We’re rural, and often postman and couriers are the only people we see day to day, so we build a good relationship with them. It’s a 20 minute trip to the closest postbox, so they often pick up our outgoing parcels too (I sell stuff through ebay so there’s quite a few)

Two years ago our postie of 12 years said he was leaving because there wasn’t enough staff, deadlines were too tight and management wasn’t coping well. Local POs closing, even our regional sorting office closed and went elsewhere. Deliveries were missed, booked pickups too. The worst was when they came to collect a parcel, but it had been collected the day before. Instead they took one clearly marked “Hermes” from outside our house and only having the Hermes label, which was a £90 car heater I’d just sold. I immediately rang the number but despite the lady trying to trace him down, it vanished. If I hadn’t had caught him on cctv I’d never have known where it had gone. I lost all that money, including the Hermes fee.

We had a few random postmen since then, changing every week, but now have settled down to a regular one and we’re lucky in that he’s one of the great ones who goes out of his way to be helpful. He’s also a biker so we have have that in common too.