After the Easter weekend, true to form Australia Post counter proposed meeting times. The same unsuitable time on different days, designed to create another irrelevant back and forth commenced via the intermediary Contact Centre without knowing whom the meeting would be with or what was on their agenda.
Then a notice came from Australia Post; who seem to have taken over the responsibility of the Launceston Delivery Centre. “For clarity” they corrected the lack of detail in the prior communications by the deposed department by repeating them verbatim. The attached delivery map had not changed to include Warrentinna Road. Neither the Cottage or the newly repurposed microwave closer to town. Locations for clusters of boxes were also absent to protect them from from scheming Vandals.
In addition it announced the restricted delivery service commences 24th April with customers provided a grace period on the day before to pick up their mail beforehand; otherwise they would have to trek to the Scottsdale PO. If they don’t the mail will be delivered to their street address on 25th April, but if there is no boundary mail box it will be returned to sender.
“for clarity”, the notification is silent on the “community type” meeting, the location of clusters of mail boxes or the potential extension of the newly restricted delivery service.
If and when Australia Post meets with the Gardener’s Cottage; we doubt there will be any answer to any question.
Significantly any pretence of a reason for the impending doom was missing from the missive. There was no improvement in targets for the Vandals and thieves, but there was a hypocritical “like” for a “smooth and positive experience for you and the whole community.”
The Gardener’s pondered on this sentiment, and whether simply moving a subset of the existing boxes, enough to accommodate the remote residents, to their preferred cluster locations would protect those boxes from the assaults of the problematic Vandals.
The hard line on doing nothing at all for remote residents was confirmed by the Scottsdale Post Office. When approached with the problem of multiple deliveries of mail to a neighbour’s mailbox accompanied evidence of two different postbox numbers scrawled onto each of four different letters, their response was to insist that a mailbox must be erected at the Redhill/Stoke intersection.
Despite being a fully informed representative of an efficient delivery service they were not privy to Australia Post’s preference to amass a cluster of letterboxes at the existing location on Stoke Street. Eventually their storm of insistence was placated sufficiently to pay attention to the problem at hand; the removal of the irritating complainant from their shop. They churlishly blamed the delivery contractor and unconvincingly undertook to ‘talk to them’. As if that will make a difference!
As the neighbour can be absent for long periods, we anticipate mail for the Cottage languishing in their mailbox, then returned to Scottsdale, and after the generous grace period for the transition to the restricted service returned to sender, because its address does not match the neighbour’s address for which a redirection order is being applied. It seems there could be a long train of unanticipated problems for everyone caused by not addressing the ongoing mediocre delivery service where some victims have opted to pay for a PO Box.
What can you expect from an organisation that has not been able to schedule a meeting in over a week?
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