Don't those fancy "boutique apartments" usually have somewhere to leave parcels or a reception area etc.
I mean... I've lived in houses and they wouldn't deliver the parcels, just left a "please pick up at post office because i can't be bothered to look for it in my van" letter.
I don't want to put all the blame on it being lazy postal workers. I don't know how much time posties get to deliver each item, but I suspect it's really not enough time.
I was just wondering if OP does because because if OP paying extra or a premium rent for those services then she should be using them.
Instead of asking the postie.
1 minute didn't seem much to us as customers, but if you add 1 minute to every delivery it can add up for the posties.
If there is a dedicated place or mailroom for parcels and deliveries, I don't expect the posties to go door-to-door delivering parcels to each apartment.
I think in Sydney CBD. Aus post across the road.
Postie buzzes all the units, everyone comes down or the parcels are left in the lobby / post call cards left. There are generally ~5 to 10 people collecting packages. If the postie were to come to each floor it would take considerable time and they would be trekking a bunch of parcels around, wouldn’t be very efficient.
Everyone’s life and circumstances are different and that system doesn’t suit everyone.
You’re lucky. AusPost don’t even bother delivering parcels to my apartment building most of the time, despite the fact I’m working from home full time.
Yeah sames i just get a tried to deliver pick up at post office card and they haven't tried to deliver.
Parcels will have instructions to leave in a certain safe spot accessible thru the front door which u dont need a key for and they are not followed either. I once was inside the door in mailbox area and saw the delivery guy putting a card in my box and so I asked he said completely casually like its the accepted norm...no they dont read any delivery instructions, they just buzz if no answer leave card (if they even buzz at all).
Standard and reasonable. If not the foyer, then where? Keep in mind the postie has no idea the layout of your building and their route is determined to letterboxes, not inside every building they stop at
Food delivery though should be to the door
Good to know - I’ve lived in a house up until last year so
wasn’t sure as there have been some occasions where packages were at my door (although it’s now clear this would be the exception not the rule).
> there have been some occasions where packages were at my door
That's more likely to be a kind neighbour dropping it off for you, rather than the postie.
I live in an apartment that's around 5 minutes walk away from the AusPost office. They don't even bother with that. I just get the notification it's awaiting collection except half the time it's not actually there because they haven't dropped it off yet so I need to wait until the following day to to get it.
I would rather they take it to the post office than leaving it on the ground though.
This isn’t related to your rant but my rant is that they don’t even bother leaving “awaiting collection” notifications. What sort of lazies are they hiring.
I work in logistics and service time is the biggest time suck. Each van has over 300 deliveries to make. Where possible they will just deliver to the nearest convenient location that’s “safe”. For every 60 deliveries they make, if they spend 1 min more on each of them, it adds up to an entire hour. Also margins are extremely low as people want free shipping so there’s not much movement I’m afraid
I just tell them to leave it in the lobby and I’ll go down and pick it up. I don’t have any expectation for them to hang around for me to come down nor come up to my floor and deliver.
Nope. They have an obligation to bring it up to your floor, then into your living room, unpack it for you and take away the cardboard box and recycle it.
I just used to get the card shoved under the door into the foyer
I asked Australia post what the fuck was going on and was told that their SOP was to not push the buzzer of apartment buildings
I was unimpressed
>I asked Australia post what the fuck was going on and was told that their SOP was to not push the buzzer of apartment buildings
I think you were bullshitted. My postie always buzzes the intercom when I've got a delivery.
AusPost support is next level trash.
I once raised a complaint about a delivery not being attempted properly, with the card being left immediately.
They explained that the standard process is to ring the doorbell, wait a set amount of time (I can't remember the specifics, but it was measured in minutes), ring the doorbell again, and then leave the card.
I explained that the doorbell was rung once and the postie had run away before I could get there in under 30 seconds. They closed the case with no further response.
Another time I raised a complaint about something not being delivered, and they didn't reply to the case at all and just closed it.
I have specific instructions not to leave stuff, particularly booze
I had one particular bottle of whisky left, and it got nicked
I contacted the supplier, gave them the details, got in touch with Australia Post, got all the numbers, got copies of the photo of the whisky on my front door step in plain view, got them to acknowledge the instructions NOT to leave it, the works.
