Tag Archives: Postal Strike

Jul 7 2010

British Airways – offers galore…

I have travelled a couple of times with BA, but not recently. But they have my email address – and have been badgering me…lots. I had three emails in one 24 hour period at the weekend. I feel a bit bullied again!

There are ‘offers’ and things I just can’t afford to miss. And a tie up with Comic Relief, so I can fly and give to Charity.

I blogged about BA before and think that their days are numbered.

No matter how many offers they send me I wouldn’t risk flying with them. Even though the Industrial action might be stopping, I don’t trust them to actually get me there! I can’t face the prospect of having to rearrange travel plans at short notice.

I could have booked with them on my upcoming trip to Shanghai, in fact their seats are £200 cheaper than Virgin Atlantic. But the risk is too high.

I am not happy that the National Carrier is not my first choice, but Virgin have never let me down. Their service is great and reliable.

I think this strike has done BA a significant amount of harm. Industrial Action just makes people find alternatives – like the postal strike last year.

I wonder when the Unions will wake up to this?

Dec 29 2009

Spring Cleaning (early)

Today was not one I was looking forward to. I had agreed with my PA that we would have a clear out of filing – in readiness for 2010! It was suggested that I was a magpie – but I like to think that I can put my hand on papers / files quickly. Alas they are going to secure storage …

The files for archiving (you can't see the ones on the floor!)


I would love us to have a paperless office – and it is something we are looking into. In fact we do a lot of our correspondence by email. Earlier today my mate at Purple Circle – John Lyle blogged about writing letters. He was advocating their use. I am actually in agreement as I think they do have a place, but as I blogged about before we do need to sort our postal system! My Christmas Card episode and the Postal Strike do put me off.

But what is really worrying is the amount of paper we use! Our photocopiers have counters on – and were at 524,000 copies last year. That is a frightening amount of paper! Not to mention toner and electricity – or files to put the stuff in!

You can also see where it all goes – into files. We need to keep files for our professional records, but there has to be a better way. Lawyers have a case management system; I spoke to one before Christmas and she has no paper at all! I think surveyors need the same, although I am not sure I could read a lease on a screen – plans are also an issue.

It would also be great if you could somehow ‘manage’ email threads – so that you didn’t re-print pages of the same emails. Now that would be clever – if someone could invent it?

In the meantime – we have some space in the cabinets in readiness for filling up next year! I will have to plant a tree (or two).

Dec 26 2009

Grumpy old Xmas rant

I decided not to have a rant yesterday – trying to keep the whole Christmas thing uplifting and cheerful. It was a great day.

paying the penalty for the wrong stamp


My rant was formulated the day before – when we had a card posted through the letter box telling us that there was a delivery for collection at the Post Office. So off we dutifully set – to collect a Christmas Card. It cost me £1.17 to collect. The card cost 99p – it said so on the back.

I had thought it was because there was no stamp – but not so, there was a second class stamp. The reason – the card was oversize – so the 17p was to make up for the shortfall – £1 for administration. No account of my time in collecting the card (or driving there!) And what of handling all those £1.17′s?

The world really has gone mad – the friendly postie did tell me that he had 200 cards to write (collecting £1.17 each time). Of course these were yet to be delivered…

My grumpiness is that people have innocently bought cards and put stamps on – only to be caught out by the new (stupid) rules about letter sizes.

My firm this year did not send cards through the post – we paid for a card to be made electronically with a game and sent it to 4,000 people. We would have perhaps sent 3,000 cards previously! I blogged before about the Postal Strike and my dim view of it. The card companies also ought to take note of the new rules too – I am sure many people have bought cards not realising that they are larger than the maximum size for the basic cost.

One of my resolutions for the new year is to use the post less. And the reason is the inconvenience that it now puts me to. A shame but true.

Nov 7 2009

The beginning of the end or vice versa?

My business is at the heart of the property industry in the east midlands – although we do work beyond too.

The most frequent question we are asked is – is the worst of the recession over. And the answer is we don’t know. I am not a fan of talking the market down – the press do a pretty good job of that. But, it is difficult to say it’s green on this side of the field – it isn’t. The market is tough. Deal are hard to do.

Gerald “Crap” Ronson said this week that “We are only two years in to the nightmare and we need to be prepared for another five to seven years before we see sunshine.” I am not sure I share this view. But I do think it will be difficult for a bit longer yet.

2010 is not looking too good – we have a winter of discontent on the cards by the looks of the number of strikes on the cards (post, fire fighters, council staff et al). And then we have an election in May? Followed by a period of ‘review’ – i.e. do nothing!

We are now closed gutted

Another one bites the dust


And this week we saw data from the Local Data Company which showed that out of 251,000 shops across the UK, 25,000 have closed since January! Department stores, Womenswear and Childrenswear were hardest hit. In Nottingham you can see this just by walking down into Hockley. But, I was in Hornchurch in the week and that seemed a remarkably resilient place with very few vacancies. So, again the picture is not clear.

It’s pretty cold comfort if you have a business and you are in trouble. The BBC reported yesterday that there were 35,242 personal insolvencies in the third quarter of 2009, up 28% from the same period last year and an increase of 6.6% on the previous three months.

I would like to think that this is the beginning of the end… But just like the date for my gas supply pipe at Abel Collins, I’m not holding my breath!

Oct 20 2009

Adapt or wither?

If I am honest I have no idea what the real issues are behind the proposed postal strike – pay, conditions and modernisation are the headlines.

What saddens me is the apparent demise of the postal service. It looks like it is coming to an end. I am sad as I think there is still something special about composing, writing and sending a letter. After all that’s why I have some really nice pens. The art of writing seems to be dying out with kids using laptops and phones to communicate!

My favourite Mont Blanc Pen - facing redundancy?

My favourite Mont Blanc Pen - facing redundancy?

But what is happening is that the world is changing. Twitter is the new letter writing?

So what is left for the Post Office? Well, in my business, we still write letters and reports. We also send out some promotional literature. In fact, on the latter, we spend around £6,000 pa.

But the proposed strikes have made us think again – and last week we decided as a business that we are now going to concentrate on sending ‘letters’ by email – with no hard copy. And I can’t help wondering if this really could be the final nail in the coffin for Royal Mail.

“Technology is providing new ways of communicating,” City minister Lord Myners said today in an interview.

And by striking – and thus taking away a service the Royal Mail looks like it will force business to look at other methods of communicating with its customers.

I was reminded of the 1989 Book by Charles Handy – The Age of Unreason – in which he starts by suggesting, “If you boil water and drop a frog in it – it jumps out immediately. However, if you put that frog in a pot of cold water and slowly heat it, the frog adapts its body temperature to that of the water until at 100 degrees centigrade it boils alive”

The moral seems to be that there are dangers for people who do not notice that the world is changing. And this is a real shame. Postmen (and women) provide more than just a delivery service – especially in rural parts. They are a key part of the community – just as Milkmen were years ago….

As I said at the outset, I don’t know what the really issues are – but it seems to me that “game over” will appear on a laptop screen soon. And we can save at least £6,000….