post

the post is bloody awful. It seems to be less than 1 delivery a week. I am paying a good deal of money for The Economist, by I am typically not receiving it and then getting two in one go, with the most recent already having been superseded by one that I haven't received. 

One of my hats involves managing a monthly mailing (via RM) of about 1700 items from a third party, together with me posting about 150+ items a month.

VERY, VERY few go astray.

Of the third party items, most months zero... It's seriously to the point of almost surprise when I do hear that somebody's not received...

What surprises me (not) is people asking for non tracked delivery, that mysteriously goes astray.

I have a failure rate of < 0.01% of tracked items and 10% or so of untracked items sold.

Now I always use tracked. 

interestingly a few weeks ago I observed someone watching postie delivering across the road, I was suspicious and mentioned it to postie when he came, and he told me that they had had numerous claims of not delivered from a house across the road and the person was a manager who was observing and recording as potential evidence.

I assume that Royal Mail ( or whatever they are called this week ) keep track of which properties / areas have issues with post going astray,

just been to a sub-post office to return some kit to BT plus do some other bits.


Me: and can I have a book of 2nd class stamps please.
Post Master: we don't have any 2nd class. Might have some in start of next week.
Me (said with a smile): Ah, ok. That'll be about when my mail gets delivered then....

He couldn't stop a wry smile crossing his face before he got it back under control.

Yesterday I went into my local main post office from some second-class stamps and waited in a small queue, only to be approached by a polite young man who'd been very helpful a couple of months ago when he spotted that I'd put a 2p stamp on the envelope instead of a second-class one. He directed me to self-service and in due course six strips of paper, each bearing five stamps, emerged. To my ex-philatelist's eye they looked more like labels than stamps, but at least they had "2nd Class  up to 100g" on them. Utilitarian design, if not appealing to what few stamp-collectors there still are.