Royal Mail - I couldn't hate you more right now!

I'm sure some of my fellow UK based Giantbomb users have been hearing or even affected by Royal Mail employees being all nice right before Christmas and deciding to go on strike for pretty crappy reasons. Well I've been having all sorts of problems with them, I even got angry when I went to my nearest sorting centre. Felt a bit stupid afterwards though, wasn't the poor kid's behind the desk's fault. Went and apologised, but still it's driving me mad.  
 
It's affecting me in many ways with despatching stuff and crap, but one thing that as drove me mad is with my iPod Touch part. I'm currently in the middle of fixing a broken screen and ordered a digitizer a month back, the seller despatched it a month back and still yet to receive it. Worst of all is that the Royal Mail know where it is and the fact is that they won't be sorting out the backlog any time soon, so it's stuck in London and will probably be for a good month or longer more. I used my iPod Touch endlessly for all sorts of things so not having it sucks big time. Damn you Royal Mail.  
 
Have no sympathy for Royal Mail right now, kind of wish the Government would finally give the contract to TNT UK who keep asking for it every so often. I suspect the population of the UK have little sympathy for them either, with the Christmas Period starting and so many unemployed, it all feels wrong and selfish on the part of Royal Mail employees.  
 
Anyone else being affected by it?

The contracts should be up for grabs instead of Royal Mail just having them, doesn't seem right with the fact they're striking so much.

 @TrueEnglishGent:

Its cause for concern, if the strikes do go ahead with seems a given at this point, its going to cause havok with alot of games i've ordered, although I won't be taking any chances this week and picking certain games up from the high street.
 
As far as having no sympathy for Royal Mail employees its hard to say, on one hand I don't fully understand there situation so I have no real idea about there causes for complaint, but yes, I am one of those unemployed and it looks like it will remain that way over the Christmas period, and in that respect apart of me thinks it is very selfish to be demanding improvements over pay and jobs and will do them no favours in the publics opinion, as at the end of the day we are the ones getting shafted by it.

I thought the days of these kinds of strikes was a thing of the past.  I can't remember the last time we had a strike with Australia Post (who are genuinely efficient as a government business).  Some unions still like to bite the hands that feed them.

Yep, the Royal Mail suck. They're in my good books at the moment though seeing as I got my copy of Uncharted 2 two days before release.

I can see why they're striking and i'd hardly say it's for crappy reasons but I can see why it's a pain.

I hear people who ordered Borderlands online are geting there copies a few days early to avoid the strikes

The strikers have their point, but I as a customer could not give a fuck about it quite frankly.  I hate Royal Mail for reasons aside from this recent strike action, my business has suffered directly from their continuously crappy and downright shoddy service. The sooner the government sell up the better things will be for all. In the meantime I will choose to use UPS and DHL to have important mail delivered.

It's seems like both sides of this trade dispute are being pig-headed, Royal MAil are refusing to go into negotiation and the union is jumping straight to the option of striking, without realising the RM's business just isn't what it used to be and strikes might now could kill it forever.
More personally, having recently applied for XMas work there I'm a bit worried about having to cross a picket line, I believe in the unions, we need them to ensure workers don't get screwed and I've got a strong unionist family history, but I'm unemployed and if I turn down an opportunity to work I could stop getting my JSA

What!? I just ordered something from England .. meh, hope I'll get it soon =/

" It's seems like both sides of this trade dispute are being pig-headed, Royal MAil are refusing to go into negotiation and the union is jumping straight to the option of striking, without realising the RM's business just isn't what it used to be and strikes might now could kill it forever. More personally, having recently applied for XMas work there I'm a bit worried about having to cross a picket line, I believe in the unions, we need them to ensure workers don't get screwed and I've got a strong unionist family history, but I'm unemployed and if I turn down an opportunity to work I could stop getting my JSA "

" Yep, the Royal Mail suck. They're in my good books at the moment though seeing as I got my copy of Uncharted 2 two days before release. "

that sucks for people who need some mail but people are on strike.

It's so stupid - You can get made redundant in seconds, nobody cares but if you DONT DO YOUR JOB they are legally obliged NOT to fire you...

My preorder of Forza 3 was dispatched today from Shopto.net, meaning I got free 1st class, so with any luck I should get it tomorrow. If I don't then there will be the strikes so I will get it Saturday prolly.

I hope this doesn't mess up my Borderlands pre-order.

Ive had several pre-orders go days to a week without delivery after release date thanks to these cunts 
 
Even if they are justified in their reasons, i have no sympathy for them - at the end of the day why should anyone support them, when due ot their actions, people are losing jobs, mortgages, loans and housing because of documents and payments not going through? 
 
Just because they have a little beef with their job, they think it's fine to disrupt and in some cases outright ruin peoples livelihoods? Fuck those guys! 
 
I hate my job and there's other branches of my company that operate better than my own but that doesn't give me the damn right to strike out!

Having worked for the royal mail i can say you don't know how shit it is to work there everyday . So stop whining they definitely deserve ALOT More then they get .

The BBC need to show that old Panorama episode again, and the follow up one that was filmed AFTER the reforms ( -it's a fucking joke), so others feel the same way about them. 

