They are in league with the Royal Mail in Glasgow. Yet again, the wee red card came through my door telling me that the postie had tried to deliver a parcel to me yesterday , but I wasn't in. Except I was the one who answered the buzzer yesterday morning to let the postie into the close... and I even said hello to him.

Sigh - I've given up complaining, they just tell me even more lies to try to placate me.

Hope you and yours are well!

Thank you. We're OK.

Could be that they have separate deliveries for letters and parcels. They often do these days. Not that that gets them off the hook in general, just maybe on this one occasion. Bastards.

They use the same excuse on this side of the Atlantic, so maybe it's in their union contract or something. And this is entirely off-topic, but while doing a bit of nostalgic surfing, I ran across something that said Rick Wakeman (you know, as in Yes, as in Close to the Edge, as in Journey to the Center of the Earth, that Rick Wakeman, and yes, I am about the same age) is not only a conservative, but politically active. Really? Rick Wakeman, a conservative? Wow. Who'd'a thunk.

I wonder what Jon Anderson thinks about that, if it's true.

Oh, yes, that's a perfectly well known fact over here. He even lives on the Isle of Man, which is a notoriously conservative place. They have no speed limits outside their towns.

He's a top bloke is our Rick.

Honourary President of the Classic Rock Society and all-round good guy. (You should join the CRS, they do a great job).

http://www.classicrocksociety.net/

I worked on the Isle of Man for a few months back in 2000 and he's very well liked there as well.

"Quite apart from how bad an idea it is to accuse a customer of lying when you don't have to..."

But Squander, you are not the customer.

It's central government they get their money from, THEY are the customer.

You are merely an indirect cash-cow.

So they don't need to be nice to you - and they aren't, as you have noticed.

It's central government they get whose money from? Ah, yes: I am the customer.

Yes yes, it's your money, I understand that perfectly well.

But it's not you who gets the invoice from them, or writes the cheque to them, or negotiates with them as supplier, is it?

They answer to the bureaucrats, not to you, and that is the whole problem.

In a place I lived once (OK, it was the USA), you contacted the refuse disposal company of your choice, told them whether you wanted it collected daily, weekly, monthly, or whatever, and paid their bill when it was presented.

City Hall didn't come into it in any way, and would have been astonished at the suggestion that they should, if anyone had made it. What business was it of theirs? None, of course.

THAT's what we need.

Yes, we certainly do.

However, much as I agree with your theory of the relationship between customer service and private enterprise, it applies more at the level of policy than individual staff members. Once you're dealing with individuals, what really counts is their personality. We all get brilliant customer service from state employees and terrible service from corporate employees -- and vice versa, of course. The real difference between the two systems manifests itself in which are most likely to get promoted.