Monday 13 December 2010

Post Office (lack of) Efficiency

Last Saturday we did another 'Messy Church' event which meant that just over sixty people filled the church building. There was noise, there was Christmas music and there was lots of very obvious activity. Yet somehow, quite amazingly, the person employed by the Post Office to deliver packets (for it packet it was, not a flat and definitely not a parcel either) managed to miss the fact that the front door was open and that the building was definitely occupied.

Having missed the obvious signs, he rang the Vicarage doorbell and left a card telling us that there was no one in the church or the house and so he'd taken the packet back to the Delivery Office. Hey ho, not a great problem, thought I, I'll go early Monday morning. And so I did, and after collecting the last three items from said place and being told I didn't need identification other than the little red card, today I was told that I need other forms of identification. Now it was addressed to me, I had the card and I was wearing a dog-collar, but the bloke said, "I can't give it to you, I'm only doing my job!" and that was it!

Now, I'm frustrated because I usually grab my wallet (with all the ID ever needed) and I'm frustrated because a few collections back I was told that I couldn't have the item because I didn't have the red card. Apparently ID isn't needed, it's the card that proves you can collect it!

What a bunch of Wallies the Post Office appear to be at times. The packet in question (the Postie did show it to me) wasn't what I was in dire need of, it was something posted fourteen days ago! Leads me to wonder whether privatisation of the Post Office might not be a wrong move after all.

That said, I'm still waiting for a packet that was posted last Wednesday and received a book through the post that took just over two weeks to come all the way from South London. So not sure whether I'm frustrated at the 'jobsworth' Postie, the naff service of the Post Office generally (any one else noticed how some days there's no delivery and then you get a mountain (it's all about doubling up and managing the walks!) or the fact that we often get out mail (when addressed to the 'Parsonage' tossed into a hedge up the road when our regular (superb) Postwoman is away.

Seem to me that the Post Office is in need of some very drastic surgery.

Still, the Delivery Office encounter was funny and will do many a lunch-time as entertainment among the other dog-collars.

5 comments:

Revsimmy said...

I don't know about privatisation, Vic. DHL have taken almost a week so far to deliver a TV my son ordered for delivery last Thursday. Their tracking system shows it has already had quite an adventure!

Jill said...

One of my neighbours was looking out of her window recently and saw the postman walk up to her door and post something, then walk away. No knocking, no doorbell ringing. It was a card saying 'while you were out ...'

The package happened to be something she needed urgently (which was why she was looking out of the window) but she then had to wait 24 hours before going out in the cold and snow to catch a bus to the Post Office to collect it.

I think this is pretty poor. This was an old lady, not up to chasing postmen down the road.

UKViewer said...

I live in a Urban village in outer London. Our delivery office is half a mile away, and we had not had snow for over 10 days.

Our deliveries remain sporadic at best and I am still waiting for last weeks church times, normally in my door on a Friday. I got the previous weeks last Thursday.

I have also had the delivery office experience, once for an expensive mobile phone, I was handed it with only the red card. The next time, collecting a book, I needed to return home and collect my driving license to prove that I both resemble my photograph and live at the address.

I worked for the post office in London, from 1965-67, before joining the army. In those days, it was Civil Service, and highly efficient with up to 4 deliveries a day, a telegram, special delivery and express delivery service. As a messenger boy (as we were called) I took packages all over south east england and even delivered to the Palace and 10 Downing Street.

We had a work ethos, which seemed to dissipate once the industry was nationalised and lost its civil service heritage. It has been down hill all the way since.

I can seem them being bought out by the German Budestpost, which is highly efficient and is in the business of buying up failing postal systems and turning them around. We could do worse than selling it to them.

Jenni said...

I have been trying to get my post redirected to my new home on Royal Mails online site for a week, I fill in the form, I fill in the payment bit, the click safe form, press the button,and it can't verify my details !!!! What else do they need?? details of what I had for breakfast....now I have to go to the post office a 6 mile round trip on my bike with two forms of I.D so that they know it's me!

Vic Van Den Bergh said...

I have been told (via a different medium) that the person who left the 'no answer' card probably didn't have the package with them at the time. Apparently this a a common practice as the 'doubling up' of walks and other pressures on the poor old Postie grows.

Perhaps the way forward with this is to have packets and the like dropped off at the local sub-post office (i.e the nearest place) and have people pick them up - this would at least reduce the stuff the delivery staff are lugging around.

And RevSimmy - I know what you mean about UPS/DHL and others - we had something come and we watched it leave the US, arrive in the UK and then meander around Britain for a few days before it turned up :)