An Post is a dead duck

seamus

John_C wrote: »

My postman does that and I have a bit of sympathy with his position. Most houses are empty during the day so I can see why he doesn't want to be lugging a bunch of boxes on his round only to drop them back again when he's finished.

It's his job. He's not being more efficient, he's failing to provide the level of service his customers are paying for.

You are right though in that it's a front-line response to a failure by the business to adapt to a different market. This kind of thing is typical in enviroments where management are slow to change and rarely listen to feedback from the workers on the ground. The workers can feel like they have no other choice.
Parcel delivery should be a separate group who drive around in vans full of parcels, so it makes no odds to them whether or not someone is at the address.

Farmer Pudsey

seamus wrote: »

It's his job. He's not being more efficient, he's failing to provide the level of service his customers are paying for.

You are right though in that it's a front-line response to a failure by the business to adapt to a different market. This kind of thing is typical in enviroments where management are slow to change and rarely listen to feedback from the workers on the ground. The workers can feel like they have no other choice.
Parcel delivery should be a separate group who drive around in vans full of parcels, so it makes no odds to them whether or not someone is at the address.

And ring 15-20 minutes before they arrive so that if the person is away( droping kids to school) the can come back, arrange for it to be droped at a neighbours or at a local PO to collect that evening or the following day when they are passing or near by

creedp

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

And ring 15-20 minutes before they arrive so that if the person is away( droping kids to school) the can come back, arrange for it to be droped at a neighbours or at a local PO to collect that evening or the following day when they are passing or near by

That's not a problem unique to an Post though. Recently, as in 2013, I've had 2 deliveries returned to the supplier's depot by a private courier service because apparently 'they couldn't find the house' - a rural address with no house number! The fact that they were specifically asked to call 1/2 hour in advance so I would have someone on site to collect it on my behalf was ignored. Needless the say I or the company I was purchasing from was happy with the service provided. In one of the cases, the company used An Post to redeliver the package and it was delivered to my father-in-law's house next door without the need for a phone-call or signature.

RATM

John_C wrote: »

My postman does that and I have a bit of sympathy with his position. Most houses are empty during the day so I can see why he doesn't want to be lugging a bunch of boxes on his round only to drop them back again when he's finished.
The management in An Post need to sort out the parcel delivery systems. The postman who leaves the packages behind is really just responding to mistakes higher up the food chain.

As Seamus said above it is his job to get the parcel there. Not bringing it out in the first place is unacceptable. Courier companies have the same hassle with getting people in yet they manage to deal with it by placing phonecalls or texts a few hours before arrival- why can't the An Post use the same initiative that the courier companies do ? Why can't they have an SMS service or app that lets you know a parcel has arrived and then you select a time when you'll be home ? It's not rocket science at the end of the day, the technology is there and it is cheap yet the dinosaur that is An Post refuses to embrace it which means they will hemorrhage even more customers who get inconvenienced by them.

Just two weeks I had to go all the way down to the sorting office to pick up a small packet that contained a small jar of cream. After a 25 minute round trip I got to my door and I posted the thing through my letterbox to see if it would fit- it did with no problems whatsoever. The thing hardly weighed anything at all yet because of a combination of the postmans laziness and the ineptitude of management to police laziness I myself then suffer the consequences by having nearly half an hour taken out of my day so I could effectively do the job I paid them to do.. I've had several similar incidents with them as I buy a lot online but at this stage I now just route everything to Parcel Motel which allows you to ship to a Belfast address to avail of free shipping from a lot of UK retailers and then they re-route it to a locker which is only a 3 minute walk away from my door. For the service they charge only €3 per parcel and it means that for most items I no longer have to deal with An Post not doing their job right.

jimmycrackcorm

An post could make a killing doing a similar system to parcelmotel for undelivered parcels. But I doubt they could achieve it due to union interference.