It used to be that the post was delivered early in the morning by a postal worker who not only knew your name – but that of everyone else in the street. These days, mail is delivered by so many different companies that it’s baffling as to how any of them make any money at all.

How can it make economic sense to have four or five different firms delivering mail instead of one? It’s an equation which does not add up.
Alongside the TNT employee is the Sandd man who sorts post at home and delivers it for a couple of cents per address. Then there is the UK’s Royal Mail delivery – often brought by private car – and goodness knows how many other fly-by-nights in between.
None of them know your name anymore and while so much post is getting delivered to the wrong address – or simply fails to arrive at all – email is starting to seem like the pinnacle of reliability.
In the face of such cut-throat competition, TNT is removing all post boxes which are less than 25% full at the end of the day. It’s all part of a drive for greater efficiency and cost cutting.
This is the same TNT which is now in the process of replacing all the red post boxes with orange ones in a massive rebranding exercise – which won’t make any difference to the user. It’s nice to see that privatised companies have got their priorities right.