrace we took a stroll into town and around the park which was full of locals enjoying the weather, then a nice menu del dia at a small out of the way restaurant - three course with wine for €10 - bargain! And now relaxing on the terrace again with a cold one for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

[Harry Peterson]

32 minutes ago, 9265359 said:

No way can a business operate where they need to deliver six days a week everywhere in the UK and charge the same cost to deliver it whether it is going two streets away in London or from Lands End to Shetland, and damn all people actually use it to send any letters!

It’s unfortunate, isn’t it, that those were precisely the terms on which the company now running it took over the Royal Mail ten years or so ago. I can see that there are issues, but that’s the responsibility of the company and the shareholders that own it. You win some, you lose some - those are the risks involved in operating and investing in businesses.

 

Any changes to the Universal Service Obligation which the company signed up to should be paid for - back to the Treasury (meaning us) - by the company and if necessary its shareholders. Not paid for by the general public by accepting a reduced service just to get the shareholders off the hook.

[9265359]

Just now, Harry Peterson said:

It’s unfortunate, isn’t it, that those were precisely the terms on which the company now running it took over the Royal Mail ten years or so ago. I can see that there are issues, but that’s the responsibility of the company and the shareholders that own it. You win some, you lose some - those are the risks involved in operating and investing in businesses.

 

Any changes to the Universal Service Obligation which the company signed up to should be paid for - back to the Treasury (meaning us) - by the company and if necessary its shareholders. Not paid for by the general public by accepting a reduced service just to get the shareholders off the hook.

Ten years is a long time, and would you expect them to continue with that obligation in another decade or two decades, or a hundred years, or a thousand years.

 

Like it or not things change, and one of those things that has changed in the last decade is how people receive communications.

 

Few people now receive financial documents by post or utility bills or the whole host of business mail that flowed through the Royal Mail a decade ago.

 

And so the option is a straightforward one - a reduced service or no service after Royal Mail goes bust.

[Harry Peterson]

1 minute ago, 9265359 said:

Ten years is a long time, and would you expect them to continue with that obligation in another decade or two decades, or a hundred years, or a thousand years.

 

Like it or not things change, and one of those things that has changed in the last decade is how people receive communications.

 

Few people now receive financial documents by post or utility bills or the whole host of business mail that flowed through the Royal Mail a decade ago.

 

And so the option is a straightforward one - a reduced service or no service after Royal Mail goes bust.

It’s entirely a contractual matter. When you sign a long term contract, whether it be in the public or private sector, you accept the consequences of that contract. The fact that the contract was with the government makes no difference. Situations are always changing, and in business if a contract has to be renegotiated there’s invariably a penalty to pay. This is no different.

 

If International Distributions Services plc goes under, its shareholders lose their money, and the Royal Mail business would be resold or operated under public ownership again. This is all about trying to get the government (at public expense) to bail out the shareholders.

[9265359]

8 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

It’s entirely a contractual matter. When you sign a long term contract, whether it be in the public or private sector, you accept the consequences of that contract. The fact that the contract was with the government makes no difference. Situations are always changing, and in business if a contract has to be renegotiated there’s invariably a penalty to pay. This is no different.

So what was the penalty stipulated in the contract if changes were made a decade or more down the line - that’s right, there wasn’t one.

 

9 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

If International Distributions Services plc goes under, its shareholders lose their money, and the Royal Mail business would be resold or operated under public ownership again. This is all about trying to get the government (at public expense) to bail out the shareholders.

And if (when…) Royal Mail goes bust no government of any political flavour would choose to recreate it in public ownership in the current format as that would mean throwing hundreds of millions of taxpayers money in subsidies to allow it to meet the unviable obligations it currently has.

[zap99]

1 hour ago, 9265359 said:

Ten years is a long time, and would you expect them to continue with that obligation in another decade or two decades, or a hundred years, or a thousand years.

 

Like it or not things change, and one of those things that has changed in the last decade is how people receive communications.

 

Few people now receive financial documents by post or utility bills or the whole host of business mail that flowed through the Royal Mail a decade ago.

 

And so the option is a straightforward one - a reduced service or no service after Royal Mail goes bust.

Or open up the letter market to competition. It may well be that a commercial enterprise could do things better than the post office.

[zap99]

We paid the balance for our April Arvia cruise today. No doubt the price will drop next week. I looked at the MDR menus.  Prawn cocktail starter every day. ....I wonder ?.🤔

[9265359]

35 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Or open up the letter market to competition. It may well be that a commercial enterprise could do things better than the post office.

 

As a point of order, the Post Office is a separate company from Royal Mail.

 

The letter market is open to competition - it happened in 2006 - and that is part of the cause of Royal Mail's issues. Take a look at the letters you receive from businesses and they will be using these competing companies.

 

The commercial competition take the profitable stuff - bulk mail between large urban centres - and for the non-profitable stuff they either say 'nope' or do the profitable part and then dump it back into the Royal Mail network to do the unprofitable 'last leg' part.

 

 

Edited January 25 by 9265359

[yorkshirephil]

A cloudy start for us today but a pleasant 22oC. We decided to get the bus to Puerto del Rosario and have a look around for a change, however on seeing an AIDA ship and Azura in port we decided to go to Corralejo. The bus was full so we had to wait for the next one, there was a long queue by the time that came which was made up with lots of cruise passengers.

