You were out. Your parcel could be hard to recover

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 813090.ece

Anyone born in the fourth quarter of the 20th century interested to know what life was like in the third quarter should visit the Royal Mail sorting office on Emma Street, London E2. In fact, Emma Street ought to be opened up for school visits, researchers writing doctorates on the Seventies, economists and entrepreneurs eager to discover how not to run a business, etc. Emma Street is like a museum of the Britain of two-and-a-half TV channels, tinned mandarins with evaporated milk and demoralised men in boilersuits. Except Emma Street isn't a museum. It's here. It's real. It's a going concern (just). And it's got your parcel.

A package arrives at your home or your office. Except it doesn't. What actually arrives is a card saying you were out, even though you weren't, even though often it turns out the parcel could fit through your letterbox in any case. The card says you have to go to Emma Street. At the sight of these words, anyone with previous experience of the dread address slides down their hall wall with their head in their heads in the manner of a jilted lover overacting in a pop video. They know their life is ruined, for the next few days at least. But not the next two days, because it takes what has become known as Parcelfarce that long to return the goods the half mile back to base.

Emma Street is open 7am til 1pm. When you call by on your way to work, the queue stretches up the street. Ah well, you reason as you bin it, it'll be better tomorrow. But it isn't. Nor is it the day after. Having a fair idea of what's in the parcel (a sweatshirt for your daughter from Pembrokeshire) you debate whether it'd be more time-efficient to let Emma Street return to sender and then drive to Wales to collect in person. You decide it would, were there any likelihood the parcel would ever arrive back in Wales. By Saturday, there's nothing for it but to join the line.

It irritates me when I read that the British love to queue. I'm British, and I can't stand queuing. I don't suppose even those Middle England matrons who wait outside Wimbledon for days on end much like queueing either, even if they pretend they do on TV. The thing is, outside of all airports, some railway stations and Tesco Metro when a succession of sad blokes are in for their ready-meals and four-packs of Stella, as a nation we're badly out of practice at queuing, thanks to a combination of privatisation and cash pumped into the NHS. People won't tolerate lining up like they used to. Certainly, the queue at Emma Street, young and old, black and white, rich and poor, was ready to blow. I wonder how unpopular selling off the post office would really be.

Pushover

We may not like it, but we do, I think, recognise the essential brute fairness of a queue. Or most of us do. After half an hour, as I neared the front desk, a woman materialised from nowhere and pushed in two ahead of me. She offered no excuse. She simply couldn't be bothered to wait. The woman immediately in front of me protested. “Don't play games with me,” the pusher-in growled, instantly turning nasty. “I ain't got time to play games.” The first woman, the non-pusher-in, decided it wasn't worth the aggravation to take this bully on.

I made the same calculation. And in the short term, in our own interests, we were right: the extra delay lasted a mere couple of minutes. But in the long term, in the interests of the wider Emma Street sorting office queuing community, and indeed society at large, by such omissions does civilisation slowly fall apart. I hate myself for not intervening.

No mug

Still, my cowardice in the cold light of Saturday morning was more than counter-balanced by a friend's bravery in the dark hours of Saturday night. He'd been out with a woman, they'd just said their goodbyes, he's 20 yards up the road leaving a message on another friend's voicemail when he hears the friend he's just left starting to scream. Running back, he sees her clinging womanfully to her handbag while some guy tries to grab it off her. My pal shouts. The would-be mugger makes a run for it.

But my man chases him down, sweeping his quarry's feet from under him in an ultra-cool judo-type move that he swears he couldn't repeat if he tried it 100 times. He then basically sits on the intermittently protesting low-life until the police arrive. At this point most hell-in-a-handcart columnists would have you believe it's the have-a-go hero who gets arrested while the mugger is sent on safari at the taxpayer's expense, but I'm not entirely convinced such stories are a fair reflection of reality. Not on this occasion anyway.

The correct person is carted off, meanwhile the coppers offer my mate tea and biscuits and discreet congratulations, all right and proper. And not only is it all witnessed by the woman, the whole chase, and some of the sitting-on, is recorded on the other friend's voicemail. Perfect. Talk about living the dream.

[Big Daz]

I wonder how unpopular selling off the post office would really be.


What a twat the writer is, does he really think a change of ownership is the answer?

A change of policy from RML and Postcomm is the solution not a change of ownership. Postcomm have set 6 hours a day as the minium amount of hours callers offices have to open, that should change to 8 hours a day minium.

[dvbuk55]

I wonder how unpopular selling off the post office would really be.


What a twat the writer is, does he really think a change of ownership is the answer?

A change of policy from RML and Postcomm is the solution not a change of ownership. Postcomm have set 6 hours a day as the minium amount of hours callers offices have to open, that should change to 8 hours a day minium.

Our is open for 11 hours - 0700 - 1800, 1 full timer does the mornings and 1 part timer does the afternoons.

[Stormproof]

Ours is open 07.00-19.00 continuous queues, except when a manager turns up then suddenly there are no customers 2 full time staff, 1 early shift 1 late. In my opinion all Callers Offices should be reviewed parcels/packet/signed/surcharges have quadrupled (at least) but the number of staff remains the same as it was years ago. Customers take their frustations out on the Callers staff and call us f'ing , the fault lies at the top of the pile but no one will do anything as they don't like to spend money on that part of the business

[not me]

Ours is open 07.00-19.00 continuous queues, except when a manager turns up then suddenly there are no customers 2 full time staff, 1 early shift 1 late. In my opinion all Callers Offices should be reviewed parcels/packet/signed/surcharges have quadrupled (at least) but the number of staff remains the same as it was years ago. Customers take their frustations out on the Callers staff and call us f'ing , the fault lies at the top of the pile but no one will do anything as they don't like to spend money on that part of the business

agreed
surcharges and customs charges are through the roof
later starts mean nobodys home so posties pouch off/return masses more than they used to
our office covers 4 postcodes and still we have one guy on the door

[johnnyp]

Our callers office is open Mon-Fri 08.00-12.30/Sat-08.00-12.00
1 guy covers it and the other indoor P.H.G. helps out when they can.

[norbert]

I wonder how unpopular selling off the post office would really be.


What a twat the writer is, does he really think a change of ownership is the answer?

A change of policy from RML and Postcomm is the solution not a change of ownership. Postcomm have set 6 hours a day as the minium amount of hours callers offices have to open, that should change to 8 hours a day minium.

Our is open for 11 hours - 0700 - 1800, 1 full timer does the mornings and 1 part timer does the afternoons.

true blue Tory Murdoch paper - he certainly is - as for going back in time , RM's management are out of the 70's and these two :lfo :cfo have certainly took the PO backwards - one time everything was by the PO manual - now it's :lfo 's Walmart/Asda manual