Post Office being stupid!?!

[DelP]

You would be amazed at some of the stories and the utter stupidity of management.

..and not just the Post Office.

The problem with management....and 'executives' for that matter...in big business is that they forget who's shoulders they stand on......

Derek

[TSR2]

You would be amazed at some of the stories and the utter stupidity of management.

..and not just the Post Office.

The problem with management....and 'executives' for that matter...in big business is that they forget who's shoulders they stand on......

Derek

.... it the shareholders shoulders we all stand on... as shite as that maybe... if it aint making enough money to satisfy their greed we're all fecked. And the shareholds have a louder voice than staff... sad but true.

[forthbridge]

.... it the shareholders shoulders we all stand on... as shite as that maybe... if it aint making enough money to satisfy their greed we're all fecked. And the shareholds have a louder voice than staff... sad but true.

Indeed. the issues are, in half witted attempts to get 'productivity' from the PO, management is trying quasi-private techniques, but the problem is that it's all rubbish. For instance, they will look at let's say postman Jonesey, who has a terraced street in the north east. He can easily do say 50 houses in an hour. They will hassle Postman DaveB, asking why he is only doing half that number.... not bothering that he is working a new estate, where half the houses have long drives and the other quarter have garden paths, finished with three blocks of flats.

Similarly, postman garry may be in an area that had an analysis done in 1973, and now has two hundred new homes on the same walk, yet he's expected to deliver in the same time the guy in 1973 did.

The point being.. it's not a 'choose what makes money' service as the private sector does... it's a truly public service.

Just think, when it's peeing rain and hail, blowing a gale and is pitch dark, there are still thousands of posties walking the streets delivering the mail.

Prvatisation is all very well, but at the end of the day, a truly private company trims what it can to make savings. would any private company buy a boat to deliver maybe 1 letter a month to a scottish island for 40p? Would a line of post tins a-la the USA take off in inner city london or glasgow without getting burgled every night?

Yup, the RM does have some faults, but it's still a model for the world.!!!

[TSR2]

The thing is nobody wants to deal with the unions, least of all manufacturing or the government. Its funny how the German economy embrases manufacturing as part of a diverse economy, where as the UK Governments (both Labour and Tory) have hung it out to dry as something from the dark past. The neo nazi style UK unions have a lot to answer for. If they weren't so bloody confrontational maybe companies would be happier to build factories here and Governments wouldn't be trying to privatise everything in sight to make it someone elses problem. This is something I feel really passionate about. Particularly in the public sector when they are bleating about conditions / pay cuts / staffing cuts etc.... welcome to the real world, private sector has been dealing with this downturn for the past 18 months, pay cuts, freezes, condition changes... its just life. ironicly its the unions' bloody Labour government who have screwed the country this time (the Torys have done it before, so they are all as bad) Lets see... coal mining - gone, car manufacturing - gone, ship building - gone, aircraft maufacturing - near as be dammed gone. And for all the unions - 'one for all' bolox, how many of those industrys did they save... feck all squared. Sorry but it really gets my goat. Another Irony is that Germany has better labour laws than the UK... why, because their unions aren't a bunch of jumped up little hittlers.

Sorry - its my weekly rant, and you guys have heard it this week.

[speedbird591]

.... it the shareholders shoulders we all stand on... as shite as that maybe... if it aint making enough money to satisfy their greed we're all fecked. And the shareholds have a louder voice than staff... sad but true.

Steady on old chap!

Actually, Royal Mail is owned by the Government on behalf of .... well, us http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Mail

And I wouldn't knock 'greedy shareholders' too much. Most companies have employee share schemes so are partly owned by their employees, so an efficient company that encourages a strong share price is in the employees' interests.

