Christmas temp mail sorting. (Royal Mail Group Ltd)

Member Name: stokx

Product:	Royal Mail Group Ltd
Date:	26/02/09 (117 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy job to get, OK pay, lots of hours available.

Disadvantages: Horrible work, money comes after christmas,

I worked sorting mail for two weeks as a Christmas temp.
I started at 6 am and was scheduled to finis at 2 pm but normally had some overtime.
There is a massive amount of work available, I did 15 days out of 10 and did extra hours on some days. The standard rate is £5.95 but you get more for overtime and you get holiday pay pro rata.
Unfortunately the money doesn't arrive until after Christmas and then it is split into payments for each week and separate holiday pay spaced a few days apart.
The work is easy and boring; there are envelopes with post codes on them, boxes with post codes on them and two days training.
The training is done a few days before the two weeks work starts which is awkward to fit into Christmas holiday, I had to move shifts at my regular job last minute because I wasn't told when Royal mail actually wanted me - in fact it was implied training took a few hours at the start of the first day.
Training is completely useless of course and focuses on health and safety.
The job requires you to stay standing all day and you have to break the binding around stacks of magazines with your fingers which becomes painful.
For a change you can sort parcels which is better since bigger movements don't make you ache as much.
They have the radio on an you can listen to your MP3 player; I spent the time learning virology from university of Warwick podcasts (available to download online).

Summary: Anything in bearable for 2 weeks.