The end of the road - for a while...

Spread your joyous news on the Mana forum, they need cheering up.

Good to hear you have settled with your system, you are now akin to Vuk.

Regards

Mick

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Originally posted by Mick Parry:
Steven

Good to hear you have settled with your system, you are now akin to Vuk.

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Oh, oh - this isn't going to be pretty...

Regards
Steve

quote:

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I can't be bothered now with any more tweaking or upgrades.

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Until next time.

Glad to hear your happy with your system.

Wish I was.

Steve B

Given that I didn't mention the arrival of my Bog Seats on the Mana Forum, the likely/appropriate response over there should have been F*ck All.

I think JW is getting too paranoid for his own good, and it just isn't healthy!

Regards,

Steve.

The proof of the pudding...

An excellent appraisal.

Regards

Mick

- GregB
STILL Banned

If he banned me from over there, I wouldn't be pissed off enough to become venomous about him and his products over here.

Anyway, why is the guy so paranoid?

Another rhetorical question!

Regards,

Steve.

The proof of the pudding...

Well, I've not logged into the Mana forum since early to mid December, but have browsed (not logged in, cookie long since deleted) and I think in some regards it's definitely looking a lot better than it was circa December. Having long since made my peace with JW and had the odd communication with TF, I'm seeing less and less of the 'nasty side' of the forum these days, which is a good thing. However, the presence of Stumo and Pig's occasional rants sometimes drags the whole thing down a bit.

Anyway, the key thing to note here is that it's a two-way thing - I think JW gets more flak from 'non-believers' and so on, and the smaller size of the forum, combined with the quasi-religious fervour which sometimes prevails can lead to the perception of a rather unpleasant place for an 'outsider' to visit, although I'm man enough to state categorically that enough true gems of postings crop up for me to continue my occasional visits.

I was driven away by a mixture of misinformation and spite, but never really from JW, so I'm going to stick up for him. He may have the occasional short-fuse, but he holds his product dear and I don't blame him for defending it to the end. I'd be very disappointed if he didn't.

Mick has recently been a bit inflammatory - I happen to agree with some of what he has written, but agreement is one thing, saying it on the forum is quite another. Mick, I know you are more intelligent and accomplished than some of whom you criticise, but it doesn't reflect well on anyone. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Lesson over, old chap!

Lastly, there is definitely an 'us' and 'them' attitude prevalent between this and the Mana forum. It's a pity, and needn't be this way - we're all aiming for the same goals (pretty much) and I think we can all probably gain from a bit of balance on either side.

Okay, I've had my wee rant. I'm off to bed, I'm knackered...

TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."

At this very moment I doubt if JW and I are in the mood to send each other a valentines card but my view of Mana has always been from a business perspective.

JW started the company and got it going, but he is too firey for his own and Mana's good. He would be well advised to sit back and let someone more diplomatic run the company, especially from a PR point of view. He has the knack of falling out with everyone at some time and in business that is a serious handicap.

Business is about handshakes, doing deals and keeping the wheels in motion. He needs to learn to smile whilst grating his teeth.

The forum is a mixed bag of intelligent guys such as Pog and TF who can really argue their point.

But JW needs either to kick out, or bring into line the guttersnipe end of Pig, Stumo and Blzebub who come in with either low minded jokes or canon firing venom. If he kicked them out, the forum would very quickly civilise itself.

JW is very loyal to these guys, but loyalty in business is not always a sensible route to take. Sometimes you have to cut the throat of those who hinder your business, and he should have wielded the knife ages ago. Being a manager, sometimes means that you have to do unpleasant things for the overall good of your organisation.

I personally hate sacking people, but I will do it without hesitation if necessary, JW needs to do the same.

Thats my take on it.

Regards

Mick

Mick, as you are a manager in the post office, or whatever you are calling yourselves these days, aren't you currently disqualified from this kind of pronouncement?

John.

Last year we made £650m profit, this year we will make a projected £350m loss.

Simple reason is that HMG is opening up our most profitable markets to competition but we are NOT allowed to compete by adjusting our prices. This means we loose volume and hence profit.

If you want a full blown explanation, (which will bore you to tears), I am happy to oblique, but the regulator has made a decision to allow us to run at a massive loss for a couple of years, at least, in order to encourage competitors to move in. Once they have got their act together, he will hopefully allow free competition to prevail.

Regards

Mick

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

There are too many players in the global telecomunications market, good for the customer but not so good for the industry.

Time for rationalisation ?

Regards

Mick

Johnnp

This could become incredibly boring to everyone else except you and me.

First of all, I did mean rationalisation....Nationalisation is outdated and belongs to the 1900's.

The Postal service will benefit in the long term from being opened to competition, but the early stages that we are now going through are going to be rather painful, espescially for Parcleforce, where they have 4000 named competitors within the uk.

I will predict that with the mail being opened up to the market place, the following will happen within about 7 to 8 years.

1. Commercial customers who send out volume post will experience a massive reduction in price and possibly deliveries 3 or 4 times a day.

2. Most domestic/residential mail posted within the same postcode will probably reduce to about 10p/12p a letter. This may be eben cheaper in cities such as London, Manchester etc.

