CUSTOMERS have labelled the temporary closure of the main Post Office in Trowbridge ‘as a joke’ in the run-up to Christmas at one of the busiest times of the year.
Shoppers were left flabbergasted by a message posted on the door of WH Smith’s retail shop in Fore Street saying the town’s main Post Office would be closed until Monday.
The message said: “Post Office closed until Monday, due to staff sickness.”
The temporary closure occurred at one of the most important times of the year as residents post Christmas cards, letters and parcels to their loved ones at home and overseas.
One customer posted a message on local social media saying: “Cannot believe that the main post office is closed in Smith’s today.
“Last posting Saturday. I had a load of parcels and cards. Had to walk up Dursley Road post office. It’s a joke.”
A member of staff at WH Smith, who wished to remain anonymous, said the Post Office was closed on Saturday because “someone phoned in sick”.
They added: “They are short-staffed in general and get verbal abuse from customers.”
A senior Post Office employee, who didn’t want to be named, said: “It has been so stressful for those working in their new role with WH Smith, the Post Office closed for days at the end of last week.”
On Monday, there were two members of staff in the Post Office and there was a long queue halfway down the shop.
The WH Smith staffer added: “Every time someone phones in sick, the Post Office is short-staffed. They are doing the best they can.”
A Post Office spokesperson said: “Due to exceptional unforeseen circumstances the Post Office has been short-staffed and was temporarily closed for a short period.
"We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused customers. The Post Office reopened on Monday for customers to send their letters and parcels in the run-up to Christmas.”
But Kevin Beazer, the South West regional secretary of the Communication Workers Union in Bristol, said the situation was only to be expected.
He said the vast experience of staff was lost when the town’s main Post Office in Roundstone Street closed in June 2019 and the office was franchised to WH Smith.
Originally, some of the staff moved to the new Post Office in Fore Street but they have since left and WH Smith has recruited its own staff to run it, it is claimed.
Mr Beazer said the new staff have been employed on new terms and conditions and a lower salary with WH Smith having lost the experience of the original post office counters staff.
"The staff are paid less money and are not as highly trained as they used to be in the Crown Office networks. Therefore there is a recipe for problems," he said.
"Under the old Post Office and Crown Office network we just wouldn’t have had that. It just wouldn’t have happened.
“Staff were given the option to take redundancy because of all the transfers and in the main lots of our people left with redundancy because they knew at some point that there would be an attack on their terms and conditions.
“WH Smith and other retailers wanted eventually to get to their staff because they could pay them less money.
“They have now got their own employees on poorer terms and conditions and they have a problem in recruiting.”
Mr Beazer said he was not surprised that staff at the Trowbridge main Post Office were encountering verbal abuse from customers.
He said they were not as highly trained as the postal officers who work in the Crown Offices and post offices that are not franchised.
“I feel sorry for those people because they are being expected to carry on a job where our staff would have been well trained to do it."
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