Welcome to my nightmare

It was today announced that the Royal Mail has been admirably consistent regarding its performance targets this year: they have missed all fifteen of them. This seems to me deeply impressive; I would have expected that they'd hit at least one by accident, but apparently not. On the other hand perhaps it isn't that surprising given that it's only the latest in a whole succesion of noteworthy Post Office deeds. Some three years ago I wrote of their laudable desire to encourage me to take more excercise, by forcing me to walk two miles to their depot to collect a package which was 6p short on postage. Then just this year, for our comfort and convenience, they abolished the second post. The fact that the new first post was mysteriously delivered at the same time as the old second post, leading some cynics no wonder exactly which of the two posts had been abolished, is surely mere coincidence.

Shortly after this change I was also witness to a deeply impressive bit of postal speed: having sent two postcards from Malaysia, one to the South East of England and one to the North West, I was suitably pleased to discover that the former arrived in well under a week. Alas the second took four weeks before it showed up, suggesting that it takes the international post 4 days to get from Malaysia to Bracknell, but a further 3 weeks for the Post Office to get from Bracknell to Bury: nice to know that they are pausing to take in all the best of British Scenery on the way.

Oh by the way, those of you concerned that all of this might be leading to suffering amongst the higher echelons of post office management will be reassured to note that the profit targets have been met and that the bonuses, which the executives no doubt rely on to ensure that *they* can afford to use Fedex, are secure.