Throw-through neck set. Insert panel made of stainless steel. Dampened flap with rain wheel. There are neologisms that will forever remain a mystery to renters with capable property managers. Everyone else has probably had to replace or install a mailbox themselves and are reminded of the tapeworm nature of the German language by the everyday rattling noise.
The rattling was almost forgotten by a SZ reader from Bogenhausen, after all she hadn’t received any mail for eight days in a row. When asked about the incomplete delivery, the new postman described a “factual description of an absolute catastrophe scenario” at his employer Deutsche Post, as the reader described it in a message to the editors. In the Isarvorstadt, letters have also been arriving irregularly for a few months. It can be heard from other inner-city districts that streets there were no longer driven to at times on individual days of the week.
There are letter delivery times that are supposedly not so easy to reconcile with what is set in the so-called “Postal Universal Service Ordinance (PUDLV)” from 1999 as a target for punctual delivery. It states that 80 percent of letters posted within Germany on a working day must have been delivered on the following working day. 95 percent must be delivered on the second following day. However, these specifications relate to the annual average. This means that a grotesquely late summer can be made up for by a punctual rest of the year.
The Post confirms delivery problems
When asked, Klaus-Dieter Nawrath, regional spokesman for the Deutsche Post DHL Group, confirmed that there were occasional delays in letter and parcel delivery in Munich – and that there will probably be more in the future. “The summer wave of infections, which is currently affecting the whole of Germany, is not leaving us unaffected either. The number of infections is also accompanied by a total number of positive cases in our facilities,” he says.
In Munich there is currently a significantly higher level of sick leave. “The delivery is therefore not of the quality that our customers are used to,” says Nawrath. Vacation and vacation times are added, but an accumulation in a specific part of the city cannot be determined. Swiss Post always tries to ensure that shipments are delayed by a maximum of one day.
The privatized company has been trying for years to reduce the letter rate. In the meantime, the delivery pressure is passed on to the deliverers. In Munich, there are still the well-known, classic regular mail carriers, but there are also more and more districts in which the staff changes, says regional spokesman Nawrath. This also has to do with the fact that the delivery districts are redefined once a year because, for example, the number of items, building structure, household density or simply the routes have changed.
The group is looking for employees
“A district is so large that a full-time delivery worker employed there works an annual average of 38.5 hours a week,” says Nawrath. If the staff does not know their way around well enough or has to deal with unforeseen or increasing parcel volumes (each item can weigh up to 31 kilograms), it may be that the contractually agreed maximum working time is reached earlier than originally planned. The result: delivery interruptions and thus delayed mail for some addresses.
The Post is still looking for employees within the city. “We are basically hiring for an unlimited period,” says regional spokesman Nawrath. In addition, optimal work clothing and equipment would be provided. The trade union for postal, postal bank, telecom and call center employees (DPVKOM) is calling for a nationwide hiring offensive and more reliable prospects for employees: “Anyone who sews the staff cover so tightly, who squeezes and burdens the deliverers like that, shouldn’t be surprised , if the delivery falls by the wayside due to illness-related failures,” says DPVKOM national chairwoman Christina Dahlhaus.
In principle, Post customers can contact the central telephone number 0228/4333112 or complain via the Post’s social networks.