Probs…a new young postie told me he didn’t like my road, and would I please shift my boite a lettres up to the village road, pronto…
I told him, désolée, it’s been like that 20 years plus…no one else had ever complained… …and declined.
However, my feeling is, that won’t be the end of the matter…there are rumblings…
Can anyone answer the following qs. Please…
can I be obliged to move my boite to that road, (the road is about 500m away, up a steepish slope)… It would be too far away to trip up to examine daily…and in winter,…no…I have no car…
2)…it is a chemin rurale, most of the way, so it is commune responsibility… but a very short, rutty section, belongs to X? Not me.
I know not whom.
The ruts… do occasionally bother v.smart cars…but rarely…
I can drive over them easily when I borrow a car…
if I can be obliged to move the boite a lettres…and the commune does not mend that section.(about 10 metres)…can they insist I…or its owner… pay for its repair?
Only my house is on the end of it… for the other services that need to use it? Eg… electricity… telephone…
Any thoughts much appreciated…
We had a similar problem when we first arrived here, we live over 1km from the road up a chemin rural. Our original postie didn’t want to drive up here, but they are public tracks and passable in a post van. We had to have a meeting with the local la poste “chef” and explained our situation. We ended up putting the post box opposite our house, about 50m away. Been OK ever since, even with a new postie every couple of years.
Thank you…Do tell…where did you locate the chef?
You don’t mean the local post office manager?
Or the head office manager…in the capital…
The local post office, is just one lady, with stamps, and some extra kit, in a corner of the mairie…
I will find out…
As far as I can remember (long time ago…) It was at the local office, which in those days was the local sorting office too. It’s all changed now to a bigger sorting office covering a larger area, but worth trying to make contact. We found that they didn’t want to make the journey up a track just for one house, as it made their day longer…my heart bleeds. Not. It’s their job.
I think I got it sussed ok…thank you.
I found the main post office website, and after a lot of dead ends,. Came across the complaints department, “submit a message”.
I didn’t want to complain, just find out what was happening.
I think it’s better than attempting face-to-face resolutions, as there is no emotion expressed from anyone in this case.
The web site communicates beautifully, translating everything to English, and I enclose the immediate response. I feel much better about the whole thing now. I want to be helpful, if I can, and I know how it can feel working in a BRIT sorting/delivery office… probably not the same thing at all…so hope not to upset any post people.
Must remember to be helpful to struggling post personnel…
In the past, all post probs (3) have been dealt with via this site.
This is their reply so far…
The 15/04/2019 20:34 you
have made contact with our Customer Service to give us feedback on the quality of our services. We
have taken into account your request and have immediately questioned the services concerned.
We therefore undertake to return to you by e-mail or by post the information we will have obtained before 23/04/2019 20:34.
Having
to maintain your confidence, please accept, Mrs. Jeanette
Leuers, the assurance of my highest consideration.
I have a lovely ‘regular postlady’, a couple of years ago during winter she had a nasty fall while on her rounds. She could barely move and was in a lot of pain but wouldn’t let me drive her to the local PO.
Their routes are now ‘controlled’, not locally, but regionally by people looking at Google maps who have no idea, or have even visited, what it is to deliver in a rural area. ‘They’ only see that there are so many houses on a route and estimate how long a delivery round should take, this doesn’t take into account any small tracks, farms, difficulties there may be. The pressure is on to do it as quickly as possible, that may be why there is some reluctance if you live in an ‘out of the way place’ to take the time needed to get to your box !
I checked with another solitary house on a chemin rural, nearby …and there’s no prob. for them.
I think that the real problem may be, as you describe, some lack of interest or sensitivity with regard to the folks doing the delivering…who perhaps feel controlled by machines not people. Village communities, don’t work by rules and regs. nearly as much as they operate on goodwill, or neighbourly feelings. Being a part of the community, taking part…matters. I’m not good at taking part, so may just have to accept refusal to be helpful, as the outcome. Ah well…no post could be problematic. Don’t know yet…
Yes I think the local post person now has time limits, so no longer stands and chats. They have trackers in their vehicles as well to keep them on the straight and narrow.
Well. Interesting…thank you to those who have commented…I am most certainly on the side of? Prepared to standup for? etc…any little people, who don’t have sufficient power to defend themselves against any kind of injustice, the outcome of privatization?..it’s interesting to investigate.
Oh my goodness! Wonderful! I live in terror of falling axes! Imagined barricades and a JCB to block my lane and crush my boite! Mais non! A perfectly charming, brand new postie appeared, with my mail!..
Still…
Maybe I will ask how everyone is…I know how it all works sometimes.