Investment in stocks and shares is one of the few ways of growing an investment. A large proportion of company shares are owned by pension funds and insurance companies and they rely on being greedy shareholders in order to generate returns on our investments and our pensions. Without greedy shareholders investing our money on our behalf for the future, we'd have a very miserable future to look forward to. Have you ever spent time in a communist country and seen how state aid works when there is no private wealth? Capitalism and democracy may not be perfect, but nobody's ever come up with a better system.

Ian

[TSR2]

There is a big difference between the shareholders of old and those currently mate, and i didn't say all share holders where greedy, but a significant proportion are... I have been a shareholder in two companies that I've worked for, and I can assure you the staff share holdings typicly account for less than 5% of the ordinary shares.

The difference is, that in the past, a shareholding was seen as a long term investment. In that way, everyone wins... companies get much need investment, shareholders wait for the "new products" to come to fruition and then reap their returns. Nowadays, its how much can we milk out of this company in 12 months. Or if I don't like the return I'm getting I'll pull my money out and feck everyone else, as long as I'm alright. A company can be destroyed overnight, not because of how good or bad it is, but because of a news story in the FT or a blip in the market. companies have become valued on their share price and not what they produce. Institutional investors these days are a short sighted buch. I'm not talking about the shares that you or I may own in a company, I'm talking about the large institutional investors... everyone wants there cake NOW and no one is prepared to see through the long term. Capitalisim does work, but not when its left to run riot, which is why there isn't a pension fund in the country that isn't buggered. You can only invest in something that makes money, and almost every fund management company has spent the last ten years investing in thin air.

the other thing, is these punters who invested there life saving in share in the likes of Northern Rock etc and are bleating that they got nothing out of it... RTFM "shares may go down as well as up"

I'm not a communist, far from it, but the current system is screwing us all because it is not regulated.

[speedbird591]

That sounds a lot more reasonable than your rant that I was commenting on, Ben! You're absolutely right in everything you say. Short term investment for the wrong reasons is a major factor in the loss of our manufacturing industry (that, and rubbish products at too high a price ). And playing the stock market for short term gains is what leads to both boom and bust situations and speculation can destroy a perfectly sound company - that's true.

The problem is what to do about it - if anything. The present system is flawed and profoundly unfair but for some people it can generate a lot of wealth at the expense of some others, which is a reflection of life in general. As this is the system that we presently live under, the best thing to do is to embrace it and make it work for you. It would be unwise to try and invest your money ethically for long-term gain as you will end up as a very poor pensioner living on state aid. Although you may sleep well at night! The best thing you can do for yourself and your family is to invest in a well-managed fund and leave the fund manager to maximise your return for your future and turn a blind eye to the unfairness of it - which there's little you can do to change.

Investment is quite simply gambling - on the future value of companies. And yes, it's gambling with money that doesn't exist! If you regulate it too much you make it illegal to make profits over a certain point and the returns will drop threatening the future wealth of all of us. But gambling is gambling and at what arbitrary point do you decide it's criminal activity? If you criminalise all speculation you go back to socialism/communism where individual wealth is only tolerated for the leaders. The biggest fault with the system is that much of the profit is all smoke and mirrors and when the bubble bursts there's nothing there. But when confidence returns - as it always does - you'll find that this non-existent money is readily accepted whenever you want to spend it! Like many people, I lost tens of thousands of pounds in assets over the past year or so. But it was really only an apportioned value of property, pension funds etc. It existed in one sense, in that I could borrow against it or exchange it for real money, but in another sense it didn't exist because it was only 1s and 0s on a computer. But in a few years it will be back again and just as unreal as before

Another point is that nearly all the private wealth in this country is held by older people. This is because over the years we have invested in property, shares and funds and inherited investments created by the previous generation. If we didn't have this wealth then the ever decreasing amount of working people would have to pay huge taxes to support us. It's thanks to the returns that capitalism creates that you don't have to. Like I say, it's a flawed, unfair and unethical system but there isn't anything better at the moment and if you don't play it you'll lose out, unfortunately.

Cheers, Ben

Ian