In the 1990s, the BBC broadcast a popular sitcom called 2 Point 4 Children. One of the actors, Kim Dodge (pictured), has recently started a blog. (She also played characters in Grange Hill and political comedy The New Statesman.) She relays her frustration at the Post Office:
I’ve just come back from a frustrating visit to the Enfield Town Post Office. To say that their queuing system is a law unto themselves is an understatement. Being English I love a queue, so after a 10 minute wait in the wrong queue I was then told to join the ‘main’ queue… which was even longer. This I did, only to be told once I reached the counter that they could not deal with me there… and that I had to queue for a third time. The staff were rude and unpleasant and seemed to take pleasure in saying “Our Computer Says NOOOO”. They all need a course in customer care. These very same staff are ’striking’ [that is, until yesterday; the strike is currently suspended] because they want a higher pay rise offer. Don’t give it to them they are rubbish. It is surely time to show the Post Office and its workers that they no longer have a stranglehold on postal matters and there is now a free market out there. Perhaps then we will get proper customer care!
It’s a good thing for people’s salaries to go up but in the private sector this happens as productivity rises. Unfortunately, the trade union concerned is opposed to modernisation, as happens so often when state-owned companies are concerned. Having the Post Office and its parent Royal Mail Group in the state sector is an anomaly which leads to poor service and great inefficiencies.
With the increasing competition in the post throughout the European Union, it seems the trade unions simply want to stick their heads in the sand. It’s time for the Royal Mail Group to benefit from the vitality of private sector ownership
Tags: consignia, kim dodge, post office, royal mail