
Again?
The Post Office's computer system has crashed, crippling services at branches nationwide, Royal Mail has admitted. It is understood that all of the UK's 11,800 post offices are affected. The fault, which started just after midday and is ongoing, walloped all post office services that rely on computers. Cash machines and …
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OK...just a thought.
If the system wasn't leap year aware, then it would have successfully rolled over from 28/2/2012 to 1/3/2012. Except it was actually the 29th.
The only option would be to wait until a suitable time on the real 1st of March, now displayed 2nd March, to wind the clocks back.
Correct me if I am wrong, the PO is rather busy overnight, sorting parcels etc. and first thing in the morning paying out pensions and other benefits. Noon would perhaps be about the best time of day for disruption?
If there was any reason for me to use the Post Office I might be annoyed about this. Luckily I haven't had to go to a Post Office for several years. It's even cheaper to have a courier come and pick a parcel up these days to say nothing of never having to stand in a queue.
Fail because that pretty much sums up the PO.
>what other useful service do they perform?
They kindly lighten my parcels so that I won't hurt myself when I receive them. Sometimes they even manage to judiciously lose one so as to prevent me becoming overly excited upon receipt of said parcel. They also inspect them, one assumes to make sure they don't contain anything that could harm me upon opening them.
The Post Office and its workers really are wonderful.
I recently submitted a postal redirection form which included my recently deceased father (they have a special box for that) along with a continuation sheet because there were more names than would fit.
The staff weren't happy having the living and the dead on the same form (it was an offence against nature or something) and tried to make me use a second form. So I asked how much that would cost and (after much muttering) was told twice as much. So I submitted the single form.
The confirmation arrived missing my name from the continuation sheet. So I rang them up and added my name.
Then a bill for a further £45 arrived because I now had two different surnames on the redirection. They'd managed to misspell my surname while adding it to a redirection that already had the same surname repeated six times.
Really, how hard is it?
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I don't think you actually read the article you've linked to, at least I hope not. If you genuinely believe that the replacement of Lotus Notes by Exchange for Royal Mail's internal email system back in 2010 directly lead to the problems with the Post Office's system today then that's a bit worrying.
Hint: corporate email/office application and EPOSS systems tend not to share the same infrastructure, for fairly obvious reasons.
MY Post Office delivery people must think that my parcels are so interesting as to place them on display for public viewing - usually on the doorstep in full sight of any light-fingered passer-by. To hide it or leave with a neighbour and leave a note in the event of me not being at home seems to be too much trouble. They don't seem to have a moment to spare these days.
My local sorting office has a different ruse. They save the effort of carrying the parcel or ringing the bell by only taking out the red "we tried to deliver" card, pre written at the sorting office complete with poor guess at the time they'd be at my door. The manager persists in denying that's the case in spite of the fact I've collected the parcel from the depot 5 minutes after the card arrived and while the postman is still on the round.
Another time saving ruse is to dump all of the post for the four flats (separate doors) in my building through one door, usually mine, allowing me to do the final distribution. The fifteen or twenty seconds saved on the round must allow for them to hit a few randomly set targets, a few more staff cuts and a more generous bonus for the tosser at the top.
Just like my local council, then.
Four weeks ago I tried to pay a leftover council tax bill. "We've closed out cashdesks!" Ok, go to bank. "That's not a bank giro slip, we can't use that!". Grrr. Ok, put in envelope, post into letterbox at Town Hall.
Two weeks later: oi! you've not paid. Yes I have, I posted you a cheque. We don't take cheques. Grrr. Ok, went online, cancelled cheque, made electronic payment, saved copy of payment receipt.
Today, council sends summons. WTF?? I paid this two weeks ago. Storm into Town Hall. Look, (waves reciept) I've paid! Oooh, but it's not on our computer yet. But it's gone out of my bank account! Yes, but it's not on our system yet. WTF??? When they used to have cash desks I would pay over the counter and it would be on the system the instant they pressed RETURN, now, in the interests of cost saving, they've got an electronic payment system where payments don't actually appear on their system at all!
Argh!!!
And I was on the management group that told them not to do this because this would happen.
Arghh!!!!!