do all royal mail managers have their brains amputated?

i just can't understand royal mail some times they really seem to like shooting themselves in the foot. to the extent that i have now put in a grievance against my manager. why? well here's the story...



last friday i was asked to cover a delivery over in wrington, about 15 miles from portishead. if you get asked to do this nowadays you have to do it as part of the flexibility agreement that came in two years ago. ordinarily i would have no problem with doing this as long as i am transported to and from the relevant office within my contracted hours. after being transported out to wrington i phoned my manager at portishead to ask for a lift, i was told that there were no vans available. fine not an unusual occurence, i'll wait. and so it waited for an hour and a haf before i phoned back. and when i did i was told to my absolute astonishment that i would have to make my own way home. so i had to get a taxi which had to come from clevedon to pick me up. there's no taxis in wrington so it was lucky i knew the number of one of my bros mates whos a taxi driver. cue a phonecall to the bristol cwu hq, my manager has now had a severe bollocking off her manager and had to pay me £20 for overtime out of her own pocket, and is now not speaking to me apart from to call me someone who goes 'snivelling to the union' every time something goes wrong. and gave me a whole list of excuses, that i now know to be lies. like her car was in for mot. three people saw it in the car park. or nigel osmond the driver designated to pick me up was delayed on collection. he told me himself that this wasn't true that he had told her at 8am that he would struggle to complete his workload with giving me lifts. so she said to leave the lifts and she would sort some thing. only she didn't and she left a small problem to fester and it became a huge problem. the excuse that she gave me was that he was delayed on collection, which i now know to be a lie...so after a huge bollocking from her boss, you would have thought that would have been enough. but no...mike newport, the area union rep put out a press release about the incident, an interview was broadcast on local radio, which also commented on the current dispute between the bristol area bosses and the union. so basically my manager has spoon fed propoganda and her boss has given her a right bollocking and the union has caused her and the royal mail severe embarassment. needless to say now i will be supporting saturdays strike and with the proposals they have about 'improving the service' like making our job 10 til 6 for a start a six day week, so there goes our social life for a start and in return we get, you guessed it, absolutely sweet fuck all apart from we been told to save another 10% of hours from the office next year. some people are saying 'oh just get another job', but where? i know people who're 'working ' at the car import centre at portbury docks and not working for whole shifts because there's nothing to do.

but things have been given a sense of perspective this weekend with ewan kelli and isaac staying down with me and it has been hard work even with three of us keeping an eye on him. we have got off quite lightly with just a ripped table cloth and a few attempted cup smashings and playing a game that was a combination of british bulldog and hide and seek. it involved isaac hiding behind the curtains and when we found him he would run at us and try and fight his way past us all good fun and it gives you a sense of whats really important in life...