I can distinctly remember as a kid the Postman calling at the house before 7am when my father went to work, the mail was always on the mat before I left for school at 8am, but not today, My mail now arrives sometime between 10:30am and 2:00pm, but more often than not at 1:30pm, what the hell is going on?
Why the sudden change in delivery times, I often receive mail that needs a signature, living alone I am always out to work when the postman calls, which means I get the little red card suggesting I go to the local sorting office and pick it up there, a good 2 miles away, a bloody cheek if you ask me, I may as well deliver my own mail because I am always visiting the sorting office, so the other week I was working from home when the doorbell rang, I walked down 1 flight of stairs opened the door and the little red card was already on the doormat, I opened the door and he was delivering mail to my neighbour, I called him back and he handed me my letter that I signed for, I asked him why he had not waited for me to get down the stairs, 'Don't have time to wait mate' he said, I said he could not have written out the card in that short a time, 'No' he replied 'I write them in the van', WTF, so i said, 'You just ring the bell poke the card through the door and off you go', 'Yeap, that's about it he said', at this point I am starting to get a little agitated as he keeps trying to walk away, 'Hang on a minute' I say, 'SO you don't even wait to see if anyone is in'? 'No mate' he replies 'I ain't got time'. Shocked I ask him why? Well they send us out on 2 routes now, My first one finishes at about 8 and the second one finishes about 11:30 to 12:00, so i ask why don't I get my mail until 1:30 in the afternoon? 'Because your route is overtime only, so the office put the bags out and anyone wanting to do the round/route can do it as overtime, I'm not your normal postman, that's carol, but she's off sick again, so overtime cover for here'.
That may also explain why I don't get mail on certain days, so whats happening to the post office, first class doesn't mean next day any more, that now cost £6.75, and second class means sometime in the near future, the problem as I see it is COMPETITION, there is none, you have no choice if you want to post a letter, it the little red post box or nothing, Parcels are another matter, tons of ways to get you parcels delivered, but not letters, so how hard can it be, surely someone like Virgin or Easy*** can create competition for the post office. The truth is it's expensive to have the infrastructure in place to deliver mail, new post boxes for each company, new stamps, new jobs and new ways to do things, I can remember as a kid, loads of post boxes, one on almost ever street corner, most now are outside or inside post offices which means a walk to your local post office just to post a letter, so you could in theory set up using one of the already parcel companies already delivering parcels, I know about parcels and the logistics involved, I was an IT Director for an online parcel company that eventually was bought out by UPS, they wanted the tech we had, so they just made the MD and owner an offer he couldn't refuse, anyway setting up a letter service wouldn't be that difficult. So if you have about 10 - 15 million quid lying around give me a call and we can sort it, I can guarantee you will double your money in 3 years.
So, this is not a dig at the postman, more at the post office, the cuts the post office have made mean that your average postie now has to do 3 times the amount of work and rounds that they did when I was a kid, but please just wait for a minute when you ring my door bell, your a bit like us kids when we played a game called 'knock down ginger', I don't know why it was called that but it was a scary game, especially if you got caught.
Nuff said........................
Why the sudden change in delivery times, I often receive mail that needs a signature, living alone I am always out to work when the postman calls, which means I get the little red card suggesting I go to the local sorting office and pick it up there, a good 2 miles away, a bloody cheek if you ask me, I may as well deliver my own mail because I am always visiting the sorting office, so the other week I was working from home when the doorbell rang, I walked down 1 flight of stairs opened the door and the little red card was already on the doormat, I opened the door and he was delivering mail to my neighbour, I called him back and he handed me my letter that I signed for, I asked him why he had not waited for me to get down the stairs, 'Don't have time to wait mate' he said, I said he could not have written out the card in that short a time, 'No' he replied 'I write them in the van', WTF, so i said, 'You just ring the bell poke the card through the door and off you go', 'Yeap, that's about it he said', at this point I am starting to get a little agitated as he keeps trying to walk away, 'Hang on a minute' I say, 'SO you don't even wait to see if anyone is in'? 'No mate' he replies 'I ain't got time'. Shocked I ask him why? Well they send us out on 2 routes now, My first one finishes at about 8 and the second one finishes about 11:30 to 12:00, so i ask why don't I get my mail until 1:30 in the afternoon? 'Because your route is overtime only, so the office put the bags out and anyone wanting to do the round/route can do it as overtime, I'm not your normal postman, that's carol, but she's off sick again, so overtime cover for here'.
That may also explain why I don't get mail on certain days, so whats happening to the post office, first class doesn't mean next day any more, that now cost £6.75, and second class means sometime in the near future, the problem as I see it is COMPETITION, there is none, you have no choice if you want to post a letter, it the little red post box or nothing, Parcels are another matter, tons of ways to get you parcels delivered, but not letters, so how hard can it be, surely someone like Virgin or Easy*** can create competition for the post office. The truth is it's expensive to have the infrastructure in place to deliver mail, new post boxes for each company, new stamps, new jobs and new ways to do things, I can remember as a kid, loads of post boxes, one on almost ever street corner, most now are outside or inside post offices which means a walk to your local post office just to post a letter, so you could in theory set up using one of the already parcel companies already delivering parcels, I know about parcels and the logistics involved, I was an IT Director for an online parcel company that eventually was bought out by UPS, they wanted the tech we had, so they just made the MD and owner an offer he couldn't refuse, anyway setting up a letter service wouldn't be that difficult. So if you have about 10 - 15 million quid lying around give me a call and we can sort it, I can guarantee you will double your money in 3 years.
So, this is not a dig at the postman, more at the post office, the cuts the post office have made mean that your average postie now has to do 3 times the amount of work and rounds that they did when I was a kid, but please just wait for a minute when you ring my door bell, your a bit like us kids when we played a game called 'knock down ginger', I don't know why it was called that but it was a scary game, especially if you got caught.
Nuff said........................
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