Post Office Rant!

[Scully]

Is anyone else about to get really pissed off with Royal Mail when they bring in the new stamp system. Stamps will be based on size of the envelope as well as the weight. No longer will we just be able to slap a 1st class stamp on an envelope. I'm presuming it's a money making scheme, and that bigger envelopes will cost more- why the hell they should, i'm not sure. Maybe a new world record will be set for how much you can squidge in a small envelope!

[Ragamuffin_artist]

Actually, what really gets me is that in this age of advanced technology, things actually still do get “lost in the mail.” I’ve been known to loose a sock every now and again when I do my laundry, but it’s not like my socks have my name and room number written on them so whoever finds them knows exactly where to bring them. I can understand losing socks. But a package has every flipping bit of conceivable information any imbecilic moron could possibly need to locate it’s rightful destination. “Lost in the mail” as far as I’m concerned, is an impossibility unless the envelope is, in fact, completely blank. Or perhaps I concievably just happened to be addressing the envelope/parcel during an epileptic seizure. It takes extreme skill to loose something in the mail, unless the postal service is, as I‘ve always suspected, run by primates who qualify as the missing evolutionary link (they have opposable thumbs, they walk upright…they’re just missing a thing or two in the ’ol noggin). Either way, there’s some serious effort happening there, and by gum, as far as I’m concerned, they’ve earned the extra penny.

[Freaker]

We've had that in Germany for a while now, and to be honest, I was quite surprised to see the size of the envelope not being an issue when I came to the UK. In the end, it all depends on how sensible they make the system. I would presume that most envelopes would still fit into the "normal" category, unless they were A4 size or so, and that there would be little to worry about.
What they did here is have "groups" of sizes and weights - a normal size envelope with a few sheets would be the cheapest category. If you added much more weight, it would go up one category - but with it would the allowance for envelope size, so you could, in theory, pick a bigger envelope as well. In reverse, if you need to send a bigger-sized document, you can also put more in the envelope. It does make sense once you find your way around the system.

[hr]

I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.

[the racing tortoise]

Quoting Ragamuffin_artist from 21:27, 28th Jul 2006
Actually, what really gets me is that in this age of advanced technology, things actually still do get “lost in the mail.”

we get these wonderful letters from a bank in france, almost without fail, there is one stamp on it which says "prioritaire" and another which says "mis-sent to Korea". Don't you just love modern postage.

[hr]

A fish swims into a wall and says "DAM"

[novium]

i've heard tales of a time when you could send a letter someone listing only their name and town (and state, if applicable) and they'd get it. This is of course the USPS, which makes it even more unbelievable.

[hr]

sed tamen ira procul absit, cum qua nihil recte fieri, nihil considerate potest.

[joug]

A friend of mine worked as a postman for a whlie in his summer holidays. After three weeks he was fired. Why? He had been far too efficient and was showing up all the other workers! Ridiculous.

[Gubbins]

Quoting Ragamuffin_artist from 21:27, 28th Jul 2006
Actually, what really gets me is that in this age of advanced technology, things actually still do get “lost in the mail.”

I have a suspicion that most things that get "lost in the mail" accidentally get delivered to the wrong address for whatever reason (stuck to another envelope, perhaps, got sorted into the wrong pile at the sorting office or into the wrong postman's bag). Alternatively, there are cases that the postman can't be arsed and dumps 30000 letters into a ditch, like happened down here in Staffordshire recently.

Though there are a few shining examples. Such as letters sent to Sr. "X", Casa "Y", PORTUGAL, that have made it.

[hr]

...but then again, that is only my opinion.

[Setsuna]

Aye Freaker, when I saw the advert i was scoffing at it, but my German man said he was surprised we already didnt have it.

British people have an inate fear of change.

Still... the postal system leaves a lot to be desired.

[exnihilo]

Being the summer, and having little to do, I find myself at home a lot. The fact that I'm in doesn't stop the little card coming through the door saying they tried to deliver but I was out. If the new pricing actually means that they bring things someone has paid them to deliver, I'll be happy. "If you'd like to collect it from our sorting office" - no, no I bloody wouldn't, I'd like you to deliver it like you were paid to.

Royal Mail "with us it's personal" - I'm beginning to believe it is.

[orudge]

Quoting novium from 06:45, 29th Jul 2006
i've heard tales of a time when you could send a letter someone listing only their name and town (and state, if applicable) and they'd get it. This is of course the USPS, which makes it even more unbelievable.

