Going Postal

I want to talk to you today about the Royal Mail. Or, more specifically, I want to rage savagely against the institutionalized thievery and ineptitude that is the Royal Mail.

In the US we go to the Post Office to, well, post letters. We might linger for a moment to look for a picture of our brainless brother-in-law on the wanted posters, pick up some stamps or check a PO box but for the most part the entire experience revolves around the collection or depositing of mail.

The British, in their own unique and charming way, have taken this mundane activity and, in the grand tradition of English cooking, added thick layers of unnecessary fat to the process.

Here in lovely North West London we are lucky enough to have a full-service Post Office at the end of our road. By “full-service” I of course mean that the lowly act of dropping a letter in a slot has mutated into laundry list of time consuming offerings.

I have heard rumours that the Royal Mail sells stamps and posts letters but to be honest I’ve never been actually able to do either of those activities because when I’ve set out, letter in hand, blind optimism in my heart, I am always thwarted by queues that snake around the block as people line up to:

• Exchange foreign currency
• Buy travel, home and car insurance
• Sign-up for land-line phone service, get directory enquiries, phone cards or top up pre-pay mobiles
• Pay utility bills and TV license charges
• Apply for credit cards, pay for credit cards, get loans, buy growth bonds, equity bonds, establish a Child Trust fund, open a savings account, deposit money in a savings account, withdraw money from a savings account, do an electronic funds transfer and pick up a dole check
• Register a car, pay the road-tax for a car, get an international drivers licence or apply for an English drivers license
• Renew a fishing license

As an added extra bonus you can also visit your local Post Office to buy flowers and gift vouchers because nothing says “I love you” quite like a gift certificate from the Royal Mail.

Undoubtedly there was a time back in the mists of English history when the village Post Office was the sole venue available for the transacting of governmental business: paying poll taxes, property taxes, sheep taxes, poor taxes, diseased beggar taxes and the like. If you lived in some remote outpost of English rule and found it necessary to deal, on an official level, with your overlords in London, the rural Post Office was your only option.

This one-stop-shop approach to the Post Office, like every other part of English bureaucracy, never really evolved over time, they just kept clumping more and more bits to it until it became the unwieldy, lumbering, dinosaur that exists today: bulky, inefficient, corrupt, and long overdue for a trip to the knacker.

Bill Bryson observed that, “In America the Post Office delivers the mail and in England the Royal Mail delivers the post.” Of course if by “delivers” Mr. Bryson means, “stored in a leaky post-box, packed into a lorry; driven aimlessly around the country for several weeks, left in a disused warehouse in Surrey to ripen, crushed by bowling balls, rained on, opened, sent to Norway, returned from Norway and, if you are exceptionally lucky, deposited into the letter box of someone on your street.” Then yes, his observation is relatively accurate.

By it’s own admission, so undoubtedly the figure is stratospherically higher, the Royal Mail managed to lose, steal, tamper with or set alight, 14.6 million pieces of mail last year (BBC, Feb 10th 2006).

In my little slice of heaven, Kilburn Park, a postal gang carted off 1000 letters on trolleys and undercover reporters were shown the best way to nick banking post. (Evening Standard, Feb 10th 2006). Admittedly this is not as difficult as it might sound as all correspondence from banks, Inland Revenue (the English IRS), credit card companies or indeed any financial organization, are helpfully marked “Private and Confidential” in big, friendly letters on the outside of the envelopes.

As if signalling acceptance of the inevitability of lost mail, the English, as a rule, have utterly abandoned the use of return address labels. In the US (and the UK as it turns out), about the time we are able to hold a pencil, we are taught to put a return address on letters. It’s simple and a good way to find out if the people on our Christmas card list are wilfully ignoring our holiday greetings or have simply fled the country and left no forwarding address.

My partner moaned about sending cards to a friend and not hearing anything back only to find out later that the woman in question had, in fact, moved. Ironically at almost the very moment of this revelation a letter came through our box- returned from the States because I mislabelled it; only finding its way back because I remembered what they taught us in Kindergarten. A lesson totally lost on the English.

Speaking of change of address notifications. The USPO has a little packet filled to bursting with change of address cards that you can send, not only to the Post Office but to magazines, newspapers, banks, grandparents, etc. informing them of your upcoming departure and new locale. Fill these cards out and something magical happens: your mail starts appearing at your new home!

The English systems operates somewhat differently. If you somehow survive the wait (bring plenty of water and dried fruit to keep you going) and make it to a teller’s window someone with an impenetrable accent will attempt to inform you that yes change of address forms do exist, no he/she doesn’t have any and by the way, there is a charge for each piece of mail that is re-directed.

Excuse me?

Let me say that again but louder this time: THE THIEVING BASTARDS CHARGE YOU EXTRA FOR FORWARDING YOUR MAIL. If you don’t pay their extortion money, your post will simply pile up at your old flat and provide a source of amusement, free credit cards and revenue for the new tenants.

Confronted with the awe-inspiring depth of its ineffectiveness the Royal Mail decided that instead of actually dealing with any of its problems, it would be far easier simply to change their name. Thus, in 2001 the Royal Mail became Consignia. As forward-thinking as this might have seemed at the time, it somehow failed to improve service so less than two years (but more than £2 billion) later, they decided to change their name back.

To be fair… Well, no, there really is no reason to be fair. The Royal Mail is beyond fucked up, they are criminally incompetent. I have had packages ripped open and their contents stolen, checks that never arrived and everyday post gone missing with such stunning regularity its hard not to feel that I am on some government watch list that mandates postal harassment. As appealing as this line of paranoia might be, the fact of the matter is that everyone on this rock has similar experiences so my stories are far from uncommon.

As for today, my arms have grown tired from flogging the Royal Mail. Further instalments will be forthcoming, as listing the failings of the UK postal system really is a hole with no bottom.