[Humour] Have Amazon just given up?

[Driver8]

Quite happy with Amazon. Means I never have to set foot in a shop.

 

[AmexRuislip]

And bubble tea shops. You forgot those.

We've got a Beverage Boutique on our high street.
For the uneducated, it's not a high end tea shop.

 

[Neil]

I tell you who have given up - Royal Mail. I could just about put the lack of Christmas Cards down to being an unpopular arse but no post at all for several days? A year ago I was sat on tenterhooks waiting for my Charlton tickets. Those arrived in January. In the summer they failed to deliver our parking permit and we had to go to the council for a replacement after getting a ticket, and now no post at all for days on end this close to Christmas and with bills, statements and two polling cards all due.

I know there are some posties on here and I'm sure none of you are MY postie. Nor am I blaming you particularly. But what gives chaps? WTF gives?

As an EXRoyal Mail employee of 20 years I sympathise.
All the good postmen have left and they have been replaced with zero contract employees who can't sort mail who now just pick up 8 bags of mail and told where to go . Half of them don't last a fortnight and so it starts again.
Royal Mail managers have reduced the staff by 30% and added their rounds to the ones left behind .
They are not interested in letters so they inflate the price to reduce the amount even more and want to be like Amazon with owner drivers in the future.
Thats Privatisation for you the same as the Water and BT,

 

[BN9 BHA]

I tell you who have given up - Royal Mail. I could just about put the lack of Christmas Cards down to being an unpopular arse but no post at all for several days?

Big delivery on its way from the Liverpool loving members of this board

 

[Washie]

You're doing your bit to starve culture. I can only hope it's shit music

the music industry has always been weighted, likre many industries, but its now got to the point where creativity is waning . . . 25-30 years ago, even before we got a record deal, we were a self funding band . . . Now . . . Its nigh on pay to play at the end of the day . . . And lucky to get your money back if you're brave enough to press you're own records!

Post on YouTube or other streaming sites. Many have got started doing that. Hell, Justin Beiber started on MySpace, as did Hollywood Undead.

 

[A mex eyecan]

I'll add to that, they also ring the door take a photo of item being delivered then fvck off.
Irrespective whether you've been caught short by a trip to the trap.
They're in so much of a hurry.

and then you get a message reporting item delivered and ‘handed to customer’, lying Basturds

 

[The Clamp]

Had one delivery guy from Amazon refuse to leave my parcel in my designated safe space, an enclosed front porch, as he didn’t deem it safe enough.

The same porch that 5 years worth of deliveries have been safely deposited.

Took four phone calls and some very bad customer service to get him to turn around and deliver the thing.

 

[Guinness Boy]

As an EXRoyal Mail employee of 20 years I sympathise.
All the good postmen have left and they have been replaced with zero contract employees who can't sort mail who now just pick up 8 bags of mail and told where to go . Half of them don't last a fortnight and so it starts again.
Royal Mail managers have reduced the staff by 30% and added their rounds to the ones left behind .
They are not interested in letters so they inflate the price to reduce the amount even more and want to be like Amazon with owner drivers in the future.
Thats Privatisation for you the same as the Water and BT,

Thanks for that.

Sounds absolutely crap but I’m not surprised. The number of people who seem happy to have no post, expensive energy and sewage ridden water just to keep out the “wokes” is astonishing.

 

[Eeyore]

As an EXRoyal Mail employee of 20 years I sympathise.
All the good postmen have left and they have been replaced with zero contract employees who can't sort mail who now just pick up 8 bags of mail and told where to go . Half of them don't last a fortnight and so it starts again.
Royal Mail managers have reduced the staff by 30% and added their rounds to the ones left behind .
They are not interested in letters so they inflate the price to reduce the amount even more and want to be like Amazon with owner drivers in the future.
Thats Privatisation for you the same as the Water and BT,

I think telecommunications was a good privatisation on the whole. I'm pretty sure we pay less now in real terms and have more choice.

