# Postman rant



## Northerner (Nov 6, 2013)

Our normally excellent postie has been replaced by a younger, very unreliable model. He's just been and delivered two letters to me that belong to a house up the road, a couple of days ago he delivered a letter that wasn't even for my road. Moreover, he folds letters in two despite the fact they would fit through unfolded and he doesn't push them all the way through which might signal to a thief that there is no-one in. If he's making such frequent mistakes at my house goodness only knows where some of my post is ending up


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## pav (Nov 6, 2013)

Its the same here used to a very reliable postie, post now comes any time of the day, get some one else's post.

Found out they delivered a recorded mail personal report to some where else, they even left a not at home card for the report. When I found out tried to track it. the report was never delivered according to the sorting office and was still in their care. Only problem once it was back in the sorting office it was lost, their records show it was returned to them but not collected and not returned to sender.


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## Tina63 (Nov 7, 2013)

I have insider knowledge 

Most areas are now doing away with posties on bicycles, two postmen using a van and sharing, merging two rounds, due to the increase in packages.  You know the type of thing, Amazon parcels right, left and centre.  By using vans more stuff can come out in the normal mail, which when the morning postman would call on you anyway saves sending someone else later just with parcels.

This means with such a big shake up a 're-sign' is called for - all rounds going up for grabs and postmen in order of seniority selecting which rounds they would like.  We have recently had a new postman after a lovely reliable friendly service for many years, but so far (touch wood) we have not had any problems, and in fact now receive our mail earlier.  

Whether or not this is the problem in your area I don't know, but if your postman used to come on a bike, see if you still see the bike, or if it's now a van.  That could be the answer.  Alternatively of course, it could just be that your regular postman is on holiday or off sick?


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## Tina63 (Nov 7, 2013)

Oh and another point re not pushing things right through.  My lad used to deliver free newspapers and he was instructed to push things right through for exactly the reason you mention above and that's what he/we always did.

HOWEVER, last month I had to deal with an horrendous injury from an Avon lady, who pushed a leaflet right through someone's letterbox and had her finger grabbed by a dog on the inside, who tore her finger open from the middle knuckle to the end and completely ripped off the fingernail.  She knocked on my door in one hell of a state with blood dripping from what was left of her finger so I had to apply initial first aid and instruct her husband to drive her straight to hospital.

After initial hospital treatment, infection set in and she ended up being admitted a few days later for an operation and 3 night stay - not clever - so from now on I will NEVER follow-through pushing something through a letterbox unless I know the householders and whether there's a dog or not!


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## Northerner (Nov 7, 2013)

Tina63 said:


> Whether or not this is the problem in your area I don't know, but if your postman used to come on a bike, see if you still see the bike, or if it's now a van.  That could be the answer.  Alternatively of course, it could just be that your regular postman is on holiday or off sick?



Yes, this is pretty much what has happened. Previous postie still does some rounds but it seems very haphazard now as to whether it is him or one of about 3 others. He didn't use a bike, but does have a trolley now, rather than just a sack. He's been my postie since I moved to Southampton 14 years ago. They do come in a van now, but at unpredictable times. I don't really have any objections to the way they have changed the service, just that they are delivering stuff to the wrong houses and unnecessarily folding post etc., which has nothing to do with the reorganisation - it's a fairly fundamental skill of any postman to deliver to the correct addresses and not damage mail!

Nasty injury to that lady  I used to be a paper boy and there were quite a few dogs on the rounds - worst one was probably a big house with two Irish Wolfhounds - they were normally kept inside, but one morning I was walking through the gate and up to the house (long driveway) and I noticed them lurking out of the corner of my eye  Fortunately, they didn't seem to view me as a threat! There was also an alsation at one house that used to go crazy - that was quite alarming, but not too bad when you are putting a newspaper through as you didn't need to put your fingers too close to the letterbox.


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## Steff (Nov 7, 2013)

Well done Tina lol very up to speed.... Things are changing majorly within Royal Mail other half is having a torrid time lately I half suspect the reason he is staying off at the mo is due to all the pressure, only yesterday a colleague was slumped at the wheel shaking and had to be sent home cause of all the stress, so try and be a little understanding however frustrating things maybe x

Although that does not excuse your some what lazy posty


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## Steff (Nov 7, 2013)

Ring up custumer services 08457 740 740 it could be a long winded affair but it creates a paper trial meaning the manager must act upon it, you never know you might get a pack of stamps


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## AlisonM (Nov 7, 2013)

They're still using bikes up here*or flat feet and trolleys. Ordinary post in the morning and package deliveries by van in the afternoon. They kept the two services separate because it worked out cheaper and more efficient that way.

