The postman told me what happened. Why he’d been summoned to the manager’s office when everyone, even the manager, said he hadn’t done anything wrong.
He’d come in to work as usual but today someone else had gone sick. Could he do that round instead of his normal one? Just for today? Or until the other postman was well enough to come in?
Of course. It wasn’t any kind of problem. It was just that he lived in a different place to the postie who normally did the round so he slightly, very slightly, re-arranged it so that when he delivered the last letter of the day he’d be nearest his home, after making sure that all the Special Delivery letters were delivered on time, the really expensive ones before 09:00 and the normal Specials before 13:00, just the way people expected when they bought the special delivery service.
Everything got delivered. Everything got signed for. Everything that was supposed to be delivered by nine in the morning had been and everything that had to be delivered by one in the afternoon had been as well. Which didn’t explain the furious phone call to his manager.
Because it’s Aldeburgh
Perhaps, calmly, he could just go over when he delivered all the Specials?
Because there’s been this phone call. From some woman with a weekend house and two lazy arses of sons who couldn’t be bothered to get up when they were supposed to. Who ignored alarm clocks. Who couldn’t be asked to set the alarm on their mobiles in case it infringed their human rights. And lurk, rarely, the only way they could be made to get up is if they had to open the front door because they always got out of bed to do that in case it was a friend of theirs, yah? Say when Mummy had had to go back to London leaving Tarquin and Ollie under their fetid high thread-count duvet covers the only way they could be got onto the train was to send them a Special Delivery letter.
Except the postman couldn’t be trusted, could he? He couldn’t do this one simple thing, to deliver Special Delivery letters that normally came at about eight in the morning if you got the before nine option. Oh no. Not him. Not Mr Work To Rule. And I’m glad they’re privatised, I rarely am, frankly. Because one paid for the before nine service and do you know when it arrived? Hmmm? Do you? I said do you? 08:55, that’s when. So they missed their train. And what exactly is the Post Office gaying to do about it? Well?
And depressingly, that’s a true story, told to me by the postman.