But otherwise I agree. Water and energy should remain in public hands.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

As an added comment, the concept of letters being delivered 6 days per week, in theory at least, is a bit of an outlier when compared to most European countries, where it averages about 3 days per week.

The volume of letters has been declining at high single digit percentages for a few years, interrupted by a brief period of recovery growth during Covid. Ultimately, within a decade there will be virtually no letters being delivered at all.

It is also worth pointing out that the majority of Royal Mail’s competitors, and I’ve worked for a few, are a) relative newcomers on the block and have b) designed their parcels operating model (and associated technology such as tracking and ability to change delivery options in real time) from the ground up. RM are trying to pivot an organisation which has hundreds of years of delivering almost exclusively letters into a business set up to deliver almost exclusively parcels.

I fully expect most people to dismiss my musings, but I’d emphasise that it is not a simple business model to run at all, even without the recent industrial relations issues.

I’m never convinced by the argument that states, 'but it’s even worse somewhere else.' A couple of years ago, I returned to the UK after a long time away, and have been profoundly shocked and disappointed by the crumbling of the basic services I once took for granted. Bloody hell. Getting an NHS appointment is now like trying to get a ticket for Glastonbury or the FA Cup Final.

The Royal Mail was once a gold standard service. You'd post a first class letter in Brighton today, and it’d be in Aberdeen or Cardiff or Kemptown tomorrow. Now it’s a freakin' lottery, and we all sit around chuckling about it, and looking for someone to blame. "It’s all the unions' fault." "It’s all the government’s fault." It’s all the media’s fault." "It’s all down to Brexit." Blah blah Sunak, Corbyn, Murdoch, Johnson, blah blah, Truss, Daily Mail, waffle waffle…..

I don’t want to dismiss your "musings." I hope your stats will keep you warm and satisfied at night. But certainly in those places where I’ve spent most of my overseas experience — Germany, Switzerland, France — the postal service is immeasurably better. So for me at least, your statement about the UK being an "outlier" in expecting a decent postal service, doesn’t ring true.

I’ve said this before when talking about public transport and the NHS, but a major reason why critical services continue to decline is the pusillanimity of the British public. We’ve grown to expect incompetence and inefficiency and shit customer service. Some of us seem to even welcome it as it not only excuses our own shit work ethic, but also allows us to pour blame towards political enemies and channel hope in the direction of our political preferences. We are no longer capable of objective, independent thought. We must now take sides over everything. We’ve become slaves to groupthink. And yes, that includes me.

Which isn’t a lot to do with Amazon, except to point out that they do understand the importance of reliable customer service. And that their generally excellent customer service is why I increasingly use them.

 

[Weststander]

I tell you who have given up - Royal Mail. I could just about put the lack of Christmas Cards down to being an unpopular arse but no post at all for several days? A year ago I was sat on tenterhooks waiting for my Charlton tickets. Those arrived in January. In the summer they failed to deliver our parking permit and we had to go to the council for a replacement after getting a ticket, and now no post at all for days on end this close to Christmas and with bills, statements and two polling cards all due.

I know there are some posties on here and I'm sure none of you are MY postie. Nor am I blaming you particularly. But what gives chaps? WTF gives?

For many years it was “Post your cards by the 20-something of Dec first class, second class a couple of days earlier”.

Not joking, for a few years now we informally aim for about a week into Dec. Parcels in Nov.

What a chaotically run business. Except sub post offices, good people.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

For many years it was “Post your cards by the 20-something of Dec first class, second class a couple of days earlier”.

Not joking, for a few years now we informally aim for about a week into Dec. Parcels in Nov.

What a chaotically run business. Except sub post offices, good people.

Good people who were stitched up, criminalised, prosecuted and imprisoned due to a faulty IT system.

 

[Weststander]

Good people who were stitched up, criminalised, prosecuted and imprisoned due to a faulty IT system.

Some took their lives or otherwise didn’t live to see their stories accepted.

