Your cheque’s in the post … Post Office chairman Donald Masson reassures Bronwen Jones service will definitely get better
THE darkest hour before the dawn, is how South Africa’s Post Office chairman describes his own company.
Donald Masson has apology down to a fine art. As customers swing the sword of righteous anger, he says “Sorry”. He can weave an infinite variety of apologies into a 40-minute soliloquy.
This makes it difficult to attack, by asking, for instance, why a bookseller claims to have lost more parcels in the past 12 months than in the previous 37 years, or why organisers of a trade fair were astonished that some hoped-for clients never received their invitations.
Many companies are shifting communications to couriers, facsimile machines or computerised e-mail. Many job adverts now suggest you fax your CV rather than post
As Masson’s own frustration builds, he has employed South African consultant Proudfoot, which did the initial consulting work and changes for New Zealand’s Post Office commercialisation nine years ago. Tom Cook, an Australian, ran the New Zealand operation and is now here on contract, so are the New Zealanders who implemented it. Additional expertise has been brought from Canada for the new Track and Trace parcel bar- coding system.
Postal problems are worst in Gauteng, where residents have a 60 percent chance of their mail arriving in reasonable time. Masson says things will not be right until this area is sorted out, “because the Witwatersrand accounts for 50 percent of our business”.
Masson takes umbrage when people blame the Post Office for their problems. He denies, for instance, that the Post Office was to blame for the recent Iscor rights issue delays. “Their printers let them down as well. And Marius de Waal, their chairman, didn’t receive anything because it went to his old address. “In the northern suburbs we found 800 slips still in post boxes where people hadn’t collected Iscor registered mail. They buggered it up,” says Masson.
It’s not as if delays haven’t hit Masson personally. When he celebrated 40 years of marriage at the Johannesburg Country Club, he posted invitations countrywide. He raises his eyebrows and says: “My director in Cape Town got it a month after the event.”
On the subject of postal crime, Masson pleads that the plunging morality of society at large is beyond his skills. “In the past two to three years South Africa’s moral standards have dropped. “I was hijacked at 7:15 in the morning in Parkview. There’s a senior manager at Telkom on a fraud case. Shoprite Checkers loses R64- million a year on theft by staff and customers. Crime is everywhere.”
Masson acknowledges ineptitude and corruption in the postal services. There are inside jobs on a large scale. He talks of the three pages of robberies “not just little burglaries” he has just showed the board, and the R2-million inside job stealing pensions paid by the government.
Even in his own office crime is rampant. “We bought 200 cups and saucers. There are 400 people. In the space of a month or so, all the crockery was stolen. People were boasting that they had entire sets.” If they were poorly paid he would not feel so bad. “But even a floor sweeper earns more than R1 400 a month,” he says.
The success rate at catching criminals is improving with 28 people involved in a syndicate responsible for stealing R600 000 of cheques from the post locked up in the Western Cape a month ago. Masson says sadly: “My internal auditor was part of it.”
He remains astonished at the audacity of employees. “I have a postmaster who steals R40 000 from me to buy rubies. We lay a charge and he asks for another chance! How can he expect that? The Post Office must have integrity. I have two million Savings Bank customers with R1,5-billion invested. They must trust us.”
The crooked will be caught. Masson is installing surveillance equipment in all the mail centres and has employed extra roving inspectors to check on post
It is a Herculean struggle to change the old mindset. To make the Post Office into a real business where employees understand its economics. Where four years ago there wasn’t a post office open at lunchtime, now there is night sorting in Cape Town and Durban and soon, he hopes, there will be in Johannesburg.
“I went on a roadshow and explained the annual report to 3 500 employees. It helped a great deal,” he said.
At all levels he’s pushing out dud staff, whether they are too slow at sorting envelopes or plain unwilling to tackle problem areas.
In all there are 4 000 people too many. “You’ve got to take out the lazy ones, the sleepers” and find a solution to 900 people in the former TVBC states “who haven’t done a stitch of work in the past 12 months.”
It’s Spring 1995 and the foundations for a future Post Office are being laid. Computer links now tell different areas how many mail trucks are coming through so that they can call in part-time sorters on standby. They will be able to sort 1 800 letters an hour and trucks will leave every hour, taking mail close to its final destination.
People who want to observe religious holidays that are no longer public holidays can book the days off as part of their annual leave. Some post centres will be open in the evening and on Sundays. Night workers get an additional 34 percent on their salaries.
The old unequal perks will go. Close to 900 postmasters’ houses have been sold. They used to bring in R2 000 in rent a year while costing R5 500 in
Following the New Zealand’s lead, the best, not the worst, staff will work in the mail centres. No longer will a manager throw an unsorted bag of mail on to a truck in order to meet his quota.
Supervisory positions have been cut and staff will only be promoted on merit, not length of service. And to calm the egos of postmasters, Masson has not only removed the “no entry” signs to their offices but in many cases has taken the doors off their hinges as
All parcels will operate on Track and Trace in four to five months’ time (just in time for Christmas), but for now it’s just insured parcels.
Legislation protects the Post Office to a large extent from claims for letters lost among the eight million posted each day. Last year there were more than
12 500 complaints received for non-delivery of registered items. But in future one will be able to claim refunds if Fast Mail comes a day late. All refunds will come from a specific account to keep a tally of problems.
Masson lists as recent postal achievements the installation of 700 000 private post boxes in a year — nearly as many as in the previous 200 years. But still the Post Office’s estimated operational loss in 1995/96 will be R358-million. “We know what must be done. Things will get worse before they get better.”
He promises that within a year from now delivery targets in Johannesburg will be met 92 percent of the time. And maybe next Ascension Day his staff won’t hand-deliver a cartoon showing Masson as Lucifer, bringing about the end of the Afrikaner. Maybe by then they’ll have enough confidence in the delivery system to post their opinions.