Our postal service

continues to be erratic. Yesterday a parcel arrived with a speed that continues to astound me. I will deliver it on this morning to the intended recipient. 

She is not home during the week. The post office is not open on Saturdays for her to collect a parcel that cannot simply be left at the door. I am the solution. If I am not home I can go to the post office and pick it up for her - subject to all sorts of identification and permission issues.

On the same day we got one of our three mail deliveries. There was a letter for me. It had been posted on the 2nd October - from the other side of the city. The person who sent it had already phoned me twice and then come over to see me in order to sort her Japanese knitting pattern out. It would have been faster to do that in the first place - but it should not be necessary. She paid $1.10 to post me a photocopy of the chart symbols she did not understand. Why does a single page, correctly addressed in very legible printing take two weeks to arrive from the other side of the city? 

It makes no sense. The three deliveries a week makes no sense. The earlier posting time makes no sense.  All this is from a company where the services continue to be cut back while those in charge get higher and higher salaries. The person at the top has a salary almost four times higher than the Prime Minister - and that does not include the additional "perks". 

There is something wrong here. I know people no longer write as many letters as they once did, that businesses would prefer bills were "paperless" and that many other things are done electronically. That should make it easier for the post office to deliver on time. It should be possible for people to go to a post office on a Saturday morning - at a time when many of them are doing their other shopping. Our local post office offers a very limited banking service as well. The staff are not happy about that because those who need it are generally the very elderly. Their needs take more time. It holds other customers up as they wait in a socially distanced queue. There are less post office staff than their once were to deal with all this.

"Use a credit card or a debit card," the very elderly are told, "And remember your pin number...and...." 

It frightens many of them, particularly those who have only a small aged pension to survive on. How do they keep track? What if a shop can't or even won't give them a receipt?

"No," I tell them, "You must not give me your pin number." We can go to the sole teller machine and I will try again to teach you the process but you have to remember your pin number and put it in yourself.  

They tell me it was "so simple" when the bank was there and when all their bills arrived by post - and arrived on time. It was so simple when the postman would even take letters from them if they were shuffling slowly up to a letter box. Post people are not supposed to do that now. Perhaps I should not be doing it either? I just take whatever they need to have posted from their letter box and tuck the little flag back inside. It shouldn't take more than a couple of days to have something delivered but now I have to warn them it could take two weeks. Adding a "priority" stamp is not going to make much difference - if any difference at all. 

Downunder Post simply is not delivering.