 

It was sunnier in the north and we had a few hours there with the compulsory coffee and cake before heading back. It was the same problem with the buses, as we had got off at the harbour which is the end of line 06 we got back on there. The bus was again full before it even got to the bus station where there was a queue which were left there. By the time we got back in the afternoon the sun was out and we assumed the positions on the loungers on our patio.

 

We had a great meal out last night at a restaurant called Jimmys which our next door neighbour had recommended, it is a Mexican theme, Mrs YP had Fajitas and I just couldn't swerve the pizza, but did have the Mexican pizza  which was excellent, all washed down with ice cold beers. 

[9265359]

2 minutes ago, yorkshirephil said:

A cloudy start for us today but a pleasant 22oC. We decided to get the bus to Puerto del Rosario and have a look around for a change, however on seeing an AIDA ship and Azura in port we decided to go to Corralejo. The bus was full so we had to wait for the next one, there was a long queue by the time that came which was made up with lots of cruise passengers.

 

Cruise passengers sensibly getting out of the grim Puerto del Rosario!

 

Corralejo is a far nicer place to spend time - I wintered there a couple of years ago and have some very pleasant memories of the place.

[Josy1953]

It has been a long day.  I think that I am ready for bed already.  Shopping with a 13 year old girl is not my idea of fun when we are looking for a birthday gift for one of her friends who will be 14 tomorrow.  I was not warned about the shopping trip this morning.  She got into the car this afternoon and informed me that she needed to get a present for her friend because "mum always used to get the presents and wrap them but dad hasn't got one".  DH thinks that it is hilarious because I ended up paying.

[happy v]

10 minutes ago, Josy1953 said:

It has been a long day.  I think that I am ready for bed already.  Shopping with a 13 year old girl is not my idea of fun when we are looking for a birthday gift for one of her friends who will be 14 tomorrow.  I was not warned about the shopping trip this morning.  She got into the car this afternoon and informed me that she needed to get a present for her friend because "mum always used to get the presents and wrap them but dad hasn't got one".  DH thinks that it is hilarious because I ended up paying.

That girl is going to go far 😀

[Snow Hill]

1 hour ago, 9265359 said:

 

As a point of order, the Post Office is a separate company from Royal Mail.

 

The letter market is open to competition - it happened in 2006 - and that is part of the cause of Royal Mail's issues. Take a look at the letters you receive from businesses and they will be using these competing companies.

 

The commercial competition take the profitable stuff - bulk mail between large urban centres - and for the non-profitable stuff they either say 'nope' or do the profitable part and then dump it back into the Royal Mail network to do the unprofitable 'last leg' part.

 

 

The main ones involved in the U.K. being Whistl (formerly owned by Dutch state run postal service) and UKMail owned by the German State owned Postal Service, known as DHL.

 

DPD is owned by LaPoste, the French State postal service, LaPoste also has a banking and insurance services business.

 

Noticeable that State owned postal services can own and provide services in the U.K. which compete against the Royal Mail who get dumped with the less profitable last mile delivery service. 
 

 

[Josy1953]

51 minutes ago, happy v said:

That girl is going to go far 😀

I hope that she doesn't go too far from us. DH has always said that she is exactly like her mother who treated us as extra set of parents who would give her whatever her real parents said no to from the day she was born until the day that she died.

[Megabear2]

Interesting news on the horizon for the Saga stalwarts.

 

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/saga-floats-idea-of-selling-stake-in-ocean-cruises-arm-13056351

[happy v]

1 hour ago, Josy1953 said:

I hope that she doesn't go too far from us. DH has always said that she is exactly like her mother who treated us as extra set of parents who would give her whatever her real parents said no to from the day she was born until the day that she died.

I don't think you need to worry too much. You obviously have a great relationship and are helping to give her stability during a very difficult period.

[terrierjohn]

6 hours ago, Harry Peterson said:

It’s entirely a contractual matter. When you sign a long term contract, whether it be in the public or private sector, you accept the consequences of that contract. The fact that the contract was with the government makes no difference. Situations are always changing, and in business if a contract has to be renegotiated there’s invariably a penalty to pay. This is no different.

 

If International Distributions Services plc goes under, its shareholders lose their money, and the Royal Mail business would be resold or operated under public ownership again. This is all about trying to get the government (at public expense) to bail out the shareholders.

It's a good job our voting system doesn't operate the same. I cannot remember any govt honouring all its manifesto commitments.

[terrierjohn]

4 hours ago, 9265359 said:

 

As a point of order, the Post Office is a separate company from Royal Mail.

 

The letter market is open to competition - it happened in 2006 - and that is part of the cause of Royal Mail's issues. Take a look at the letters you receive from businesses and they will be using these competing companies.

 

The commercial competition take the profitable stuff - bulk mail between large urban centres - and for the non-profitable stuff they either say 'nope' or do the profitable part and then dump it back into the Royal Mail network to do the unprofitable 'last leg' part.

 

 

But all letter post is delivered by Royal Mail, so presumably they must consider this to be profitable enough at the rate they currently charge the other companies, otherwise they wouldn't do it?

[Josy1953]

Another night of howling winds here.  I was woken up at 3:15 and couldn't get back to sleep so I gave up at 5:30 and came through to make a cup of chamomile tea.

Have a good day whatever you have planned.