Interesting. I was a Postman in the UK for almost a year, and did two ‘walks’ a day plus Station service at night. ‘Walks’ were divided into distant places and serviced by vans and were ‘drive walks’. Closer - ie within miles of the PO were ‘cycle’ walks - on big non-geared heavy machines with a front rack. 'Walk Walks were for very local deliveries. Oh and we also had to ‘throw-up’ our walks into the appropriate boxes before loading our bags.
I had no car so rode my own bicycle the three miles to the Sorting Office starting my shift at 0500 hrs. Then rode the PO machine to my usual Cycle Walk on the outer fringe of the 7km mark. The walk was timed to finish at 0915, and AKI’s Acting inspectors’ were on the move to see we didn’t dally too long at any particular addresses (we could always go back to them but that’s another story!)
There were NO external Post Boxes either in private houses or blocks of flats, and every delivery was through individual letterboxes.
Yes we were also timed and as clearing out letterboxes was part of the job on the return leg, we had to change the little black plate at the top of the door to show the collection had been made.
Second walk was at 1100 and finished by 1300.
My Station Service (unloading trains ) started at 1600 and finished at 1900. I was home by about 2200. Crashed out by 2230 - and up again at O400. Six days a week. For that I earned gross £17 a week, net £11. I ate 5 meals a day, weighed in at about 16 stone and was as fit as any six-footer could be BUT I had the filthiest short-temper that only constant tiredness can explain. I was someone to be avoided as was explained to me later . I lasted a year doing that before I thought there were better options to be had!
So my listening to some modern day whingeing really gets up my nose!
Definitely Monty Python… which did, in fact, so often reflect real life
Aged 14 I did a paper-round in Devon… up hill and down dale… through snow drifts in winter and rain every other day … and it seemed that every house had a letter box either too high for me… or right at ground level (and then too small to take the folded newspaper/magazine…)
I did one “round” before school… and a second one after school, at the local Nuffield Nursing Home… phew… got home shattered every evening … scarcely had time for fun and frolics with my pals, never mind homework…
I gave it up a year later and turned my attention to inter-county sports and boys (not necessarily in that order ) equally exhausting, but much more fun…
Thank you, people!! I love to find replies!!
Must write some more!!
Plus I had another really dear email from the big post office today. People really care! So I’m thinking! What can I do to cheer them up…so cancelled all the “Pub.” mail, forever…and offered to put a bell on the gate…so if they want me to sign something, I can be got at.
Hooray. It all works so well. So far…
That could be a useful idea! There’s only me here, no other houses, but it’s probably good to be sure, when delivering mail, that you’ve got to the right letter box…
I’ll do it today. …
Jeanette… it is very important that your name is clear… this removes the possibility/excuse that letters could go astray… and it is your responsibility…
Likewise, it is the responsibility of the PO to deliver the letters to the correct address…
It’s a curious thing, to discover useful information, of this kind, only after…when did I move here?..(1996…22years ago).
The oldest lady in the French badminton league! Even then. Thank you!!!
(…felt queasy today, as it’s the day all my bank statements will try to squeeze their way out of my iffy printer…any minute now…)
Every year I get roped in to make deliveries (local bulletin and stuff)… and every household must get one… but nothing for the maison secondaire… hmmm… so I am given a list of names and the address/lieu dit where such folk can be found…
Hmmm… so many homes without names on letterboxes… so many homes without letterboxes never mind names…
Hmmmmmm… one might think that second home owners would be the ones who don’t bother with a post box…
Hmmmmmmmmm… one would be wrong (around here anyway)
If I wasn’t completely barmy before… I am certainly barmy now…
I live in the heart of the village and had no idea that so many homes exist in the surrounding countryside… let alone who lives where… and this is despite me knowing virtually everyone in the area …
I am thinking of asking folk to wear a badge, giving their name and address… then I might (just might) get my brain sorted…
Another thought is to hand out labels to everyone at the Carol Singing and ask them to fill them in and put them on their post box… as a Christmas Present to me…
It doesn’t help to use one of those tiny route planners, I suppose? I mean…if I have the name of the property, or street number, Mappy or any route planner, will offer dotted line connection, from wherever you are, to the front door of the house you are seeking. Usually three, maybe four dotted lines, so you can choose to get there by bike, on foot, or by car. Plus a detailed description of the route, in words, every right left and straight on, listed. Ive used it lots of times to measure exact walking distances, over footpaths, or bike ways. Tried to get it to tell me how to walk from any cheepo hotel …to the Prefecture, there is no way at all to get there, at 9am, unless I sleep in the carpark, if not…
… and it seemed that every house had a letter box either too high for me… or right at ground level (and then too small to take the folded newspaper/magazine…)
) equally exhausting, but much more fun…
Every year I get roped in to make deliveries (local bulletin and stuff)… and every household must get one… but nothing for the maison secondaire… hmmm… so I am given a list of names and the address/lieu dit where such folk can be found…
