Knowing that a little brown Amazon box is waiting for you when you get home is one of modern-day life’s little pleasures. But what about when you expectantly open the door only to find a little red card of disappointment?
My latest ‘Sorry, you were out’ card was left on my doorstep because the two standard-sized road maps I had ordered were ‘too big’ for my letterbox. Using Rhod Gilbert’s anger scale of 0 being somewhat angry to 10 being as angry as Tom Cruise at Alton Towers, I was at about a 4.
Not receiving two road maps when I had expected to was not the end of the world. But the effort to get them in my possession was, well, still not the end of the world, but an inconvenience nonetheless. In fact, the insignificance of these maps only magnified the annoyance.
A Saturday morning stroll
So my relaxed Saturday morning in the sun turned into a Saturday morning trek to an industrial estate on the other side of town and a twenty minute queue with other disgruntled customers waiting for their non-letterbox-sized parcels. Tom Cruise at Alton Towers scale 6.
I now felt a bit of resentment towards these two innocent road maps, but at least they were in my possession.
Having trudged back, I approached my door and sized up the letterbox deemed too small to fit two road maps. I wonder… yes, the parcel easily fits through my letterbox. Call me Tom Cruise.
Do parcels leave the delivery office?
We’ve had a Conversation about ‘Sorry, you were out’ cards before and there are clearly some contradicting opinions as to whether it’s the parcels or just the red cards that actually leave the delivery office. Russell thinks it depends on the size of the package:
‘If the postman has a number of items which won’t go through the letterbox and he knows there is usually nobody home, he may well leave them behind and just deliver a ‘Sorry, you were out’ card. The recipient then knows the item is available and can collect it or agree a time when there will be somebody available to take delivery.’
Our survey in 2010 found that a third had received a ‘you were out’ card through their letterbox from Royal Mail or Parcelforce when they were actually in. And it was recently reported that Royal Mail had received 32,000 complaints in 2011 about the same issue.
Previously I had assumed that I had only ever received a red card after the postman had attempted to deliver my parcel, rang the bell and got no answer. But now I’m not so sure.
So, are you suspicious that sometimes only ‘Sorry, you were out’ cards leave Royal Mail’s delivery office? Have you had a similar experience or gone to inconvenient lengths to collect a parcel that could have easily been delivered?
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