Can you please explain to me why it takes 24 hours to return the contents of a failed delivery from my doorstep to my local sorting office? Before you answer, I am not interested in what you might percieve as logistical issues - they are nonsense. I live no more than 5 minutes away from the sorting office and yet it takes you 24 hours to put my parcel in a place that I am able to collect it. How does this possibly represent a good service ?

Also, Can you explain to me why you are incapable of delivering mail in a timely fashion? I leave my house at 8am and judging from the 'something for you' cards that are left it is clear that no one attempts to deliver anything until well after 9 at the earliest and more often than not it's not until lunchtime - again, how is this a good service? As a child, I remember the post arriving well before 8am. Since that time (about 30 years or so) your service has steadily deteriorated to the point where it is suitable only for housewives and the unemployed. To the vast majority of the working population (your customers) you are of neither use nor ornament.

There are only two days where I, as a hard working individual, can receive packages that require a signature or won't fit through my letter box. Wednesday when you open "late" to 8pm and Saturday mornings. Even then, I have to do half the job for you and collect the parcel myself. Your parcel service is almost completely without merit. Before you tell me I can pay you some exhorbitant amount to guarantee my post is delivered before a certain time, I will save you the bother - I have no interest in paying for what has already been paid for. All I am interested in is you doing your job properly and delivering my mail in a timely fashion.

I visited your sorting office in Warrington last Wednesday evening and was dealt with by a particularly objectionable (even more so than is usual in Warrington sorting office ) member of staff. I was told that it was quite impossible for the package to be retrieved as there would be 'a thousand other packages which would take me four or five hours to search through.' Assuming for one moment that this was indeed the truth (something that I very much doubt)  This particular member of staff clearly had nothing else better to do, being quite determined to remain on his posterior for the duration. I say on his posterior (I was incandescent at this point, so might have been mistaken), but in reality he may have been leaning on the counter as opposed to actually sitting. Either way he was nearer crotch level than eye-level which only added to his already objectionable demeanor. The other member of staff present was even worse - shaking his head and clucking like a mother hen in apparent disbelief that anyone could be so stupid as too dare suggest that in fact the Royal Mail is no longer fit for purpose and  its staff might be expected to return to an upstanding position and actually do some work. Whilst the first member of staff bordered on being rude, the second was downright unpleasant. I can't help but notice all the notices stating that your staff have the right to work without the spectre of verbal abuse - an admirable sentiment - but I can clearly see why the Royal Mail might have a problem. Your staff in Warrington sorting office are by-and-large rude, unfriendly, disrespectful and I'm sorry to say, just plain lazy.

How The Royal Mail can expect to continue to exist is beyond me. The Royal Mail trades in a service industry - its customers are the only thing keeping it in business. I really am only concerned with your letter and parcel delivery business - Post Office Counters is a confused mess that I personally would not consider using for anything other than posting an item that won't fit through a post box, or an item that I can't send any other way - I cerainly wouldn't buy anything from the Post Office as the prices are not competitive and the queues are generally prohibitively long.

To fix your problem, it's quite simple :

1. Sack each and every employee of the Royal Mail from the CEO downto the cleaner and invite them re-apply for their jobs, refusing to re-employ the chaff (of which you certainly appear to have more than your fair share)
2. Start delivering mail at a time that is suitable to your customers as opposed to your (apparently lazy) staff. Anyone not prepared to comply with the new regime can feel free to collect their P45 on the way out.
3. Start opening your sorting offices at times that suit your customers as opposed to your (apparently lazy) staff. Anyone not prepared to comply with the new regime can feel free to collect their P45 on the way out.

You might think that you would be unable to find staff to work the required hours at the required time, but I am quite certain that for every member of your over-unionised staff there is a queue of eager and willing, non unionised people in need of employment.