It's actually slightly more complicated than that mate.  While the Royal Mail actually contracts out a lot of their work to other companies for delivery they still send things through the Royal Mail's channels.  ie the same trains, the same vans, the same offices and the same posties.  You can tell that if your mail has been subcontracted by the stamp on it, if it has been subcontracted the Royal Mail gets roughly 1/4 the money for the postage.  If it has the Royal Mail symbol on it then it's actually been sent by them, if it doesn't it's "sent" by another company through the Royal Mail's systems.  So while the Royal Mail is claiming that they are sending less letters and are therefore hiring less staff they are actually delivering more mail per day than they did 10 years ago.  
 
But I'll agree that this is a shitty way to act that really fucks with everyone else's plans.

to get Brutal Legend on time i paid the extra money for Shopto to send it by another service. 
also the comic site i use just straight up told me that they aren't shipping while the strike is going off, but they did let me order all the comics i wanted for the next month or two.

How would you feel working 21 hours and getting paid 3.20 an hour . They deserve way more . If you haven't worked there then you don't have a clue how shit the job is .

You have my sympathies, my European brothers. 
 
Sucks when government institutions decide that while the rest of the world is falling apart, and no one can find jobs, these guys decide its vacation time!

I hate strikes in the UK, it's more about how fucking lazy people are than how greedy they are. A great example of this is that here in London the tubes strike all the time, they close down all the stations and the city literally loses BILLIONS in lost man hours, it's completely fucking selfish, but when I was in japan and the tubes striked in tokyo they simply opened the gates, kept working and let everyone ride for free. People got to work, and the only people that lost out was the train company.
 
Something like that should happen with the royal mail, they should just send everything, regardless of if it has a stamp or not, and promote sending mail without stamps.

Got my copy of Forza 3 from Royal Mail this morning.
I'm pretty happy.

Good for the Royal Mail to go on strike. The USPS gets treated like shit here in the states and they really dont strike.

My sorting office (Limehouse) has been on strike for months, I get one lot of post a week if I'm lucky, and I'm still waiting for stuff from months ago. If you call the number they give you, they tell you to come and pick it up, but if you get there after lunch they've left their picket and fucked off home. What's the point of being on strike if you're not there to tell anyone?

" I hate strikes in the UK, it's more about how fucking lazy people are than how greedy they are. A great example of this is that here in London the tubes strike all the time, they close down all the stations and the city literally loses BILLIONS in lost man hours, it's completely fucking selfish, but when I was in japan and the tubes striked in tokyo they simply opened the gates, kept working and let everyone ride for free. People got to work, and the only people that lost out was the train company.  Something like that should happen with the royal mail, they should just send everything, regardless of if it has a stamp or not, and promote sending mail without stamps. "

" @Soap said:

" I hate strikes in the UK, it's more about how fucking lazy people are than how greedy they are. A great example of this is that here in London the tubes strike all the time, they close down all the stations and the city literally loses BILLIONS in lost man hours, it's completely fucking selfish, but when I was in japan and the tubes striked in tokyo they simply opened the gates, kept working and let everyone ride for free. People got to work, and the only people that lost out was the train company.  Something like that should happen with the royal mail, they should just send everything, regardless of if it has a stamp or not, and promote sending mail without stamps. "

That, is a simply brilliant way of striking. "

I pre-ordered Borderlands from amazon.co.uk and now im worried I wont get it anytime soon (im outside the UK, but usually get games in 2 days from amazon)... damn it, i NEED borderlands

" I pre-ordered Borderlands from amazon.co.uk and now im worried I wont get it anytime soon (im outside the UK, but usually get games in 2 days from amazon)... damn it, i NEED borderlands "

im so thankful that microsoft uses UPS for when you send the 360 in for repairs, because mine's due back anytime

Read this, it's written by a postman. I knew none of the reasons why they were striking, but this clears things up pretty well.
 
 http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n18/maya01_.html  

blargh! My first class package of Forza 3 that should've arrived today hasn't yet. I doubt they will deliver it after 4PM.Now I won't get it until Saturday prolly.

Waiting on delivery of Pro Evo and Uncharted 2, would normally be here on Friday or Saturday, but with them striking Thursday and Friday it'll not be until sometime next week. Really stupid time a year to start strikes, gonna cause maximum disruption to the people they really want on their side - the customers.

Looks like were all starting to see the effects, i ordered a new sony bluetooth headset and a bargin copy of resistance 2 from play.com at the same time, the game arrived this morning but not the headset so it looks like it'll be held back by all the strikes, on a note about GAME i've been getting e-mails saying my pre-order copies of MW2 (360) and Dragon Age (pc) won't be effected as they are taking measures to ensure delivery, but as some have stated anything from play.com that doesn't arrive today could get buggered.

For the record, despite my obvious anger earlier in this thread, I've got nothing against the postmen themselves, only the cunts in charge of them.   
 
Royal Mail should die, along with the Queen. 

" For the record, despite my obvious anger earlier in this thread, I've got nothing against the postmen themselves, only the cunts in charge of them.    Royal Mail should die, along with the Queen.  "

I work for the royal mail and I think that this whole strike is stupid. The union is holding the company off the edge of a cliff and using what basically amounts to suicide in order to get what they want...which is not to lose their jobs. The company is in a really precarious position financially, so this kind of action from the unions are stupid and I agree with everyone who is against it.

I just got an email from GAME.  Apparently they are using another postal service to deliver the games on time for no extra cost.  They give you the option of paying for your delivery but that doesn't seem like a great idea to me.  The game's going to come on the day of release either way.

well my amazon.co.uk borderlands shipped, lets see what happens now >_>

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