I realise that postmen and women at the moment are getting a bad press.

Post in large parts of the UK no longer gets delivered at 8 or 9 in the morning – in fact, I’m lucky to see my post anytime before 3pm.

I also realise that Royal Mail, in the quest for even greater profits, have increased the workload of the average postie while simultaneously not providing additional money or time for these extra deliveries.

So my postie is under slightly more pressure than before, but that doesn’t explain why for the last two months my postman had simply given up actually posting ANYTHING through my door.

I’d come back from work to find all sorts of letters dumped on my doorstep.
Stuff I’d ordered online were similarly dumped.

Good job I live in a fairly quiet street – in some areas I’ve lived in these items would have been stolen long before I returned from work.

One afternoon, whilst I was enjoying a well deserved day off from work, I heard the unmistakable sound of post hitting the ground outside my front door.

I pulled on my trainers, threw on a shirt, and went out to have a quiet chat with my Royal Mail representative:

ME: “Excuse me mate, don’t want to be rude, but can you explain why you’ve been dumping my post on my doorstep, instead of actually posting it?”

My postman looked more like a postboy – he looked about 18 and it was debatable as to whether he’d started shaving yet.

He said, “Huh? What number do you live at?”

At this point, I thought: is he being selective about which houses he actually delivers to?

I said, “It doesn’t matter what number I live at. I’d appreciate it if you actually post my letters. I’ve ordered stuff from Amazon and I don’t appreciate it when I come home to find these things on my doorstep.”

He said, “Um. One of the doors on this road has brushes in the letterbox that stop me pushing the post all the way through.”

He was talking about the brush draught excluders which are installed in quite a few British letter boxes.

“That’s all very well,” I said. “But the previous postman never had a problem, and anyway – that same excuse doesn’t work with bulky packages, now does it? In future, if there’s something you can’t post – knock. If I’m not in, leave the little card like you are supposed to and I’ll go and pick it up from the sorting office. But I don’t want to have this conversation with you again.”

At this point, he looked like he was going to cry.
“It won’t happen again,” he said, and put out his hand for me to shake.
After I had shaken it, and strolled away, I reflected on the fact that he had looked a little frightened while I was talking to him.
Damn! I had almost scared myself!…

The conclusion to this story is now my post gets delivered through my letterbox, and I don’t have to have further words with the postman…

Copyright © Mark A. McPherson 2012.
All rights reserved.