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Postal catastrophe

tones

Tones deaf
Internal postal services, at least in Swizzieland, seem to be OK, but external ones appear to have fallen in a heap. I always send my two US agents, one in Cleveland, one in New York, Swiss chocolates for Christmas. As I send them B-Post to minimise postal charges, I send them early, in this case, 2 December. They still haven't arrived! Mrs. Tones sent her Christmas letters to the rellies Downunder by airmail at about the same time - they started arriving in mid-January. For the first time ever, stuff ordered from Amazon UK has failed to arrive within the stated time window.

I guess it must be a combination of COVID problems - fewer flights and a vastly larger volume of online orders.
 
I guess it must be a combination of COVID problems

Indeed it is, mostly C19. A great deal of freight and post normally travelled via passenger aircraft, and there aren't many of those still flying. Sea freight has gone to cock as well - exactly why, I have no idea, but empty containers were building up in various ports as there was no out-going freight to fill them. London Gateway and Felixstowe were/are particularly badly affected.
 
Signora's family wanted to send us Christmas presents, and arranged a shipment with DHL. The courier came to their door to collect and when he saw it was for UK, he basically said don't bother, as it will get returned from the depot. They won't ship anything domestic to UK because of the hassle.

It's a shame, as I have a rather nice bottle of Montepulciano waiting for me in the wrong country.

Our postal depot is in disarray because of staff being away to Covid, so double-whammy
 
We sent two small parcels of books/ mags/ cards to my son in NY before Christmas.
Still not arrived.
Doubt they will now.
 
The thing that boggles my mind is that all this stuff must be somewhere. How much warehouse space is taken up with delayed letters and parcels? Or do they just send it to landfill after a while?
 
The thing that boggles my mind is that all this stuff must be somewhere. How much warehouse space is taken up with delayed letters and parcels? Or do they just send it to landfill after a while?

They stick it all on Ebay and put the proceeds in the Christmas party pot.
 
The thing that boggles my mind is that all this stuff must be somewhere. How much warehouse space is taken up with delayed letters and parcels? Or do they just send it to landfill after a while?
I have a carbon fibre bike fork that was the result of this. I was passing a neighbour's place and there it was, a new fork by the bins. I asked what it was doing and whether they were throwing it out, yes they were, I could have it. It turns out that they were expecting one thing delivered, the courier delivered the wrong box. Did they want to come back and get it? No, dispose of it as you see fit, the insurance will pay out. It's now in my garage. It's a couple of years too late for my bike rebuild so I shall have to sell it. I reckon it's £100 worth or so, new and unused.
 
That sounds like my carbon bike fork that I ordered a while back! I think I've got your order here - was it the neoprene gimp mask with one extra hole, and automatic grease applicator?
 
That sounds like my carbon bike fork that I ordered a while back! I think I've got your order here - was it the neoprene gimp mask with one extra hole, and automatic grease applicator?
You would have to ask my neighbour.
 
Just heard from my New York agent that he has finally got his chocolates! So, two months and 6 days later... Extrapolating, I guess my Cleveland agent can expect his next month...
 
We sent a number of bottles of champagne to people in early December from our office in Switzerland. Those living overseas (ie me) received them within 48hrs by DHL (because we don't send stuff internationally any other way). The bottles sent to colleagues in Germany, which went via SwissPost for some reason, arrived in early January.
If you were sending stuff to the US, you may have been impacted by issues there, as much as leaving Switzerland. This article was published on Saturday and gives a hint at how well the postal service in the US has been working in recent months (the article appears to be behind a paywall some of the time, but not all the time, hope you can access it).
 


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