Royal Mail

I'm finally starting to settle down into my timetable now, I can actually remember my timetable - something I'm not sure I managed at all last year although seeing as I have less than half the number of taught hours that makes it a lot more reasonable. The weather has been pretty miserable again today and Autumn is definitely on its way yet the cold hasn't begun yet. This is slightly annoying because if it is tipping it down with rain then my first instinct is to reach for my coat but I know that if I wear it I would die of heat exhaustion before I got to the top of the hill. It's a catch 22 situation really and either way I would end up dripping wet! Not that I want the cold to come mind, I quite enjoy being able to walk to the shops in just a hoodie without needing to wrap up in hats, gloves and scarves.

I thought we would be more affected by the recent postal strike but even when supposedly the delivery people were on strike today, we still had a parcel delivered by what appeared to be a temp worker. I understand why the posties are striking but it does seem - as many people have said - to be self harming. They will come back from their two day strike with a mountain of work to get through and they will be expected to clear that backlog meaning more work for them. The other thing that I never quite understood about strikes is that you still go to work. Alright you might not go in uniform but the thought of waking up early and going out to not work seems rather pointless; fair enough it would be a rubbish protest if there was no one on the picket line but maybe they could have a bit of a lie in and stage it in the afternoon or at least late morning.

What makes posties so different to the rest of the workplace? Redundancies are the norm and modernisation is vital to survive - especially in this economic climate and virtually every other industry has seen modernisation cause job losses and its just one of those things that has to happen. Technology improves and most of the time it works faster, doesn't complain and doesn't need paying a wage or a pension. Common sense dictates that the obvious solution is to reap the benefits of such improvement. I do think there should be a compromise however, the workers who remain should also see some benefit for this modernisation. The thought that fewer people can do the same amount of work is ridiculous and if you are going to make them work harder then they deserve to be paid more. If this means increasing the cost of a stamp by 5p then I'm all for it. I don't think many people would complain about a 5p increase (unless they sent a LOT of letters) and there isn't exactly any competition in the sector. Not only are Royal Mail the only company allowed to deliver to the whole of the UK but no other company has the infrastructure to handle the sheer volume of letters that fly up and down the country everyday and no one else comes even close when it comes to price. Just imagine if a company tried to start something similar for everyday mail... they would have to set up collection points and you cannot beat the humble postbox for availability - there are at least 4 I can think of off the top of my head within a five minute walk from my house, one within a minutes walk and the other maybe 2 at most. Then there are probably a few more on my walk down to lectures; the closest someone else could get would be to start partnering with shops WHSmith maybe? The co-op perhaps but even then the initial cost would put them back maybe five years before they would even start to see a hint of profit.

Rant over, and I finished the evening with a trip to 'the other house' and spent most of it watching other people play FIFA on my friends new PS3. I no very little about football and cannot get to grips with console controllers so I excused myself from the proceedings as usual and stuck to spectating. I did manage to get a taste of my cake that still hadn't been started, it turned out that he had two others as well so they are forgiven. I was actually quite impressed even if i do say so myself and it did a brilliant job at filling that midnight food and sugar craving.