 

[Mr Bridger]

As an EXRoyal Mail employee of 20 years I sympathise.
All the good postmen have left and they have been replaced with zero contract employees who can't sort mail who now just pick up 8 bags of mail and told where to go . Half of them don't last a fortnight and so it starts again.
Royal Mail managers have reduced the staff by 30% and added their rounds to the ones left behind .
They are not interested in letters so they inflate the price to reduce the amount even more and want to be like Amazon with owner drivers in the future.
Thats Privatisation for you the same as the Water and BT,

Did it take you that long to save up for the full length trousers?

 

[Mr Bridger]

Big delivery on its way from the Liverpool loving members of this board

Got a big delivery coming his way.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I assume 90% of the people who slag Amazon off actually use them fairly regularly?

I love to moan about how the high street is dying and it's all Amazon's fault, but when I realised this morning I'd run out of vitamin D tablets, was I going to walk to Boots in the pissing rain, or was I going to spend less money and have a man deliver them to my door?

Precisely.

Faversham town centre was a dead mess 15 years ago, with a crumbling Woolies, three 'card shops', and numerous boarded up retail premises, two slot machine emporiums and one bookies. Now it is vibrant with an independent florist, several micro pubs, an actual wine bar, independent butcher, independent grocery, and no boarded up premises.

Meanwhile with two working adults, both working (ahem) from home a lot, Amazon is a god-send. And Amazon prime even broadcasts the occasional Albion match.

And our GPO post is highly efficient and regular.

To my mind these are all great improvements.

If your high street is a mess, look for other reasons. The free market will out, but local business rates etc. will move the goalposts. Oh and also the degree of wealth and/or chavtasticry of the footfall.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Good people who were stitched up, criminalised, prosecuted and imprisoned due to a faulty IT system.

This really was a scandal and still isn't talked about enough.

As someone who has worked in IT systems for over 20 years this really shouldn't be possible. Technology and procedures exist that should eliminate any chance of this. It should be whoever signed off the system go-live doing time, preferably with the testing lead.

I wonder if a lot of work was done on the sub-continent by fresh out of Uni "Consultants"

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

This really was a scandal and still isn't talked about enough.

As someone who has worked in IT systems for over 20 years this really shouldn't be possible. Technology and procedures exist that should eliminate any chance of this. It should be whoever signed off the system go-live doing time, preferably with the testing lead.

I wonder if a lot of work was done on the sub-continent by fresh out of Uni "Consultants"

In my experience working with offshore graduates, they were invariably supersmart kids who were completely stifled by deeply mediocre middle managers who would just wave their hand imperiously and tell them to Do The Needful.

Tho full responsible for the final signed-off project always rests onshore. Not read that deeply into it, but a pilot scheme and a gradual rollout should have unearthed any teething troubles shirley? That whole clusterfuck ruined so many lives

 

[Thunder Bolt]

In my experience working with offshore graduates, they were invariably supersmart kids who were completely stifled by deeply mediocre middle managers who would just wave their hand imperiously and tell them to Do The Needful.

Tho full responsible for the final signed-off project always rests onshore. Not read that deeply into it, but a pilot scheme and a gradual rollout should have unearthed any teething troubles shirley? That whole clusterfuck ruined so many lives

The management could be forgiven for not realising the fault with one or two cases but once there were multiple cases, they still denied there was any problem and continued to persecute and prosecute.
As far as I know. no one from management has had to answer for that. Even the compensation is still forthcoming in some cases.

 

[beorhthelm]

In my experience working with offshore graduates, they were invariably supersmart kids who were completely stifled by deeply mediocre middle managers who would just wave their hand imperiously and tell them to Do The Needful.

Tho full responsible for the final signed-off project always rests onshore. Not read that deeply into it, but a pilot scheme and a gradual rollout should have unearthed any teething troubles shirley? That whole clusterfuck ruined so many lives

as i recall it wasn't a problem with software per se (though there were issues), it was managment slavishly following belief that the software was infallible. there were audits and checks on the audits, if any discrepancy arose it must therefore be fraud, without investigation to verify the audit process were sound. all down to poor senior management.