Hyh:
I’ve found a lot of Royal Mail is rush rush - Especially if you’re waiting around to get on the bay allocated to you.
Turning up at NDC (Dirft/Crick) they have a queing system with a yard marshall telling you which bay to go on. You are then expected to be promt, and off the bay in time for the next allocation.
The indoor staff are supposed to help you, but there are times where they are busy on the floor with loads of yorks cluttering up the entire cross docking area. Difficult to get a double decker unloaded all by yourself, when there isn’t even space beyond the dock leveller to get the things off your wagon! “30 minutes given” - with a bollocking for leaving more than 9 minutes late… Not the case at Parcel Force Hubs though - where it is just drop a trailer, take a break, pick up another trailer - and go.If you know the shortcuts on routes, then it works great and can be seen as easier, but agency wont know those, only the drivers that have done that shift over and over for a while - Then you have road closures on nights that ofcourse haven’t been planned for on the 318 schedule
I was full time more than two decades, and knew all the backroad shortcuts… Still got nicknamed “Off Route” for all my fancy ways around the blocked roads due to accidents, etc. They watch you like hawks on “routes taken”…!As an example: 15 minutes to unload and reload an 18 T truck that holds 26-28 yorks with 2 at a time on a tail lift is far from generous - Ofcourse some put 5-6 on a tail lift and then wonder why the have the odd accident etc. It is enough time when plenty of people are standing around idle, waiting for you to get your keys on the hook, and start wheeling the yorks off/on.
Christmas time - means cluttered floors, henpecked indoor staff, and other agency drivers looking bewildered as to WTF is going on…! Can’t stand the “Hire” rigids, as the tail lifts are very easy to hurt yourself on - if you’re not careful. Tail flaps like Guillotine blades, Metal shards on every metal edge, tail lifts without enough grease that stick on one side as you lift it up, threatening to topple yorks onto anyone standing too close… and of course “losing your balance”, and finding your fingers/hand alighting on a surface it shouldn’t… Like the groove where the tail lift moves in… Nasty, if you’re not really on the H&S ball at all times!Then you get Christmas rental rigids with tail lifts too small to get Yorks on in the first place, let alone the nested empties. These are almost always allocated to agency as they aren’t union members. “York Re-patriation” is, in my mind - the real arse end of Christmas work at RM. I made a point of loading two yorks at a time going UP as well as coming down… Got sick of the nested six-packs “slamming my fingers”… “Two at a time” - means you cannot load in the required time of course… Time now more important than “Keeping Safe” - even using RM’s own Safe System of Work. H&S seems to have taken a holiday these days. Not good.
Then you get RM cutting shift lengths each year, expecting the drivers to get the same amount of work done in less time
Agencies - tend to get offered the shifts that RM full timers either don’t want (crappy jobs) or Cannot do (Working Time DIrective Rules) - such as the 12+ hour shifts.
Duty patterns also mean a full timer might do a long shift only one day per week, which they will then book off all around the year as a “single day’s holiday”, tendering that one shift out to agency.
A lot of the longer shifts - are the BETTER ones in my mind. It is the short ones that are the pain, for the old “Rush Rush” reasons, of course - especially when running into the Mechanized Delivery Offices around the country, where there might be only a single HGV unloading bay…I don’t see the union forgetting about what RM have promised and reneged on, in the name of cutting costs to make the company look healthier to prospective investors
I’m done with RM now by the looks of it. Thought I’d cracked it this time last year, where I passed the assessment on the 2nd attempt (unpaid) and found myself flat-out with work - not just across Christmas, but January, Febuary and into March… Constantly pushed on my running times, ending when I turned up bang on time one night - only to have a entry gate barrier suddenly descend between my cab and trailer. Instantly stood-down, rest of my week’s shifts cancelled, and I didn’t even get told I’d been effectively “fired”. Had to find another job quick, and it took me nearly a whole 3 hours of driving about signing up with another agency for supermarket work instead, which I’m still doing to date… So much for “honesty and transparency” at RM though. Still - it was good whilst it lasted. 
Can’t see myself going back there, even after I become eligable again. I’m too well-known about the place! 