By Gunnar Schupelius
Despite an unemployment rate of almost nine percent in Berlin, Deutsche Post cannot find enough applicants for the delivery service. Why is that? Something is wrong there, says Gunnar Schupelius.
“The post office doesn’t bring you a letter,” says one of the songs from Franz Schubert’s “Winterreise”. A man is waiting for the message from his beloved, but there is no news.
It’s even worse in Mariendorf: no more mail arrives here. We have already reported that in Grimmingweg and its surroundings the boxes remained empty for days and weeks. The BZ readers Ralf Borngräber, Marianne Berstorff and Raimund Markus reported that they waited in vain for their letters.
Karl-Heinz Brendel also lives south of the racecourse and didn’t get any mail for two weeks. He has a small company and is dependent on correspondence, he writes. He received no reply from Deutsche Post to his protest.
He even went to the police to find out where the post was. But the officers couldn’t help him. On September 28, he contacted BZ and we asked Deutsche Post about it.
Mr. Brendel then informed us that the deliverer had reappeared. The post office informed him by e-mail what awaited him in the mailbox soon. But most of the missing letters have not yet been delivered.
There was only a few subsequent deliveries, including issue no. 40 of the magazine “Stern”. But Brendel is still waiting in vain for issue No. 39.
On request, Deutsche Post confirmed that there were problems with the delivery, which was due to the lack of staff. What did that mean exactly?
We asked again and received a very friendly and detailed answer from the spokeswoman for Regional Communications North of the Post, Anke Blenn.
“We would like to apologize to the customers whose shipments could not be delivered as quickly as usual,” she wrote to the BZ
“Various measures have been taken to achieve the usual delivery quality in this area again in a timely manner”. For example, “individual employees from surrounding delivery areas” were used “to increase the number of staff”.
Because that is actually the biggest problem, spokeswoman Blenn confirms that there is a lack of staff. Despite “an intensive search for new delivery colleagues” there are “not enough applicants in large parts of Berlin”.
That’s amazing, because Deutsche Post offers secure jobs with collective wages. It’s not the most comfortable job because you have to work outdoors in all kinds of weather, but it’s not the worst job you can get either. So why isn’t Swiss Post finding enough employees?
There are many unemployed in Berlin, around 180,000 in September. Most of them are able to work. So many of them would rather stay at home than work in the delivery service, for example. Why is that? Something is wrong.
Is Gunnar Schupelius right? Call: 030/2591 73153 or email: [email protected]