Post Office Lunchbreaks

s@sha

It's not just the post offices, the sorting offices (or whatever they're called) have the most stupid opening hours if you need to collect a parcel.

You come home from work on, say, a monday to find one of those cards saying they tried to deliver something. You can't re-arrange delivery weekdays as they only deliver when you are at work. Saturday morning 9am-12 noon is the only other time they will deliver, but you don't want to wait nearly a whole week AND you're not convinced they will turn up (because last time you re-arranged delivery for saturday, they didn't
)

You decide to collect the parcel, then discover the opening times are 9am-1pm closed 1-2pm, then open 2pm-4pm...which is when you are in work, and which is why they couldn't deliver the bloomin' thing in the first place ::)

I'm sure the Royal Mail must waste £££ every day sending delivery vans to people who are in work, and then having to re-deliver on a Saturday (at Royal Mail's own cost), because they only deliver and open the collection office during 'official' work hours, & loads of people just can't be available at that time.

Why don't they have evening deliveries? Or open the collection office in the evenings? Surely it would save them money & in this age of 24 hour everything, there must be plenty of people willing to work in the evenings.

highwayman_2

Cos you get elderly like my gran who doesn't want to change the way she has always known. She doesn't trust cashcards - as she thinks the person behind looks at your number - oh and she thinks the new post office accounts are just a way for the Government to know how much money she hasl ::)

I fully understand and respect this however they always seem to be in the Post Office at the same time as me, generally my lunch break.

This is only an extension of the frustration I feel when I go supermarket shopping after work and find the aisles clogged with pensioners, who have had all dayto do their shopping, with two items in their trollys stood gossiping as though they haven't seen each other for weeks.

s@sha

This is only an extension of the frustration I feel when I go supermarket shopping after work and find the aisles clogged with pensioners, who have had all dayto do their shopping, with two items in their trollys stood gossiping as though they haven't seen each other for weeks.

Have to agree with that. I certainly wouldn't like to see cash & the older systems taken away completely, as so many older people just can't cope with cards etc. My Mother-in Law has a mental illness & would in no way cope if she couldn't get cash at the PO. She doesn't understand cards, or different bank accounts and interest rates.

But she will insist on going to the PO and food shopping on a Saturday, every week at the busiest time, and I just don't understand why it has to be THAT day, when she's all the time in the world to go.

Getting on a jam-packed bus at rush hour at the end of a long day at work, when there's standing room only was one of my niggles. Most of the seats would be taken up by pensioners going home after shopping. Why don't they go earlier in the day?

Oh, and my local swimming pool at the early-morning swim. Full of pensioners at 7am, yakking to each other as you try to swim round them. Why are they there at that time? Everyone else HAS to go then because of work. They don't. The pool is dead by 9am.

Sorry, rant over, didn't mean to hijack the thread. :-/

Mumstheword

Haha you sound like my husband HWM on a Saturday.....I'm sure he'd introduce a weekend tax on old folks at the supermarket.

I don't have an away from home job, but depending on how well i am can't always get the shopping in the week. But I don't get why anyone would choose to go at weekend! ???

As for my local post office, there's usually only 1 til open, so we couldn't have seperate queues, although the idea of a car tax queue on the last day or two of the month sounds like a good one for bigger post offices. However, all the old folks could tell you off for leaving it when you knew you needed it ;D

mum

s@sha

.

But I don't get why anyone would choose to go at weekend! ???

Exactly! Noisy, crowded, nothing left on the shelves...I'm so glad I don't work full-time anymore, I never go food or department-store shopping on a Saurday if I can possibly help it, so I certainly won't when I'm 65!

highwayman_2

and while we're at it let's add in people doing the Internet shopping. They walk round with trollys that hold 6 or 7 'shops' and insist on doing so at the busiest time of the day.

Surely most of the Internet shopping, with the exception of fresh items, could be 'picked' in the stockrooms without ever having to venture onto the shop floor.

Poppy9

If your GP sends you for a blood test you have to go to the local hospital. No appointments just turn up between 8am-12pm. Well as I don't get time off work for GP appointments (Local Govt. worker) I have to go before work at 8am. No matter how early I get there I am always in a queue behind about 50 OAP. One of the blood letting nurses is good and tries to sneak in people who look like they are on their way to work. Boy do the old biddies complain though - they want to get home for morning tv!!!

Jay-Jay_4

Blimey! what are you lot like ;D

So you want this:-

Post offices:
open 8am - 6pm
No pensioners 8-9am 12-2pm or after 3.30pm
No lunch breaks 12-2pm
Tax disc only line
Postage stamp only line

Supermarkets and swimming pools:
No pensioners before 9am between 12-2pm and after 3.30pm
No gossiping at any time

Buses:
No OAPs between after 5pm

;D ;D ;D

Have I missed any ::)

highwayman_2

Have I missed any  ::)  ;)

No blood tests for Pensioners before 10:00am.

longtallsally_2

My moan about my local post office is that it has seperate queues for each individual window. Why can't they put up a barrier to form one queue. Why do I always end up on the slowest queue!!! I try to suss out whether the people in front have many items to process and always pick the one where the person is hiding 10 parcels for Australia in their rucksack. This also causes terrible queue rage and I've seen many near punch ups because of this.

Also I had a note through the door from the postman the other day saying that I had a letter that they couldn't post because the correct stamp hadn't been put on it and that I had to pay £1.20 to pick it up. It turned out the person had put a 20p stamp on instead of 21p and for that 1p I had to pay £1.20. Apparently they charge that for whatever postage is missing. I didn't bother getting the letter.