My letter to the postman

[Jim Carroll]

Had a chat with our local delivery guy and he claims that the guy is just plain lazy and abusing the rules.

He has to make every effort to deliver the parcels even leaving them in a secure place if available and leave a ticket in you box saying where he left the parcel.

Our local guy reckons the ones you do not deliver waste time as you get back and have to sort them out and log them into the book for pickups so you may spend an hour doing this instead of getting back filling out your sheet then going home.

Stick it right up the guy who is abusing the rules and see how long he lasts, most are contractors and there is a clause there for aus post to get rid of him if he does not follow the rules.

[RETIRED]

The ladies who run it are beaut and go out of their way to oblige but sometimes I forget to check my mail box for a week or so and boy does it pile up!

Same here but Bruce is our Postmasters name.

[weisyboy]

ladies anmed bruce where do u live ?

[RETIRED]

Husband and wife. Can't do enough to help. If they know I am expecting an urgent parcel they have even rung me to let me know that it is there.

[funkychicken]

Same here but Bruce is our Postmasters name.

Cindy's her name over here, I'd rather her than a posty we never see

[rotten_66]

Our guy is Sudanese I think (Exceptionally tall and very, very, very well tanned ), an absolute top notch bloke, bends over backwards on the parcel front. He has even left a pick up card in the letter box telling us to look up the sideway as that was where he hid a parcel that had been sent. He could see the wrapping paper and wished my son a happy birthday!

[Woodwould]

I receive quite a number of important A4 sized documents, photos, trade publications and catalogues, which weused to have delivered to a large PO Box, but when we moved, we thought we did the right thing and had the largest, Australia Post-approved steel letterbox installed at home so the mail could be delivered unfolded, uncreased and be dry until it was retrieved.

Despite numerous phone calls, emails and polite requests in person, the b****y posties persist in folding the mail in two and jaming it halfway into the letter slot so half of it gets drenched! I am so sick and tired of their beligerence with this matter, yet there seems there's nothing we can do about it. We'd almost prefer to live somewhere remote and have to collect the mail.

[malb]

I am a Parcel Post subcontractor in suburban Port Melbourne. For the princely sum of 90c per parcel I have to attempt to deliver anything that comes through. Size can vary from thick normal envelopes up to 1.2m cubes, weight to 20kg per package. Daily loads can vary from 60 to 280 packages, plus 2 runs stuffing postie bags into the green depot boxes spread around the suburb so the posties don't have to go to the mail centre 3 or 4 times a day to reload. My two runs and two depot runs run to about 80km per day.

"Attempt to deliver" means exactly that, must carry parcels to the point of contact at the address, and attempt to contact the occupier. Point of contact may be a locked gate in a wall (with or without a bell), front door, or central intercom point in an apartment block. If I make contact, I have to wait for customer to accept package and sign if required.

If I cannot make contact (not home or don't want to answer, locked gate without bell or intercom, etc) I can elect to leave a package if I can access a secure weatherproof drop off point and no signature is required, but must leave a safe drop card explaining where the package is. Otherwise, I must leave a card indicating the class of package, any ID no, and the pickup point location (not the local retail POs as they don't have the room to store the packages).

Contract set up will be different in rural areas as the contractor may only be required to size vehicle for the letter load, rather than combined letter and parcel load. I know that when I lived near Wilsons Prom as a kid, the mail contractor had a 600 mile run with a station wagon as the required vehicle level and had to split the run into multiple loads at high demand times, back when mail parcels were quite rare. It may be possible that the contract does not include carriage of parcels with a mail run, but it could also be possible that it is just inconvenient for the contractor. Only the contracts section would be able to offer a definitive answer. General mail delivery and parcel delivery are completely seperate sections within AP.

[dj_pnevans]

How about the postie in Sydney who kept all the mail.
David