Royal Mail, bloody postmen, and delivery people!
And then of course there was the earrings I bought from an eBay seller last July…which eventually arrived this May, 10 months after I’d bought them! (and got a replacement issued by the seller due to the non-appearance of the first ones) No explanation, and the postmark on the package was a couple of days after I’d bought the items in question. Talk about snail mail!
So, back to today’s delivery, or rather non-delivery. On the back of the card it tells you where you local sorting office is and what time they’re open. Bugbear no. 1: the sorting office is only open from 7am to 1pm. Unless you can collect it on your way to work or you work close enough to the sorting office to collect it in your lunch break, you can’t pick it up from the sorting office until the weekend if you work full time (and again, on Saturday they’re only open from 7am to midday!).
Bugbear no. 2: On the back of the card there’s a phone number to ring. That used to be the number of the local sorting office, and you could phone the sorting office to arrange redelivery. The phone was only answered though during the hours the sorting office was open to the public. If you phoned outside these hours you got an answering machine, but the local postmen used to freely admit that the answerphone didn’t work properly and the sorting office staff didn’t always listen to the messages. Now they have a new national rate number where presumably your call gets sent off to somewhere abroad where call centre staff will work more cheaply than here, and you find yourself in one of those automated menu systems…
They might as well say, “Sod off, we don’t want to talk to you!” because the first thing they tell you is that the easiest way to get your item is to collect it from the sorting office yourself. Now call me old-fashioned, but I was under the illusion that you paid your money, stuck your stamps on, and that the postal service then delivered the item to the place the item’s addressed to, not that you did half the work yourself! Then they tell you that the next best way to get your post is to re-book delivery online. Of course this is all very well if you have a computer and access to the internet, but last time I tried that, despite me having an email confirmation of arrange redelivery they claimed that they’d not received my request, and it took another three days to get the item in question. Then they tell you (for a charge!) you can pick it up from your local post office (so they charge you for taking it to one of their own establishments?!). It’s like receiving a phone call but the telecoms company expecting you to go to the local telephone exchange if you actually want to talk to the person who’s called you!
Finally, once you’ve lost the will to live, you have the option of pressing another button and you’re finally able to talk to a real person (who presumably then contacts your local sorting office to tell them to try delivering it again). Maybe it’s just me, but wouldn’t it be better to just cut out the middle-man and let you phone your local sorting office yourself? (presuming they have an answering machine that works).
Bugbear no. 3: On the back of the “sorry we missed you” card there’s a space for the postie to write how long to leave it before attempting to collect the item from the sorting office. I remember a few years ago they used to write things like “2 hours”, “4 hours”, or “6 hours,” because of course it tells you on the card what time they attempted to deliver the item. It then progressed to “24 hours” and now we’re at “48 hours!” Maybe I’m missing something, but how the hell does it take 48 hours for an item of post 48 hours to get back to a sorting office that’s less than 2 miles away?! Even if the postie walks there rather than taking the van (or the bus, as I have seen postmen on buses before now)! I guess that it really is snails they’re using!
Okay, rant over. I’ll get on and do something useful now while I wait for another knock on the door, as it’s now about time for the postman doing the walking round to arrive…maybe…
Pages: 1 2
