The Ruddy Postal Service

Woebot

Well-known member
Last week I sent out three really important cheques in the mail.

Only two arrived! I had to cancel the bloody things.

How shit is British Mail? It's a total disgrace.
 

nomos

Administrator
it's even worse when they tag team with a foreign agency. i'm still pissed off at royal mail + canada post losing my 'fwd riddim' test press. the shop didn't put a return address on it, so, in their infinite wisdom (and fear of letter bombs), canada post stopped it at the border and sent it back to royal mail. of course without a return address it was difficult to return to sender (whereas there was a perfectly good delivery address on it). and, of course, royal mail stops tracking when they pass an item to a foreign service. they have no provision for tracking items sent back to them. they just put them all in an enormous pile and their official response to inquiries is "it would be impossible to find that just now." brilliant system.

then again, i order tonnes of stuff from over there and it generally arrives without incident.
 
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mms

sometimes
yeah i try not to have anything sent to my home address anymore - too many signed for parcels left outside my door - having been 'signed' for me, too much missing stuff - so much infact that my address has been flagged up by several companies i recieve bills from etc ..
everything pretty much comes to work now..
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
So I come out of the kitchen and there's a note on the doorstep from Parceline - 'Sorry we missed you'. I was effing in, and it's not like we have a big flat where you can't hear the front door! Lazy gits.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Rambler said:
So I come out of the kitchen and there's a note on the doorstep from Parceline - 'Sorry we missed you'. I was effing in, and it's not like we have a big flat where you can't hear the front door! Lazy gits.
*attempts derail* Can we generally depreciate services that happen when it's convenient for the company providing them rather than actually when you want them. 'We will be delivering a parcel some time between 9 and 5 today but we can't tell you when. If you are in the shower / on the toilet / listening to headphones / popped out for a pint of milk, you will have to collect it from a depot in the next town.

This also applies to banks that consider it far too difficult to open when people might actually be able to go and see them without taking time off work, and (in a slightly different tone of voice) to local food shops who provide better and often more ethical stuff at lower prices than supermarkets, but then lose business to them because you can go to a supermarket on a weekday without having to leave work early to get there before they close at five.

Roll on 24 hour society, I say. If we're stuck with consumer capitalism, then I at least want some convenience.
 

martin

----
As an ex-employee of Parcelforce, rest assured that your most fragile deliveries will be kicked around like a football. I've seen boxes split open and people flock over to pillage whatever they can of the spilt contents.
Don't expect any mercy, cos even people who join the firm with good intentions and try to make an effort soon end up questioning why they bother stressing themselves for crap pay, when not one single manager nor supervisor could give a toss about it. Eventually, working with Parcelforce, you grow to hate the general public and siege mentality sets in.

chucking cards with 'We called but you were out' are standard practice, and times are never specified cos the whole concept of "schedules" is an urban myth - deliveries are seldom if ever pre-planned in advance. I shouldn't be telling you this cos I signed the Official Secrets Act
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I read the Joe Orton diaries and the thing that shocked me most (far more than all the paedophilia) is when he mentioned as an aside that he posted a letter one morning and the recipient told him him that he got it the same afternoon. Is it actually possible for that to happen these days?
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
I was nearly tearing out my hair when I sent an email complaining to the Royal Mail about missed packages and my postman leaving things outside the door, and got this in reply:

From 1 January 2006, ROYAL MAIL no longer has the monopoly on collecting
and delivering mail. In order for us to deal with any complaint correctly,
we need to know if the item was sent with Royal Mail.

If you are the RECIPIENT of the item in question, we would suggest
contacting the sender for them to pursue the matter. They will be able to
provide the relevant posting details and documentation to support any
claim. For example, if they used a ROYAL MAIL service, we will need the
exact posting location and to see proof of posting.

If you are the SENDER we will need full details of the posting and you will
need to provide proof of posting.

We would ask you to review your enquiry and respond again in the light of
the above.

Arrrrg. So deregulation and privatisation basically allows the Mail to wash their hands of anything and say "it might have been another company sending the mail". What a bunch of fuckers...
 

ambrose

Well-known member
er... did you actually like, do what they asked?

doesnt seem to unreasonable to me, given the loss of their monopoly. otherwise its like people phoning First Buses and complaining about a Stagecoach service (which happens frequently) or some other bus company.
 
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mms

sometimes
IdleRich said:
I read the Joe Orton diaries and the thing that shocked me most (far more than all the paedophilia) is when he mentioned as an aside that he posted a letter one morning and the recipient told him him that he got it the same afternoon. Is it actually possible for that to happen these days?

it's not possible now but up until maybe 10/15 years ago there were 3 posts a day - i remember this being possible when i was in my mid teens 15 years ago.
 

Lichen

Well-known member
I used to walk to work via the back of Gazzano's deli on the top of Farringdon Road. Every morning the street was strewn with piss-head-booze-brand litter. I asked Mr Gazzano "Kids, street bods?"

He said "Nah mate. Postal workers from Mount Pleasant innit. They drink here between shifts"

Might explain some of the problems above. Perhaps they were all Bukowski disciples.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Well my tickets for a club night next week finally turned up today - 22 days after I ordered them on the 12th of October. They were from Bleep/Warpmart, which apparently has its HQ in Tufnell Park, some five miles from my house in Bow. That's an average speed of about 0.01mph.

The top speed of a common garden snail is around 0.03mph. I move that the phrase "snail mail" be disused as it is clearly based on an outmoded stereotype and may cause offence in the gastropod community.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Well my tickets for a club night next week finally turned up today - 22 days after I ordered them on the 12th of October. They were from Bleep/Warpmart, which apparently has its HQ in Tufnell Park, some five miles from my house in Bow. That's an average speed of about 0.01mph.

The top speed of a common garden snail is around 0.03mph. I move that the phrase "snail mail" be disused as it is clearly based on an outmoded stereotype and may cause offence in the gastropod community.

I blame da management.

I just received a CD from japan that was posted 5 days ago.
 
In the sorting office bags of mail are left on the floor. During strikes more and more bags are dumped in the room but it's a day or two before they are sorted through. The problem is there isnt good 'stock rotation'. The newer bags are at the top of the pile and they are dealt with first. This could explain the problem Mr Tea had.
 

Immryr

Well-known member
i had a riq made by a guy in jerusalem recently, i received it two days after it was posted!
 
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