Air Mail - the new snail mail: A Rant

Apparently Australia Post has done well enough to pay its CEO squillions, while reducing the efficiency of services and increasing the cost of those increasingly inefficient services. What a business model - it says so much about the times in which we are living.

That CEO, Ahmed Fahour, has quit AP now - check out this fat golden handshake as you bemoan the increase in the price of a fucking stamp: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-25/ahmed-fahour-walks-away-from-australia-post-with-$10.8-million/8841226

One of the cost-saving measures touted as a possibility by Australia Post a few years ago was not, as you might expect, reducing the astronomical six figure salary of the CEO, but reducing the number of postal deliveries from one per weekday to 3 per week. Poor Australia Post was losing money hand over fist. Nobody writes letters any more (although everyone sends parcels, it seems, and I'm quite certain that is a very very lucrative part of Australia Post's business.)

The three-deliveries-a-week thing, thankfully, did not happen here, and now that Mr Fahour has taken his money and ridden off into the sunset, the new Australia Post CEO, Christine Holgate, will take home a considerably smaller six-figure salary, saving Australia Post several million dollars per year. That is a Good Thing.

BUT (there's always a 'BUT', isn't there?)

Across the ditch, our Kiwi cousins have not been so lucky. NZ Post delivers thrice weekly. What that means, for anybody who posts anything from Oz, is that delivery times have slowed. A lot. I'm not altogether sure of the finer details, because really, you'd think it'd only mean a one-day delay, wouldn't you? (No delivery on Tuesday? No problem - deliver on Wednesday instead.) Instead, it appears to have added more than a week to the delivery time. Yes, I'm serious.

Once upon a time, posting something via Airmail - which used to be the speedy option - took just a few days to get from Canberra to Christchurch - add a day, perhaps even two if you're posting from Mallacoota, because Mallacoota mail takes a day or so to get to Melbourne before it can fly to NZ.

This year, my Dad's birthday card arrived late. I made sure I posted his Fathers Day card earlier than usual - it still arrived late. I posted another card  MORE THAN TWO WEEKS before a special event AND IT WAS FUCKING LATE!

It would appear that our postal non-services would like us to pay extra for "EXPRESS AIRMAIL", adding several dollars to the already high cost of airmail. It's true - your letter/parcel to NZ can now fly cattle class, just like you, or you can pay through the nose for it to fly (probably on the same flight) the equivalent of First Class. Unless its getting a bed to sleep in and complimentary in-flight champagne, they can shove that up their inefficient bums!

So - I posted a SMALL STANDARD item AIRMAIL WITH TRACKING to my Dad on 14 November.  It weighed about 320gms, went in an A3 sized tough-bag and cost me $17.76 to post. I've been tracking it - you bet I have - to see why it takes so bloody long.

So..... looks like it's been cooling its heels in Auckland since Monday morning after being cleared through Customs. And now it's Thursday.

Why, NZ Post?

I know that Thursday is not a delivery day, but does every single person involved in the postal process only work on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays as well? Even if that were the case, why wasn't my item happily whizzing from Auckland to Chch on Monday, which IS an NZ Post day? Or even Wednesday, which is also a delivery day? Why is it still in Auckland on Thursday?

In Chch, a private document delivery service has sprung up to fill in the gaps left by NZ Post. We Australia Post customers, however, are stuck with AusPost and NZ Post's abysmal non-service. I'm angry.

I'm thinking of getting a carrier pigeon. Or learning to swim. It'd probably be quicker.

UPDATE: Dad texted to say a courier had delivered his article around the middle of the day on 23 November. Something in the "tracking" was evidently awry, with no notifications between Auckland and Christchurch. So - 9 days to travel airmail from Mallacoota to Christchurch. This article arrived more quickly than cards I have posted - does this mean parcel post is taken more seriously/quickly? (for all values of 'quickly' equal to "not very quickly" or "pretty slowly, actually, but it's all relative"?) You're still not off the hook, Aus- and NZ Post.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So.... New look for the blog to match the New Me. I'm going to have to do some tweaking and rejigging of everything, including the 'about me' stuff. Maybe.

It's official, and now it's about to be public - I've given up motorcycling. I am an ex-motorcyclist. I just need to get rid of all my motorcycling stuff. Like the Harley. Yes, the Harley still sits in the shed, where it has sat for the last 4 years. It's ventured out about a dozen times and I need to sell it to make everything REALLY official... end of an era. It's kind of hard to let go though.

I am now - well, exactly what AM I? I'm not retired exactly - but I'm not quite what you'd call 'employed' in a real sense - I do about 14 hours a week casual work in the town library and shire office. I've become quite involved in Community Radio. I spend a little time volunteering at the local gallery. I do a bit of voluntary data entry for a bird project. I keep chooks. I dabble in watercolours and turn some of my paintings into greeting cards.

I get angry at the government. A lot.

I despair of the goings-on in America.

I walk and watch birds.

It's a good life, actually. I haven't changed completely - I still love chillies. I'm still scared of spiders. My 'occasional adventures', however, are pretty rare these days and nobody ever calls me Betty any more -  so I feel the title of the blog is a bit, well, fraudulent!  Can I change it? Is that possible? If so, what should I call it now? Should I even bother with it? Do I have anything to say any more? I've been pretty silent for the last few years, taking up cyberspace for no good reason....

I think maybe it's time to say sayonara. Perhaps I shall return in a whiz-bang new incarnation at some stage. Dazzle you with my art, ha ha! To the folks who've followed my adventures - friends near and far - thank you.

Over and out.