It’s happened again: once more a major courier company appears to unable to tell its arse from its elbow, with both hands, a map and a GPS system. This time it’s Business Post, who promote themselves as “the” alternative to Royal Mail. Well Business Post, I’ve got some news for you: at least the Royal Mail, whatever its faults, seems to know where our bloody house is.

So here’s a hint, for Business Post and other pillocks of that ilk (UPS, Parcelfarce etc etc…): we live a few hundred metres from a well-known Scottish tourist village, our house is named on the OS map (and has been since the OS was founded), is signposted from the main road and is on a postcode that only encompasses the half dozen houses on our side of the Loch. HOW DIFFICULT CAN IT BE?

In the case of Business Post, a large and not unvaluable consignment was sent by next day delivery. It didn’t turn up. According to their web site, it was at their Edinburgh depot. I called the Edinburgh depot, to embark on a conversation that went thusly: Them: “It’s been delivered, we’ve got a signature”. Me: “No it hasn’t”. Them: “Oh, ah, hang on… No, it’s still here.” Me: “Why?”. Them: “Dunno”. Me: “Which part of ‘Next Day’ are you having trouble with?” Them: “Actually, it’s not here, it’s in Perth”. Me: “So when do I get it?”. Them: “We’ll put it out for Saturday am delivery, guaranteed.”. I’m not entirely convinced by all this, and call them back Saturday morning, by which time their web site has been updated to say that they attempted delivery but couldn’t find our address. The tracking system however still shows the packages as not having left their Edinburgh depot. This time, I get, “Your packages are at our Perth depot”. Me: “Yes, I’d gathered that – when are they coming out to me?”. Them: “The Perth depot’s locked down for the weekend, they’ve all gone home”. I came over all Anglo-Saxon at that point. Are we spotting the failures inherent in the system?

Now this is where I just might be making an incorrect assumption: I rather take the view that courier companies are supposed to actually get things from their clients to their customers, not simply to drive around at random for the day, listening to bad pop music. Which may be where I’m falling into the gap between expectation and realisation, by assuming that the job of a courier is to actually deliver things. Sorry about that…