3. All other mail (ie different postcode)will probably rise to about 40p/45p a letter with a single delivery each day.

4. International mail will become considerably cheaper for commercial customers. The cost of sending your postcard from Spain will be the same price as a double whisky.

Overall, there will be winners and losers. The main winners will be Direct Mail companies (more junk mail)and book clubs, the main losers will be private residents in outlying villages who will only receive a very basic service.

Whether that is good or bad is debateable. I personally welcome it. Whilst the universal tariff is simple, lots of suburban customers heavily subsidise the few rural ones.

Also I was to attend a seminar hosted by Margaret Thatcher in Swindon as part of her UK tour, It is now cancelled. Whatever you think of her politics, she have to admit, she achieved what she set out to do. I admire her tremendously. Her demise really is the end of an era but having said that, Tony Blair is a pretty good Thatcherite.

Regards

Mick

Hmm, more like £700m (and rising) I think.

>> Simple reason is that HMG is opening up our most profitable markets to competition but we are NOT allowed to compete by adjusting our prices. This means we loose volume and hence profit <<

Except the vast majority of Consignia's losses are coming from ParcelForce which operates in a AFAICT in a deregulated market. As Consignia's management hasn't made a profit from ParcelForce in 10 years when lots of other companies make healthy profits from similar businesses one must draw conclusions about the current and past management. And if we take ParcelForce as an example then further exposure of Consignia to competion will presumably, if anything, increase losses.

Luckily Consignia are blessed with a very strong union to protect the workers from further exploitation from incompetant and overpaid management. I'm sure the CWU will join Mick in his impassioned pleas for re-nationalisation.

Matthew

quote:

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Originally posted by Mick Parry:

The Postal service will benefit in the long term from being opened to competition, but the early stages that we are now going through are going to be rather painful, espescially for Parcleforce, where they have 4000 named competitors within the uk.

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I can say that my recent experience of the small parcel service of the UK, is that it's atrocious. out of 4 orders I received only 1. I'm very reticent to buy anything from UK suppliers these days.

Peter

>> but in this case I think you are being somewhat rabidly anti-business, or at least coming across as such <<

I was just playing comedy socialist to Mick's entertaining brand of comedy capitalism

If I were to be serious then obviously the half privatised/deregulated situation has been patently unfair and as you rightly pointed out the lack of investment due to the government creaming off the profits instead of re-investing. But most people's analaysis would also point to failing in senior management. You cannot have 10 years of losing money hand over fist at ParcelForce and not come to that conclusion (whcih is presumably why John Roberts lost his job).

Matthew

Firstly John Roberts is still the Chief Executive of Consignia and he enjoys the full confidence of HMG as well as all at Consignia.

Parcelforce has lost money for the last 10 years because unlike other hauliers it is not allowed to pick and choose to whom it delivers.It is required by statute to deliver to some crofters cottage in the outer hebridees whereas other hauliers are allowed to decline. Also we cannot refuse the types of package other companies reject.

Also by statute, the mail could not subsidise the parcel business. The main fact is that Consignia is bound by rules which are totally out of date from the 1960's.

The main consensous within the business, is the sooner we are given freedom the better. There is no other company that can compete with us even on an infra structure basis and once we are liberalised, we can jack up prices and pay ourselves salaries comparable to those in the private sector.

Regards

Mick

"Firstly John Roberts is still the Chief Executive of Consignia and he enjoys the full confidence of HMG as well as all at Consignia"

I must admit I thought he'd been sacked. Certainly its easy to gain the impression that he has been at the very least been moved sideways to make way for Allan Leighton.

But you work there and obviously know more about business than me so I am quite happy to accept that the best thing for Consignia's current management to do is raise prices in order to pay themselves more money.

Matthew

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It is required by statute to deliver to some crofters cottage in the outer hebridees

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And that costs £350m a year? You are a sensible business man, my offer is I'll guarantee to deliver to every crofter's cottage in the outer hebrides for half of that.

Royal mail makes 22,000,000,000 deiveries each year.

A great deal of that is paying a postman plus van to make a delivery which takes one hour to outlying places.

Also we have to deliver F.O.C on behalf of charities such as the blind.

If we had the freedom to deliver what we wanted to where ever we wanted we would be making a fortune overnight.

The reality is that no one has the infra structure to take us on and that is why the regulator is tying our hands behind our backs, to allow some competition into the market, albeit at our expense in the early stages. If we were given a free reign, no one would enter the market and that is a known matter of fact.

Regards

Mick

What's this got to do with bog seats? Anyway any fule kno tha stands make no diff.

Paul

There is only one decent type of seat and that is a wooden one......forget yer plastic, it's wood or nowt.

Regards

Mick

I have 3 bogs in my house and all of them have wooden seats.

great to hear you are so happy with your oversupply of bog seats (a man can use only one at a time!).

And on "Reaching the end of the road", this sprung to mind (snapped recently whilst driving to the hardware store)...

Somewhat pastoral I know - one would expect black flowers and all, but there's no accounting for nature and the seasons...

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio