The other night I was in my local which is frequented by postal “workers” who do half a day then go in there to down six or seven pints of lager.
I start around the same time as them and finish a great deal later – and more sober, I imagine.
The man from the Union was there, and three of four of them were, with quiet glee, coordinating their next strike.* The mastermind behind this is a man called Billy “call me shit for brains” Hayes.
“I’m more powerful than Arthur Scargill” he boasts.
This is rather like saying that as a skier I’m even worse than Eddie the Eagle (see above)**
For those of you who’ve forgotten, Artur Scargill, besides having the worst hairdo ever sported by a public figure in the last 50 years (see above) managed to comprehensively destroy the jobs of a great many coal miners and ensure the re-election of Margaret Thatcher which was, to say the least, not what he had in mind.
Up-his-own arse Billy is right though. He will do a MUCH better job of losing his members’ jobs than Arthur ever did.
I do not know of any sane client (and one of mine sends out 48 million pieces a year through the Royal Mail) who is not actively seeking or has not already found an alternative to Billy’s boozers. I do not know of any ordinary person who would not switch suppliers in a heartbeat if they could.
When the strike began, the union said it was the biggest since the national strike of 2007. But the Royal Mail said service was at close to normal. Gives you an idea what a useless bunch they are.
Billy doesn’t care either way. His pension is secure. His followers’ families will pay.
I guess the moral is that a bunch of tipsy products of the British educational system aren’t necessarily best qualified to think straight.
For overseas readers:
* The Royal Mail is to postal services what Alitalia is to airlines. It loses millions, but they haven’t shut it down and want to sell off part of it so someone can make it profitable. The unions are busy striking – just before the peak season of Christmas.
** Eddies the Eagle was a man who couldn’t ski – but who managed to get to the Olympics and make a fool of himself to general hilarity. Think Gordon Brown, but funny.
I aplogise for not showing a pic of Fat Billy – but we can only fit two idiots in at a time.
We’ve all heard of lions being led by donkeys but this postal farce is much more a case of lemmings and donkeys.
The management of Royal Mail led by ex Saatchi boy and ex head of the FA, Adam Crozier, have shown little in the way of imaginative forward thinking. Let’s face it, volumes of mail, particularly private mail and non marketing commercial mail, will continue to fall away. Why write a letter when you can email, why send an invoice when you can send a PDF? Why lick it when you can poke it? The stamp and the keyboard, silly. I don’t suppose it ever entered the heads of the management to set up or buy an ISP.
The Dutch post and the German post recognised that their parcel and express deliveries were being eroded by faster and more efficient courier services, and so decided that rather than try beating them they would buy them. So they bought TNT and DHL respectively. Royal Mail sits in no man’s land like a blind man, a crumbling infrastructure with no vision. British Leyland/Rover continued to make crap cars that nobody wanted with crap machinery dating back to the 1940s, the miners continued to behave as if the revolution was nigh and the proletariat would rise up against their masters. Result, gone.
Royal Mail will eventually be given to a competitor with a cash grant. That competitor will introduce PO Box systems so that you collect your mail from let’s say, your local petrol station. Business mail will be delivered to ‘CEDEX’ type addresses only and parcels will go through the courier side of the business. Around 80% of the staff will be fired within 18 months.
The CWU, the Communications Workers Union – that’s a laugh as they have not yet communicated to the suffering public exactly why they are striking. For bullying, read, being told what to do by their management. For their pension shortfall, read, like everyone else in the country you tossers. For objecting to the single afternoon delivery, read, do as you are told and get on with the job.
Britain was described by a French president as an island of coal floating in a sea of oil. Well it’s all gone now. We are left with a financially wrecked country run by a slack jawed shit, burdened with debt, grossly over populated by illiterate morons and a pretty crap alternative waiting in the wings.
God or Drayton, help us.
This is extremely perceptive. If Hayes actually had the sense to tell their side of the story instead of ruining their case by lunatic default they would have a more sympathetic hearing from everyone. He really is a master of bad PR. I also think it is unfair for Crozier to be paid a million a year for doing little more than achieve cosmetic financial improments by degrading the service offered.
This is extremely perceptive. If Hayes actually had the sense to tell their side of the story instead of ruining their case by lunatic default they would have a more sympathetic hearing from everyone. He really is a master of bad PR. I also think it is unfair for Crozier to be paid a million a year for doing little more than achieve cosmetic financial improments by degrading the service offered.