Post Office - going downhill already?

In the last week I've had one postman not bothering to knock on the door with a parcel. All he did was push a "you weren't in" card through the door and left the parcel with a neighbour. I was definitely in as I'm pretty much nearly always in as I'm a full time carer so I saw the card come through the letter box and he must have moved pretty sharpish as the neighbour already had the parcel by the time I read the card to see who had it and then opened the door.

The second postman didn't knock either and pushed a large sized hard back book through the letter box. I was upstairs and could hear a racket at the front door.....it sounded like the postman himself was trying to get through the letter box. He managed to shove the book through and took the back of the letter box away from the door so it was hanging on by a few screws with the other screws on the floor.

 

I've a sneaky feeling they quietly gave up on daily deliveries to my house some time ago but it's hard to prove that.

Our parcels office is open for pick-ups 6.30am to 7pm weekdays but at the moment there is a queue for it halfway down the street almost the whole time (except for 6.30am for some reason, I'm told.)

As a city dweller, I think privatisation will improve the service. For example, with Collect+, I can drop parcels off at any time between 8am and 9.30pm at my local Co-op, and potentially arrange to pick parcels up from there as well, which would be far more convenient than queueing for the grumpy PO staff. Other couriers will make 3 attempts at delivery which is more than the PO has ever done. However, couriers are much more expensive than the PO for small packets but better value for larger parcels.

If you live in the countryside, I think you will get the worst possible deal, with potentially long trips to both post and collect mail if the PO van ceases deliveries. From my mother's home, for example, she would have a 32 mile round trip to get to the nearest MyHermes drop off point. In the event of abandoning home delivery in the countryside , a very expensive service, I assume, I think a very detailed network of depots would be necessary to provide even a remotely acceptable service.

I must say a word in support of the ordinary PO workers. I've had lots of 'you were out' notes this week, but my impression is that they are under so much pressure that they've got the slip in their hand even as they ring the door bell because they have to move on. I watched one female postal worker in my road a couple of days ago and she looked so stressed she was practically jogging to get the work covered. I asked her a question and she barely had time to answer, and I don't this was rudeness.

 

I'd been wondering if it was now policy to just put a note thru the door and thereby save time on the round at the expense of us, the customers.

It's quite obvious when i'm in, the car is in the layby, yet the postie hasn't knocked the door.

 

Sorry, post is fine here!!!

Val

 

I don't think they're bothering to knock for some reason and they're pushing stuff through that's really too big to go through and they don't care if the letter box gets damaged in the process.

 

I think they are really hard pressed to meet targets and that's the reason they don't seem to care.

 

I`ve organised a parcell collection for the 9/12/2013 they only collect yesterday ..great

 

Yesterday I heard the postie knock and the dogs went mad, as usual. I usually have plenty of time to get to the door even if I'm on the top floor of the house but this time I got to the door and the postie was almost running to his van!!! I kid you not. I went after him and got my parcels and questioned his behaviour. His reply? "Cutbacks love". What sort of sense does that make?