Monday 26 November 2012

I might as well have shoved it down a rabbit hole ...

I posted a parcel the week before last. The packaging, if I say so myself, was a work of art. Bubble wrap, wrapped in newspaper (Daily Mail but surely that can't tell against me!), in a cardboard box, in brown paper. The address was written on it in letters so clear, large and black they would have won any calligraphy competition in town. My own address was written, smaller and on the reverse, so that it could come back to me if things went wrong.

Well, things went wrong. The recipient (if I can call him the recipient, as he received sweet fanny adams) got in touch, not crossly, more disappointed really, to say that he had not got his parcel. The post office at our end no longer has the parcel.

WHERE IS OUR PARCEL???????

Okay, I didn't insure it. I didn't pay a king's ransom to have the dratted thing carried on the backs of Circassian maidens to the destination, or whatever the Post Office claim to do when you book special delivery. I merely put a parcel, wrapped as above, addressed as above, into the post office system and stupidly expected it to get to where it was meant to be. So now the post office are making me feel like some kind of certifiable idiot. I am a certifiable idiot because I expected a system to work, am I? Why should that be? When I get in my car and drive off, I expect the wheels to stay on, the engine to keep doing whatever it is engines do and take me to where I am heading. Sometime things go wrong, then I call a man who comes and puts it right. What doesn't happen, but would if the Post Office were in charge, would be that I would get in my car, one wheel would drop off, the engine would explode. I would call the man, who wouldn't come, because ... well, why should he? It's only his job, when all is said and done.

For a bit of fun, apply Post Office ethos to anything you do today. Toaster making toast? I don't think so. Bus taking you to work? Why not enjoy a day in Glasgow instead? That is, unless you work in Glasgow, in which case obviously, just enter another place name to taste. And so on. There are not huge numbers of options for simple pieces of post, sadly, but the Post Office will soon have seen the last of me. Though it is far more complicated I will be using a courier in future because if they say they will deliver it, they will. Some companies even give you the actual hour it will be delivered. The hour! Not the week or whether it will be delivered at all. The actual hour. And, when it gets to the other end, they bring it in if it is heavy. They are charming and friendly and that is because they see their job as a service, not some kind of mad lottery.

I actually do feel a lot better for that. But the question still remains -

WHERE IS OUR &*^%^$^&&*( PARCEL??

Sorry, I just have to add this - I posted this and then checked my inbox and there, proudly announcing itself as being from 'express parcelforce', was an email telling me when I need to post parcels for Christmas! What? With the service they give, I'm guessing that would have been last week!


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