So, after spending the last few years carefully lining up it’s toes, the Royal Mail has finally gone and shot itself in the foot.
I’ll be completely honest and admit that the details of the strike hold no interest for me, I’ve skim-read the issues and can only surmise that one side thinks it needs to “modernise” and start doing what they get paid for, and the other thinks they’re being taken advantage of, and that “modernisation” is already well underway. I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between the two. I recently asked one of our Postmen what effect the strikes would have? He replied that “Your first class mail will take a few days to arrive”. He wasn’t overly impressed when I replied “So how will we know when the strikes are over?” But I think the point was made.
The blunt fact is though, that our beleaguered Postal Service, is taking giant hit – though a self-inflicted one this time. In an age when email is so prevalent and arrives in seconds, how can ‘Snail Mail’ compete? We can all send and receive documents, invoices and contracts over email, do our banking or shopping online and if we need to swap larger files such as CDs or DVDs, we use ftp sites like http://ftp.south.co.uk/ or http://www.yousendit.com/ , the logic for industrial action does seem rather flawed – though I suspect King Canute might have approved.
Anyway, 2010 will soon be upon us (a year that scientists said we’d all be living on the moon). I suspect these are the same people that heralded the arrival of the ‘Paperless Office’… but having just had to clear a mound of A4 in order to find my keyboard, I reckon they’re a bit out with that prediction too. However the fact remains that although we’re still reliant on the humble letterbox, it is to a far lesser degree. And those businesses that have (so far) coped with RM’s idiosyncrasies are probably investigating alternative services right now.
Let’s hope the Turkey’s don’t keep voting for Christmas.
