My pet peeve: Pedant postie’s Peter Posa parcel poser
Peter Posa declared his intention to make inquires with New Zealand Post. I wished him luck.
Peter Posa sounded distressed.
While it is always a real privilege to hear from a New Zealand living legend, there was little pleasure to be had in this telephone exchange. A fortnight earlier Posa had sent me a favourite DVD of his, a biopic of Hank Williams.
News that it had not arrived at my end was not exactly music to the great guitarist’s ears. Neither of us had any idea what might have happened. In the past, parcels had made it back and forth from rural Te Awamutu to central Hamilton without incident. It was a mystery.
Peter declared his intention to make inquires with New Zealand Post. I wished him luck. You need a free schedule and the patience of a saint to dial an 0800 number these days.
I hoped the hold music would be to the Posa taste. He’s got some excellent opinions about that kind of thing.
A few days later my attention was drawn to the Auteur House overdues list. Running a DVD store in the age of Netflicks requires a relaxed attitude about rental returns, but even so, there are certain lines in the sand that should not be crossed.
I noticed that three out-of-town customers, folk with a long track record of returning things on time, were exceptionally late. I emailed the best of them, a gentleman, like Peter, who resides in Te Awamutu, seeking confirmation of when and where he posted the disks. Could there be something amiss at the TA Post Office?
The customer responded quickly. He had put the DVDS in the mail 10 or so days before. He declared his intention to make good on any loss. I was loathed to take him up on the offer as two of the three titles were imports. Why should a customer have to pay for a collapse or flaw in the system?
Two to three days after this correspondence, I discovered a slip of cardboard in the Auteur House return box. It was a communication from NZ Post, a notice that material was being held for me at their Angelsea St depot. Across the top of this card, written in hand, were the words ‘‘final notice’’.
I was confused by all this. ‘‘Final notice’’ implied that there had been earlier notices. What had happened to them? More to the point, why was the Post Office holding deliveries for us?
We are open 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. Surely that’s a big enough window to deliver anything?
Come Saturday morning off I traipsed to Angelsea St, just around the corner. It is at most a 10-minute walk.
I presented the notice. The woman behind the counter, sensing my frustration, was professionalism itself. Excusing herself briefly, she returned ladened with a pile of five or six packages, material that had been gathering dust for weeks.
I quickly recognised Peter’s DVD as well as the bag from the other Te Awamutu customer. There was also a delivery from overseas, an import I had been waiting on.
I politely sought an explanation for all of this. In response, I was asked if my home or business was located above ground level. I replied in the affirmative. Auteur House is up a flight of stairs. Tewnty-one stairs, to be precise. ‘‘Well, that explains things then’’, said the friendly lady.
She then proceeded to quote NZ Post policy in the matter. Postal workers are not obliged to deliver any packages above street level. This was news to me. For nearly a decade now they have been doing exactly that.
One postie, a chap in his late 50s with a law degree, was a reliable, daily sounding board on local and international issues, a great source of feedback on world affairs in general and this column in particular. Presumably, at least one of this postie’s youthful replacements is shy when it comes to exercise.
After 10 years of excellent service, he or she has fallen back on company policy, forgetting duty. Such behaviour necessitates an amendment to the postal service creed. Hence forth it shall read: ‘‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds...except if you live on the first floor or above...’’.