He denied that the French post office was cashing in on friendly gestures that postal workers had been doing for years for free. “Postal workers always spontaneously and informally connected with clients and looked out for them, and that will continue. But what we’re doing is adding new services and bringing greater value.”
In my opinion, La Poste (the France’s publicly owned postal service) found a terrible way to break the social link with their customers. The actual situation is postal workers in France are complaining to work in terrible conditions because of a new work organization, monetize what make La Poste a more human and quality service won't improve anything.
At best, this is a well-intentioned but poorly thought out initiative.
I have lived in rural France on and off for the last 20 years. The post person changes with the weather, and we have to remind them where the house is every few months. They drive ridiculously long routes, covering hundreds of kilometres on rural roads every day, and it isn’t uncommon to have them show up at 9pm with their girl or boyfriend in tow, as they’re still on their route and it’s the only way they get to see each other.
How they think that these already prodigiously overworked people will have the time for social visits is beyond me. How they think any kind of community bond can be built by a worker who’s going to burn out and leave in a few months is beyond me.
It’s like they’ve entirely failed to consider their reality before their PR department steamrolled this through.
There’s a much better way of building community and getting old people out - night markets. They started as a touristy thing, but now many communes are doing their own small scale ones, and providing a bus service for people without transport. The one in our hamlet has been heaving, and seeing people who I only ever see alone at home sharing a meal with their neighbours is a real pleasure. It also generates an income for the commune, and supports local businesses. Win-win-win.
La poste is seriously degraded. Maybe they changes recently, but many employees told nasty management stories (incompetent young or old bullies) with no regard for service, only productivity and sales.
In my opinion, La Poste (the France’s publicly owned postal service) found a terrible way to break the social link with their customers. The actual situation is postal workers in France are complaining to work in terrible conditions because of a new work organization, monetize what make La Poste a more human and quality service won't improve anything.