It used to be so easy. You put whatever-it-was in an envelope, weighed it, affixed the right cost in postage stamps, put it in the post box. Hey presto! It arrived on time/ late/ not at all (delete as applicable). But you know, generally, it worked fine for a century or two. And then Royal Mail decided that items should be subject to postage cost regarding their dimensions AND weight.
So my very current dilemma is that I have two copies of a 14-page contract to send to a client’s office near Huddersfield. It’s printed on A4 paper and weighs 150g. I can’t send it as a ‘letter’ now, because it’s too large. If I fold it to make it fit the ‘letter’ category, it’s too thick. And regardless of all that, because of the new 100g rule for ‘letters’, it’s also too heavy… So this document now comes under the ‘large letter’ category – slightly larger than A4, up to 25mm thick, and weighing up to 750g.
Frankly, I don’t give a feck that “although some things will cost more to send, over 80% of all mail will cost the same or less to send.” It’s taken me the best part of quarter of an hour to work out how to post the thing. And at my charge out rate, that means posting the contract has cost me a cool £7.55 (not including the time to type this rant).
So - do you think I should invoice the client or Royal Mail for that?
And what would RM do about it if we all just ignored their new guidelines and used the old ones? Surely their “lost items” rate can’t get any higher than it already is?
[btw I could go on the train and hand deliver it for only 15p more. AND do some work on the train! Next time…]
4 comments:
Send it in two packages. Not very convenient for the recipient, but it may be cheaper AND it costs RM twice as much work. (Insert evil laugh here.)
The word verification on this comment is "pizzs", as in "I pizzsed myself laughing".
£7.55? That's ridiculous. It was always a bit of a pain trying to weigh stuff on my not-so-accurate kitchen scales and then try to work out what combination of stamps would be closest to the price, to save queuing at the post office. But weighing and measuring?
I know, I know, it's ludicrous. I can't believe they also don't take the following considerations into account:
- colour;
- density;
- age;
- number of corners;
- if it makes a noise when shaken;
- rude words in the postal address.
I'm coming up with a more complex dodecahedronic matrix for the Post Office to use. It should ensure things like bicycles cost about £3 to post, while inconvenient things like letters cost at least £400.
I read in The Metro this morning that a new website has been launched aimed at businesses such as yours. Apparently you can buy postage online and print a barcode straight onto your envelopes/ labels ...might be worth a look?
By the way - thanks for adding some rays of sunshine to my day yesterday.
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