Thursday 19 June 2008

Move the bloody Post Office

I'm with Bob Kovchenko on this one.
The frustrated business owner of the Edge Hill Post Office wants to relocate his business down the road, away from the snobs, so that many more thousands, probably more deserving, can access his services, pay their bills, post their mail etc.
However, the over-paid wankers with way too much time of their hands, in the surrounding Latte Land say their world as they know it, will collapse if Bob the Postie leaves their little Sydney. They claim that business will downturn by more than 20%.
What utter crap.
They banded together and collected hundreds of signatures in Nazi-style death camp signature sessions, then wrote to Australia Post saying that they will cry and say bad things over their Raspberry Croissants and Soy Lattes if they grant permission to the local manager to relocate his business.
What sooks. I mean to say, whenever I've dined in Edgy Hill, with local writer and famous Edge Hillian, Tony Hillier of Bar Fly fame (there's no truth to the rumours that they named the suburb after his surname), the parking is non-existent. And if you wanna simply pop into the Post Office, don't get me started. This is one of the primary motivating reasons why Kovchenko wants out of the nobby neighbourhood.
I bet, once relocated into the now thriving and reborn Brinsmead Shopping Centre down the road, Bob's turnover would double. He could, like Noel at the Yorkeys Post Office, and almost every other outlet has had to do, diversify. They all now offer customers a full selection of retail goods. Bob has no space for such growth.
I'm sure that when most of those that signed the petition, who actually have their business mail going to a PO Box at the main Grafton Street Post Office, where they enjoy the wide range of goods and services on offer. The also probably enjoy the dedicated parking at the rear of the store. They also probably appreciate that they can also park at the front, in Grafton Street, and not get ticketed, even if they didn't pop a coin or two in the meter, because Council understands that people are simple popping into the Post Office to collect their mail.
The amount of times Council parking police have been all over Edge Hill, raking in the cash to meet their month-end target, is beyond me.
So, let Bob move. It's HIS business. He has to make a living out of it. Imagine if you wanted to relocate or do something to your business and the surrounding folk demanded you don't. You'd tell 'em to piss off and mind their own business.
Anyway, after Bob moves down the road, you'll fill the space up with another wanky cafe, quicker that you can say "Is that Alan Blake I saw having a Latte with Cochrane over there?"
Cheers.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really nice, Michael. Get down in the gutter and foster "class warfare". Sounds like you're a little jealous.

Anonymous said...

I also disagree. I grew up in the Edge Hill area and have always liked it for the amount of services so relatively close to my place. It was a quaint little place in the 70s and 80s(there used to be 3 service stations on the Edge Hill 5-ways), and still feels that way now even though its moved with the times with coffee shops and the like. It still has a village atmosphere that you just don't get in shopping centres.

I'm sure many other long term Edge Hill residents agree(and there are many, they are not all from the south as you may think).

It would be a shame for the post office to move, but as Michael says, the business at Brinsmead shopping centre will be much higher.

Anonymous said...

I can understand why the owner of the Edge Hill Post Office wants to move his business to the Brinsmead Shopping Centre.

What I can't understand - or rather, don't accept - is that access to so much of the postal service is governed by business considerations.

Once the great god profit rules in making decisions about the provision of postal services it is inevitable that, among other things, post offices will be taken out of local communities, to be increasingly concentrated. Who says both Edge Hill and Manoora wouldn't benefit from local access to postal services?

And the end to local post office access for evermore communities will proceed despite the advantage to post office business operators offered by their being the sole conduit for access to paying for a monopoly public service, ie the postal delivery system. Could most post offices operate as retail shops without people going into them to access postage of letters and parcels? Probably not, I think.

But this is NOT a criticism of those who have bought post office businesses.

NO part of the postal service should ever have been sold. The owner should be bought out now with compensation for their livelihoods (that is, for the work they do, not the profit they make).

Jonathan Strauss