1.NO CLUE BOY: Yep we work Sats but as for 60-70 hours a week, NO WAY MAN not even at Chrimblepoo.
Last week [finishing today] I’ve worked a total of 39.5 hours but will be paid for 46.5 hours. The other 7 hours being paid at what is called “scheduled attendance” rate which is just over double time.
All in all the wages aren’t so bad, I mean any numbnuts can stuff paper through holes in doors. It’s the pre-delivery sorting and prep that gets on my tit…this time of year especially.
2.MAMA TIGER: You are wasting your time putting “Not at this address” on mail that isn’t for you.
Cross out the address and in large print write DECEASED across the front and back of the envelope. This usually works. As for the second part of your enquiry re hiring freeze I dunno about the USPS but in the UK we used to hire students at Xmas but a lot of stuff went ‘missing’ so Royal Mail no longer employ temps.
3.SJSB: You aint my bitch, you are my lady!!
4.FURLIBUSEA: Forced Overtime? It is illegal to force anyone in any job to work over and above their contracted hours of employment.They ask us to work the extra hours and anyone that doesn’t want to doesn’t have to…easy as that.
** Mama Tiger** Welcome to the morass that is the USPS bidding. Usualy routes are posted for bid within a month of the old mailman deserting it, but it can be up to two months. After that the bidding process stays open for a month. Then it takes about a month for them to post who got the routes. After that it is usualy two weeks for the new carrier to be on the route. If the new person decides he doesn’t want the route after all, the whole process starts over, and sometimes around Christmas or in June USPS decides not to post bidding for a month. A hiring freeze wouldn’t directly affect someone getting your route because a new carrier doesn’t get his/her own route for a very long time after they are hired.
** Spogga** the USPS Union contract alows for forced overtime, but they have to start with the lowest seniority and volunteers first. The money is good. Everything after 40 hours is time and a half. There is no golden time from thanksgiving on, but that is everything after 50 hours is double pay.
It works a bit different over here, it works on a seniority basis. That is to say someone who has been with the postal service for say 20 years gets priority over someone who has been there for 19 years.
I’ve been there for almost 15 years so I’m pretty high up on the seniority placings [he said smugly]
Have to say that the turnover of staff at Royal Mail is phenomenal, some people just can’t hack it and leave after just a couple of days.
We actually had one guy walk out after 45 minutes when he was informed that “Yes I know it’s snowing but you still gotta deliver the mail pal”
Before tax and NI my average weekly wage is around £315-£320.
I usually take home about £270.
London posties earn more because of what is called “London Weighting Allowance” this can be as much as an extra £20 pw.
They get this extra 'cos years ago it was figured that the London mailings exceeded the rest of the country but this is no longer so and with a bit of luck us Northerners will be on the same as the Southerners before long.
I lasted three years. I injured my foot about 8 months before I left. Walking 6 to 8 hours a day on it caused some permenant damage, but I hated staying in the station. I looked at getting into management and some other things but eventualy decided to get out before I had too much invested. I went back to school for a teaching certificate and am now doing the student teaching. I love it.
Thanks for the info, furlibusea. According to your timeline, this means that, with luck, by the time we get a new permanent carrier assigned to our route, we’ll be old and grey. Oh joy.
spogga, is there a tradition of workers “going postal” in England, too? Or is that another delightfully unique American phenomenon?
I think “Going Postal” is an American thing simply because access to firearms is much easier in the States than in the UK.
Having said that we had a Moroccan who stabbed his wife to death around about this time last year.
He was a nasty bit of work [apart from that] and was not well liked in the office, he was forever denigrating the UK and USA but when we told him to fuck off back to his sand and camel shit country if he didn’t like it he used to start babbling in his own tongue, insults no doubt aimed at us.
He’s in prison[surprise surprise] doing 12 years for murder.
Reminds me, I must send him a food parcel for chrimblypoo.
I don’t have much to add to this thread, I’m just enjoying learning about the US and UK mail systems. I would, however, like to share the following:
My postman is a crazy guy. I love him. He’s from Croatia, and he says that no Americans can pronounce his name correctly, so he tells everyone to call him Pete. When I meet him at the mailbox, he sings to me in Croatian. He carries dog biscuits in his pocket to try and make friends with dogs on his route. (He also carries pepper spray for those dogs that just don’t want to be friends.) One time last year when it snowed something like 3 feet, he still managed to get our mail to us at the regular time and dry. So I gave him a thermos of coffee to say thanks, and he got all teary-eyed. I told him to keep the thermos, but the next day he brought it back all washed out and insisted that he could not deprive me of my wonderful thermos. This year I’m giving him a bottle of Glenlivet, because he apparently loves scotch.
spogga, you’re awesome. Any more bitch openings in your harem?
** ratty ** As I said previously it isn’t a hard job by any means and the wages aren’t so bad either.
Royal Mail runs on overtime and I imagine that the USPS does as well so there is ALWAYS the chance to DOUBLE your take home pay if you are prepared to work the longer hours and do not only your own route each day but also whatever else is on offer.
We have one guy at our place who seems to bloody well live there, one week not so long ago he put in over 100 hours and altho’ this is illegal in the UK the postal authorities turn a blind eye to it, so long as the mail gets delivered they are happy.
I don’t have a pepper spray, I have a “Dog Dazer”
It’s like a TV remote and when you press the button on top of it and point it towards an attacking dog an ultrasonic sound blasts out that only the dog hears and it stops them dead in their tracks.
They then go nuts and start chewing on iron fencing/their own feet or whatever. One thing’s for sure they forget all about the postie…a few blasts and the bastards never come near you again.
I believe these “Dog Dazers” are in fact manufactured in the USA.
My bitches are MY bitches buddy, you get your own
Oh yes, the benefits, well I’ve seen a few nekkid ladies in my time and more than a few with just their panties on, saw a topless jogger one time, I couldn’t believe it, I fell off my bike gaping and hit the ground eyes wide open still looking, never felt a thing.
One of our guys was forever being chased by this farting little Yorkshire Terrier so one day he fed it a 1lb block of laxative chocolate.
Apparently the house was wall to wall shit within an hour, up the curtains, the walls, on the stairs, all over the furniture, every where, dog poo, RUNNY dog poo at that.