I read a story in the local newspaper back in Orkney a couple of years ago of a Christmas card sent to:

Joe Bloggs (I forget the name)
Some island off the top of Scotland

Amazingly, it did reach the correct destination, although it took a couple of months. Guess not all is lost...

[hr]

http://www.owenrudge.net/
http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37103734

[exnihilo]

Richard Whiteley on Countdown once claimed to have received a letter addressed simply "Dick, England".

[BasilSeal]

In the mid-1990s I sent a letter to my academic father. I didn't actually know his address, but wrote:

Name
Mailslot in the blue door, first on left
Alley next to Shop Name on Market St.
St Andrews,
Fife

It was delivered no problem!

And I sent part of my semi year mailing weird stuff and receiving weird stuff to and from a friend at Oxford (address written directly onto an orange, and so on) seeing how long the PO would take this. Bless them, we tired of this before they did...

[ARTooD2]

I once had a letter delivered to me addressed

Iain Boyd
Killearn
Glasgow


I was quite impressed

[hr]

King Sinner

[LonelyPilgrim]

novium: it's still perfectly legal to send post addressed only to a name and town name in the US. The USPS just won't guarentee delivery or delivery time.

[hr]

Arma virumque cano...

[Thackary]

I used to live at a place near Largoward.
The full address was:

Housename
Leven
Fife

Even without the postcode, and the fact the house was 8 miles from Leven, I never had a problem with mail.
The postman also used to collect our outgoing mail from a basket by our front door, so I never had to use a postbox.

Royal Mail used to have a big problem with temporary workers, so they increased the wages of their permanent staff and offered them performance related bonuses. Sure enough, job satisfaction increased, the staff turnover was reduced, and more mail got through to the correct address, on time.
Scrapping the "second post" saved millions of pounds, and meant that they could concentrate on getting the mail through to you in the first (and only) post of the day.

I've never had a problem with Royal Mail- all my letters get delivered on time (both sent and received), and if I get a parcel, my postman is smart enough to leave it in a discreet (& safe) place and leave me a note.


Although it's had problems in the past, Royal Mail has continued to be the best postal service in the world. Where else can you have a letter sent from a remote village somewhere in the Highlands, and have it delivered INTO THE RECIPIENT'S HOUSE at the other end of the country the next morning?

[Lodestone]

And I sent part of my semi year mailing weird stuff and receiving weird stuff to and from a friend at Oxford (address written directly onto an orange, and so on) seeing how long the PO would take this. Bless them, we tired of this before they did...

This reminds me of rather an excellent short story, "Fourteen Experiments in Postal Delivery" in Strange Horizons magazine recently.

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2006/200 ... al-f.shtml

Christopher:

I received notice of attempted package delivery today. It was too big for me to pick up at the post office, so they left it in the vacant lot on York where that brownstone used to be, the one the homeless got into and stripped.

I thought that was odd, so I walked down there. I found that you had sent me Harold Angel's Bar. It looked exactly as I remember it, when we left Chapel Hill six years ago.

[Harry Giles]

I used to live at a place near Largoward.
The full address was:

Housename
Leven
Fife

Yup, my full address is still "Housename, Deerness, Orkney".

When I was teaching in the South Pacific, letters reached me addressed only to:

"Mr Harry. Pentecost Island."

Often they'd gone via Solomon or PNG first, but they got there. Or, at least, they got to the village 8 hours away that I had to walk to to fetch the mail sack . . .

[zomboy]

i received a card stating that the sender of my letter had underpaid by 11p (due to new system) the post office admin charge £1. When i went to collect the letter the clerk was sat there writing out hunderds of these cards all with £1 admin chage from the post office, they are making a mint and i would like to know how they justfiy £1 in admin charge when all they are doing is taking them back to the sorting office for this chap to sit down and write out these stupid cards...it's gonna be happening all over the uk and the post share holders will be raking it in.

[flarewearer]

In first year a few years back, whilst living in Regs, a friend of mine recieved some mail from his uncle in glasgow adressed as follows;

DJ Dan *surname*
St Duffus House
St Andrews
Scotland?

Questioning the fact whether he was in Scotland was the icing on the cake after getting only his nephew's surname right.

[hr]

[Telinar]

This new system reeks of money grabbing. I can just see it now "Returned to sender, your envelope is too big for the number of stamps on it, please use a ruler next time."

[hr]

http://telinar-beln.deviantart.com or http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37105240