Parcel Farce

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Much has been made of the impact of the weather on the delivery of Christmas letters and parcels and last week the fact that people were still receiving Christmas mail was discussed in the national news.

What many people in Shetland may not realise is how much of the mail chaos which was experienced was due to bad management on the part of both Parcel Force (renamed Parcel Farce in our house) and the Post Office. For the most part our stalwart posties battled through and provided a remarkably good service.

First: the Post Office: rumour has it (from sources based in Lerwick) that the Post Office in Lerwick did not organise the necessary disclosure paperwork in time for Christmas temporary workers to start working to help with the usual mountain of mail arriving at the sorting office.

As a result, a significant proportion of the mail arriving in Lerwick for sorting and delivery in the two weeks before Christmas, was shipped back down again to Aberdeen and onwards to Dundee for sorting! The mail then sat around in either Dundee or Aberdeen for over a week before it was then shipped back up to Lerwick sorting office for onward (very late) delivery. I wonder if the Post Office would care to comment on this?

Second: Parcel Farce. My son (in Glasgow) sent his Dad a parcel on 14 December, Parcel Force 24 hour service (£33 the most expensive and an allegedly high priority service) hoping that it would reach Shetland well ahead of Christmas Day. It did not. We collected the parcel from Brae Post Office on 6 January.

However the tracking details gave a very enlightening story: the parcel first went SOUTH from Glasgow to COVENTRY (apparently their UK hub) where it sat for more than a week before being transported to Aberdeen on 30 December. The parcel then spent the New Year holiday in Aberdeen awaiting transport to Shetland, which didn’t happen until early January. Since Aberdeen is where the boat goes from I wonder why it sat there for so long before being handed over to the Post Office for delivery?

Going the other way: we posted a small parcel, Special Delivery, on the morning of 23 December going south; much to our amazement, it was delivered in a small village in Somerset on 24 December.

Does this mean that both the Post Office and Parcel Force management in Aberdeen think that when times are busy it’s okay to delay delivering mail to Shetland on the basis that our expectations are lower?

The sad fact is that neither of these organisations has seen fit to be honest with us about the chaos over Christmas deliveries.

It’s interesting to consider that with staff costs being higher at Christmas the weather was just the perfect excuse needed to delay delivery and avoid having to provide a proper service.

What a pity.

Helen Erwood

[Lounge Lizard]

"rumour has it (from sources based in Lerwick) that the Post Office in Lerwick did not organise the necessary disclosure paperwork in time for Christmas temporary workers to start working to help with the usual mountain of mail arriving at the sorting office." - Yes, it's Scotland and they'd got their mind on the New Year not Christmas.

[Pinky 1]

It’s interesting to consider that with staff costs being higher at Christmas the weather was just the perfect excuse needed to delay delivery and avoid having to provide a proper service.

This was not just a Scottish thing, this was national