# Royal Mail
I do not have a very good experience with the Royal Mail in Oxford… my post often arrives two weeks to a month after it was sent (even first class) (although it has got a little better recently), I have sent things which have got lost (or got to their destination at least two weeks after I sent it), the other day the Royal Mail person didn’t even knock on my door to give me my parcel he just slipped a note through the door saying “sorry you were not in, please collect it [from a post office 2 miles away, which isn't even the nearest post office]“, another day he just left a small parcel on my doorstep (not a good idea, although this is one of the nicer areas of Oxford to live in)… and it gets worse!
I have a suspicion that the post(wo)men in Oxford are delivering leaflets from random companies (i.e. SPAM!!!!) to every household on my road. I get about 15 leaflets through at the same time as my post. Which if we work it out, means that the houses on my road are getting more Spam mail (aka Junk Mail) through their letter box each day than they do get in their email inbox each day.
So, as you can imagine, I am not happy… especially as they seem to go on strike at least 3 times per year as well.
I just hope that the post in Bristol is a lot better (Yay! I’ll be moving soon! 
)
p.s. for those outside the UK: you could probably guess from this blog post that the Royal Mail deliver mail/post in the UK.
p.s. The Royal Mail Van Image is from wikipedia
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Hey you!
You’re moving to Bristol!?! Wow. I hope that goes well
I’m going to defend Royal Mail now, to an extent (my stepdad is a postman, so I have sorta inside info) - I won’t defend that your mail goes missing/delayed, or the parcels thing. I hate when they do that with packets, we had a real problem with it recently too and it’s so maddening!
But - the leaflets. They get paid a certain amount per leaflet, which amounts to a significant part of their pay, so hardly anyone turns it down on moral grounds. Of course, it’s crappy that they do it… but wages is wages, and when you don’t get paid all that much, and they’re cutting down your pay & increasing your hours at the same time? Well, you can kind of understand it a bit.
The strikes last year were misrepresented in the media, hugely. They were trying to make everyone part-time but doing the same amount of work. Would you do the same amount of work, in half the time, for less than half the pay? I really wouldn’t!
xxx
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Hey you to you too
Good to hear from you again Hazel!
Cheers for your ideas on the Royal Mail…. tis just a bit weird about the leaflets. I thought that the Royal Mail would be a lot more “green” than that… especially as it is one of the Royal-Related organisations.
Oh well… I’ll talk to you soon… and yes I’m moving to Bristol. Its very exciting!
Daniel