Do you hate queueing at the Post Office?

That's a great link, Tony.

I wish I'd found out about it last week sometime since my tax disc is already out of date so I have to go to the post office to renew it today!

Cheers,

JR

looks like it could help hundreds of people, except that is the disabled ones... if you read the small print they still have to go to the post office to have their paperwork checked...

Remember the new scheme requires you to have the new style MOT certificate (if you have to produce one)

and it is proof of the sharing of data between the Insurance Companies and Government bodies - Discussions on this about police access to online motor insurance information in other threads recently

Derek

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Thank god for that. I despise waiting at the post office. If I had a pound for everytime someone at the beginning of the queue had to be poked/shouted at because there was a counter free...

Everyone seems to walk around like zombies in Post Offices. Is it something in the air?

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Originally posted by Richard @ Soundcraft:
Thank god for that. I despise waiting at the post office. If I had a pound for everytime someone at the beginning of the queue had to be poked/shouted at because there was a counter free...

Everyone seems to walk around like zombies in Post Offices. Is it something in the air?

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It's a sensory deprivation of stimulation sort of thing. Literally nothing happens for such long periods that alternative realities float to the surface.

I remember when they tried putting TVs with Post Office adverts near the front of the queue in the local main post office. The near-comatose 'twirlies' became so glued to the mind numbingly boring screen. That they wouldn't notice a free counter if it fell on them. I suppose it was just too much like being at home.

People used to pay a lot of money to float in warm salt baths with the lights out. Think of the money they'd have saved by queuing at the post office.

My recent record was 23 minutes waiting for the only assistant in the town center post Office to assist another young woman in her choice of greeting card. I had no choice but to wait. I would hazard I lost a year off my life by the time I was finally served.

Those who believe in reincarnation might speculate. That the poor sods on the other side of the counter. Must have done something pretty awful to warrent such a career.

Nime

Especially more so if I was planning the rob the gaff !!!

Even more so in Hull where you have to queue behind a few hundred kosovan/iraqis lol.

I am not lying.

Number 5 please, number 2 please....

Sound familiar?

Here in Sweden we/they have done an easy and forceful solution to the problem.

There aren't any post offices any more! No, I'm not joking. The post offices are gone and there business is handles by the local tobacconist or grocery store.

Now one has to que at the tobacconist instead, in line with gamblers and smokers. The gamblers and smokers, in turn, then getting angry at the ones who are only there to buy a couple of stamps.

Okay, we still has to buy our alcohol at the government controlled stores, so everything is not lost

JohanR

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There aren't any post offices any more! No, I'm not joking. The post offices are gone and there business is handles by the local tobacconist or grocery store.

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that's all right, over here they're turning post offices into department stores. You can now buy cds, stationery, insurance and so on. Pretty much everything except actually sending mail. ("that's not our job, we're not royal mail" was what the Croydon post office manager said to me when I complained about not being able to send a parcel there).

John

The Government has decreed that the Post Office must make a profit and act commercially.

The Letters side of the business is making good money but the small sub PO's lose money every day of the week. You cannot make a good income selling a few stamps and paying out social security benefits.

Therefore, a few thousand of them need to close.

The simple choice is do they act like a normal business or do you subsidise it via taxation.

Regards

Mick

I do an awful lot of posting and visit the Post Office three times aa week with big bundles of mail.

Rather than going to the main PO in Balham High Road, where you always have to queue for at least 10 minutes (there never seems to be enough windows open, and I find the endless ad loops on the TV really irritating), I walk a bit further to the small sub post office in the opposite direction. I never have to queue there (I find that visiting between 2pm and 3pm is best) and they're very friendly. The quality of service is excellent. I'd be gutted if they had to close...

I think small sub-POs play a very important part in the community, particularly for the elderly, mums and the disadvantaged; also I cannot see how you can maintain a universal single-price postal service - which is a good thing - without government support. I simply don't think you can run the Post Office/Royal Mail as a business, therefore it needs to be subsidised by the taxpayer. It's like the BBC - you'd miss it if it were gone.


Kevin

My ebaying would be a drag without the Elsenham Post Office. The closer office in Stansted didn't reopen after its umpteenth armed robbery. I queued in Stansted once, behind Kenny Ball.

Tony

Kevin

The Post office has never been subsidised by the tax payer since the late 70's.

It lost money recently but drew on its reserves.

The PO does not need the tax payers money to survive, it needs to retain its monopoly on mail (which is soon going) and also the ability to cross transfer profits from mail to the sub POs which is is no longer allowed to do.

