If I am honest I have no idea what the real issues are behind the proposed postal strike – pay, conditions and modernisation are the headlines.
What saddens me is the apparent demise of the postal service. It looks like it is coming to an end. I am sad as I think there is still something special about composing, writing and sending a letter. After all that’s why I have some really nice pens. The art of writing seems to be dying out with kids using laptops and phones to communicate!
My favourite Mont Blanc Pen - facing redundancy?
But what is happening is that the world is changing. Twitter is the new letter writing?
So what is left for the Post Office? Well, in my business, we still write letters and reports. We also send out some promotional literature. In fact, on the latter, we spend around £6,000 pa.
But the proposed strikes have made us think again – and last week we decided as a business that we are now going to concentrate on sending ‘letters’ by email – with no hard copy. And I can’t help wondering if this really could be the final nail in the coffin for Royal Mail.
“Technology is providing new ways of communicating,” City minister Lord Myners said today in an interview.
And by striking – and thus taking away a service the Royal Mail looks like it will force business to look at other methods of communicating with its customers.
I was reminded of the 1989 Book by Charles Handy – The Age of Unreason – in which he starts by suggesting, “If you boil water and drop a frog in it – it jumps out immediately. However, if you put that frog in a pot of cold water and slowly heat it, the frog adapts its body temperature to that of the water until at 100 degrees centigrade it boils alive”
The moral seems to be that there are dangers for people who do not notice that the world is changing. And this is a real shame. Postmen (and women) provide more than just a delivery service – especially in rural parts. They are a key part of the community – just as Milkmen were years ago….
As I said at the outset, I don’t know what the really issues are – but it seems to me that “game over” will appear on a laptop screen soon. And we can save at least £6,000….
October 21st, 2009 at 13:40
[...] steal a Charles Handy quote from my mate Tim Garratt’s ‘Adapt or Whither’ Blogpost [...]
December 26th, 2009 at 09:31
[...] it to 4,000 people. We would have perhaps sent 3,000 cards previously! I blogged before about the Postal Strike and my dim view of it. The card companies also ought to take note of the new rules too – I am [...]
December 29th, 2009 at 20:02
[...] as I blogged about before we do need to sort our postal system! My Christmas Card episode and the Postal Strike do put me [...]
July 7th, 2010 at 08:37
[...] I think this strike has done BA a significant amount of harm. Industrial Action just makes people find alternatives – like the postal strike last year. [...]
July 25th, 2010 at 16:52
[...] The idea is brilliantly simple – you take a picture from your luxury cruise liner or 5* hotel on your iphone, fire up the PostCard App and write your message and addressee. The card is then sent to a printing press and just over an hour later your personalised card is in the post. The real post (assuming they are not on strike). [...]
December 14th, 2010 at 08:47
[...] October 2009 – when my blog was just a baby, I wrote a piece about the Post Office having to adapt or wither. At the time the Postmen were on strike and I was wondering just how long it would be until they [...]