* The bikes have what looks like saddle bags.


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## Northerner (Nov 14, 2013)

Just received 4 letters, none of them addressed to me  Have complained, I understand the odd mistake can be made, but it's not that difficult to check you have the right address before pushing stuff through and house numbers are very clearly marked!


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## Steff (Nov 14, 2013)

Northerner said:


> Just received 4 letters, none of them addressed to me  Have complained, I understand the odd mistake can be made, but it's not that difficult to check you have the right address before pushing stuff through and house numbers are very clearly marked!



Did you do as you were told and ring the number ?


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## Northerner (Nov 14, 2013)

Steff said:


> Did you do as you were told and ring the number ?



No Steff, I did it using the online form


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## muddlethru (Nov 14, 2013)

I was driven round the bend by the mail as we kept getting mail for an address the same as ours but in SOUTHAMTON where we do not live. The letters were correctly addressed with the Southampton post code so I just put them in the mailbox circled  in red . This went on for ages. Then I found mail we were expecting not arriving. I looked up the phone book and found the people so phoned them. They were an elderly couple and it seems they had received our mail and just binned it. The wondered why they were getting envelopes circled in red.  I got in touch with the sorting office but still it continued, also made umpteen phone calls one of which the women on the other end was as thick as two planks of wood. Then we get another letter for the elderly couple marked Urgent so I drove to Southampton and delivered it in person as I thought it might be a hospital appointment. I gave them my phone number just incase they got our mail and said I'd collect it from them.  The  letters were all correctly addressed with the right postal codes  but just going to the wrong houses about eight miles apart. This went on for a year, I got really fed up reading the riot act and sending letters and ringing the mail complaints. Touch wood we have been OK now.


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## Northerner (Nov 14, 2013)

That sounds awful muddlethru! Glad it's finally been sorted!  It certainly shouldn't have continued to happen after the problem had been reported


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## Northerner (Nov 15, 2013)

Got a reply to my complaint 



> Thanks for your email. I'm sorry to hear that you have wrongly received mail addressed to xx and xx xxxxxxx Road, and also xx xxxxxx Avenue.
> 
> I fully appreciate the risk to the security of your mail if our postmen and women fail to deliver mail to the right address and the obvious inconvenience this can cause. It's important that our customers have confidence in us to always deliver their mail to a secure and high standard and it's clear that we've let you down on this occasion.
> 
> ...



Hope this doesn't mean the postie will fall out with me!


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## robert@fm (Nov 16, 2013)

I sometimes wonder why the GPO (as they then were) bothered to create the postcode system, it's so prone to failure...

My late mother retired to Strood, a suburb of Rochester in Kent, postal district ME2 (MEdway). About four moths after moving in, she asked everyone writing to her to stop using the postcode, as several of her letters were reaching her afer a long delay, having been diverted via Manchester!  Although that isn't as bad as the early case I once heard of, where the outbound code (the second half of the postcode) was <something>NZ, resulting in those letters being misdirected to New Zealand... 

I later had a subscription to a trade newspaper, and some issues didn't arrive. One issue, which finally turned up about two weeks late, showed why this happened; the address was correct, including my correct postcode beginning SW4, but _above_ the address (and thus clearly not part of it) were several database sorting codes, and one of them was SW09, obviously meaning that mine was the ninth entry in their database for the SW postal area. Some idiot in the SW4 sorting office had misinterpreted this as meaning that the postcode "was supposed to be SW9" (clearly being too dumb to wonder why, if this was true, it was written as SW4 instead of SW9), and had diverted it there; it had gone back and forth several times, until someone in the SW9 sorting office had got tired of this and said that it would be destroyed if it got sent to SW9 again; fortunately, this time it got dealt with by someone with sense.


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## Northerner (Nov 20, 2013)

*A Royal Mail worker has been hailed as a hero for going above and beyond*

Love it! 

http://metro.co.uk/2013/11/20/royal...iver-your-chicken-note-we-salute-you-4194000/


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## Pumper_Sue (Nov 20, 2013)

Northerner said:


> Love it!
> 
> http://metro.co.uk/2013/11/20/royal...iver-your-chicken-note-we-salute-you-4194000/



Lol I saw that on the BBC website and had a good giggle over it. Knowing RM they will sack the postie under health and safety rules.


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## Steff (Nov 21, 2013)

Nothing would shock me with those lot LOL had a giggle tho


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## KateR (Nov 21, 2013)

Love that one.


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## AlisonM (Nov 21, 2013)

Had a good chortle at that one.


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## muddlethru (Nov 22, 2013)

Just had another letter addressed to Southampton and delivered here. Thought we had it all sorted.


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