The killer blow for the PO is that although it is expected to compete with competitors who can cherry pick the lucrative services ie inner london, the PO is obliqued to service loss making mail such as villages and that is what will cause it to be split and sold off.

It will make £400m profit this year but by 2008 is expected to be losing a £billion, which is unsubstainable.

Regards

Mick

Mick,

I stand corrected. Is the loss of the PO monopoly the result of some ideological idiocy (ie, that competition is good so the mail monopoly should be dismantled)? As you say, businesses in inner London may benefit, but the bloke in the Hebridean croft most certainly won't.

And what will happen, do you think, when those losses become unsustainable? Will the Treasury step in or will the whole system collapse?

I'm quite surprised nobody in the media has made a bigger stir about this, it seems an incredibly important subject...

Kevin

Note that to date the RM retains its monoply on personal mail and the areas it's facing competition is bulk business mailing (ie junk mail). When it makes these deals the competitors are obliged to make a deal with the RM to use part of their network in much the same way that broadband suppliers have to cut a deal with BT when they use its network.

Matthew

PS My mate has written lots about the Royal Mail -- you need to read The Sun rather than those stuffy old broadsheets Kevin.

richard,

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Originally posted by Richard @ Soundcraft:
Thank god for that. I despise waiting at the post office. If I had a pound for everytime someone at the beginning of the queue had to be poked/shouted at because there was a counter free...

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you're a man after my own heart!

I hate bloody queues of any kind.
I love the system I've experienced in such places when abroad, where the one who pushes the hardest is the one who gets served first... <barge> oops, never noticed you there, amigo, even though you were quite clearly in front of me

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Everyone seems to walk around like zombies in Post Offices. Is it something in the air?

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no, it's the natural atmosphere created by the sort of people who regularly frequent post offices.

TN

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Originally posted by Mick Parry:
The PO does not need the tax payers money to survive, it needs to retain its monopoly on mail (which is soon going) and also the ability to cross transfer profits from mail to the sub POs which is is no longer allowed to do.

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It would also have been nice if they had retained the ability to pay out Benefits, which presumably were rewarded by a fee.

cheers, Martin

E-mail:- MartinPayne (at) Dial.Pipex.com. Put "Naim" in the title.

A legal requirement lest you forget, and go and do a Haifa and remember the good bits for moir only >?

FRitz Von Prezza'salarfinnee

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Originally posted by Martin Payne:

It would also have been nice if they had retained the ability to pay out Benefits, which presumably were rewarded by a fee.

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The subpostmaster's income is/was very closely matched to his actual "turnover" on all the services he provides.

Denmark doeasn't seem to have any village subpostoffices. While the offices in the towns rarely seem to open before 12 o'clock. Which seeems very odd indeed in comparison with the UK. The range of services also seems very limited compared with the UK.

But then many libraries don't usually open until 12 (or later) either. But they make up for it in a superb totally free service. Online ordering from a country-wide catalogue, including the superb CD/DVD music/film libraries, e-mail notification of the arrival of ordered material, followed by an e-mail when the item is finally due back. Queuing here is remarkably rare.

Nime

On average I use my PO some 10 - 15 times monthly, as it's also my bank at present, it's an art, a game, that if taken seriously can really put one near to going over the edge on occassion, innit Micky.

Fritz Von McPaper

"OAPs and chavs"!!!

What an "interesting" perspective.

Personally, I think one of the great judges of the sort of person I am dealing with is how they accept and deal with the inevitability of queuing.

Mike

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how they accept and deal with the inevitability of queuing.

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that could only have been said by an Englishman.

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Originally posted by John Sheridan:

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how they accept and deal with the inevitability of queuing.

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that could only have been said by an Englishman.

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I second that, innit.

I am pleased to comment that our local sub post office, even though it is no bigger than the average domestic garage, is excellent.

The longest queue has been all of three people - any more and they would have to queue outside. The usual queue consists of me.

The small rural post office is (currently) a standard feature in many parts of rural Northern Ireland and long may it remain so.

I think it is great to be able to conduct all my postal business with people I know and in a location that is both handy and hassle free.

Recently I was obliged to use one of the main post offices in Belfast and it is not an experience I would choose to repeat. In a weird way it was like entering an unknown and faintly malevolent society in which you were just tolerated and certainly not welcomed.

Long live the rural post office!

I can hear music, sweet sweet music