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Thursday 20 October 2016

Stealth Postman

We have a new postman who is not used to my little ways.  If he sticks around then I'm sure he'll get used to it with my eBay habit, but there you go.

The first time I realised that we had a new postman that wasn't used to me was when he pushed an oversized packet through the letterbox with such force that it broke the little draught excluder thingy on the inside of the door.  Then it got stuck so I had to go to the door anyway and he raced off with a furtive expression.

The next incident was a week or so ago.  I was waiting in for a parcel and was downstairs in the dining room, facing up to the awful truth that is the sewing machine.  The layout of our house is unusual in that there is no back door, but there is a top door that goes into the porch which has another shut door before going into the living room with the study off that and a bottom door on the floor below that goes into the kitchen and the dining room is the room off that.  I can't always guarantee to hear the top door being knocked if I am in the study or kitchen, especially if the porch door is shut.  I have no chance of hearing the kitchen door being knocked unless I am in the kitchen without any appliance going.  Knowing this, I left the bottom door open so I could hear anyone trying to deliver and so the postie would see the open door and hopefully know to call down.  I heard some rustling and left the sewing machine (I hadn't even plugged it in at that point) and found the postie writing a 'we tried to deliver' card after gently tapping at the top door.

I know that postmen don't have much time so it's easy (I suppose) to miss a wide open door and some people don't notice as much as others, so I just politely asked him to ring the bell next time, I'm usually in the study, and told him that I hoped the weather held up for the rest of his round.

Yesterday I was in the study when I heard a clunk at the door.  The stealth postman had (apparently) tapped on the kitchen door and was now writing a 'we tried to deliver' card.  I opened the door, took the parcel (socks for bear), smiled nicely and demonstrated the doorbell.  I may have demonstrated the doorbell several times.  He was very hurt as he had remembered to go to the bottom door this time.  I smiled, said I could be at all sorts of places in the house and he could use the doorbell.  The doorbell would wake the dead and I can definitely hear it all over the house, but the postman has to press it first!

I also had a hermes driver grumbling because he couldn't deliver my parcel yesterday as his van was being serviced.  'That's okay,' I said, 'no problem.' 'Because I don't send out the emails,' the driver with extreme grumpiness.  'It's not my fault.' 'Absolutely,' I said, 'Stuff happens.' I just kept nodding, smiling and holding my hands out for the parcel (yarn) while he ranted away that it wasn't fair that I was complaining (I wasn't).

I'm considering buying less online.

3 comments:

  1. haha. My friend who lives in Somerset just told me this week that her new postman was upset because they didn't have slots in the doors big enough for boxes! ha. She told him they were fire doors and couldn't have large holes in them. He still wasn't satisfied. Then she said again they are fire doors as in fire doors! and if we had holes that big anyone could just crawl through. He stomped off still huffed! :)

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  2. Good luck training the new postal worker to ring the door bell! Buying less on-line might be an option, too, of course.

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  3. Oh dear. I hope the postman gets it right! We seem to have a different one every couple of months. One time I was sitting in the living room and saw the post truck pull up down the street. I was waiting for package I had to sign for so was waiting patiently for him to knock on the door...only to see him walk back down the road again. Didn't even knock, just left a card saying he couldn't deliver as we weren't home! Think he just didn't want to carry the box up the hill.

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