Re: Australia Post Not Delivering

countessalmirena · ‎11-02-2020

@flyingeric62,

I'm aware of quite some variation with regard to postmen, carding, parcel deliveries, couriers, etc. While AP posties and couriers of all sorts in our area are - by and large - excellent, I have heard of horror stories from people living in other areas. In particular, there are specific difficulties for those living in remote areas when the nearest courier depot may be over a hundred kilometres distant, and the nearest post office may be annoyingly far (let's say 20-30 km away) or just as distant as the courier depot.

I really do feel for people in areas where this is the case.

This is probably something that every Australian needs to take into account if moving to a more relaxed/rural area - along with other things such as access to a wide variety of first-class medical care, the paucity of shops, the smaller variety of items within the shops, possibly poorer internet and/or phone coverage... and no doubt a great many other things. One very major reason why I'd never move to a purely rural area is the access to hospitals and various medical specialists that we need. Another reason is that I like to purchase items according to what I want rather than be limited by what's available - and I equally value the delivery efficiency where I live.

Spoiler

(That's not to say that there aren't postage issues at all. If something is affecting delivery times Australia-wide, of course we'll be affected as well! Not only that, but there is a postage box close by which has some issues. Part of what I do requires official documentation being mailed or hand-delivered. Of the many such documents, inevitably there'll be some that are mislaid by the receiving department... human error - but I was alerted to some going back a few years that never turned up and which had been mailed. I'm almost entirely sure that each of those was dropped into that particular one box. I have a mad sort of vision of that scene in "A Beautiful Mind" where the audience sees all of the so-called reports stuffed into the box by Nash. But the box isn't stuffed full of years of uncollected mail; I checked! It's anyone's guess as to what has been going on there...)

I can count on one hand the number of times that there's been a delivery issue here.

If you really want a horror story about delivery, let me mention the time that there was an order made for some Russian books, etc. (Several large boxes.) The seller chose the cheapest delivery method which was still a few hundred dollars... and it took months. Along the way, I think the boxes must have got soaked on board the cargo ship in wild seas, urinated on by crude sailors, and had treacle or honey poured onto them by God only knows who.

I just don't know how the courier delivering the first Russian lot could even look me in the face when handing over the boxes, which were soaked, falling apart, and smelt dreadful. Didn't they realise there was something amiss? In fact, the courier handing them over looked affronted when I said "Wait - there appears to be a problem..." and wanted to lodge the report immediately.