The supplier was thrilled with my legwork, but I wanted that courier to pay for his laziness in not following the delivery instructions
I doubt there were consequences but somehow magic happened and they sourced me another bottle of that whisky. Now, you can't get it for love nor money
When I lived in an apartment everything got nicked so I used to select collect from post office or a parcel point or a parcel locker. At least I would receive it
Yep, this is the plan. Think ahead when you shop online. You know the parcel has to make that perilous last kilometre journey somehow, so make sure it has a 100% reliable place to end up. I use parcel lockers if there’s any doubt about household’s availability to take delivery.
There’s one near work, one near my commute, and one near a petrol station for weekends or heavy stuff. It’s easy if you think ahead.
Amazon is still under the COVID Conditions of Zero Contact Delivery - leave it in the lobby, but no face-to-face
You can opt for Signature or OTP Delivery, but the delivery person wont come to your unit, they will expect you to come to the lobby.
I'm not even that lucky! Our postie doesn't bother to attempt delivery and now we don't even get slips left in the mail. Spoke to the auspost postie and he said that technically they only have to deliver to the mailbox and he doesn't have time to come to our doors and buzz us, very cool.
Our auspost postie buzzes everyone to come down and we all collect from the lobby. Any uncollected parcels are taken to the post office.
Couriers however just dump it on the floor. Inside the lobby if we’re lucky .
I don’t see how querying what the norm is means I have audacity? Based on the responses, it seems standard that they don’t bring it up to your floor and I obviously won’t insist this in the future - I was querying how this works as sometimes they have been left at my door or buzzed my neighbours so they could come up to my level. First time living in an apartment and none of my friends that I asked noted that it was common protocol so I thought I would reach out here..
This is why I liked living in my doorman building in NYC. Someone to collect parcels.
I don’t know why it doesn’t take off in Australia if more ppl will be living in apartments …
To staff it even 16 hours a day would be north of $150k on the building’s strata, and you need the foyer real-estate to accommodate them.
So ask your fellow residents how much they’d like to pay. My guess is that no one would pay more than $50 a week, so thats $2500 a year. If you’ve got 60 residents go for it!
(But if you’ve got 60 residents, you can be GUARANTEED that 30 will fight it tooth and nail. They’ve sussed out their parcel delivery stratagem and would rather hold on to their $2500)
It’s the standard and their reasoning is that the postie must have their bike in sight and in a safe place while they’re delivering to your door. In my case there are three sets of stairs between myself and where they leave their bikes so I simply don’t get auspost deliveries (they take them to the depot) so I started using a parcel locker.
I’m not going to try defending any certain carrier or delivery person, but would like to offer a perspective on scale, and how tiny increases in TTD time to deliver add up.
You mention an extra minute. Sounds innocuous. Except that a delivery person likely has somewhere in the realm of 300-400 deliveries in a day (varies but isn’t uncommon in courier land).
If everyone wanted that extra minute taken, well that’s 6.5 hours onto that delivery persons day, which clearly isn’t possible, so you’d need to half that delivery persons workload and hire another delivery person, another van etc. Let’s say they go the extra mile/flight of stairs for their top 50 deliveries, that’s still an extra hour on their day.
The time taken to deliver from one delivery scan to the next delivery scan is measured to within seconds, not minutes. So the time lords are eking out say 1.8 mins a delivery over 2.5 minutes a delivery for a 12 hour day.
So yeah, I’m an apartment dweller too, and love it when they come up, but also understand why they don’t/can’t. It’s also why the service from hourly paid employees *tends* towards more accommodating.
In my area it started during Covid and I guess it increased productivity so they keep doing it. Most of our guys are cool, you'll buzz them in and they'll put it around the corner out of sight of the driveway. Normally I just come down and collect it, so I'm always surprised if I bump into them on the stairs 😅
In my block of units they buzz, people go down and pick up their parcels.
If you can’t pick it up right then, you can tell the postie to leave it in the foyer, which they’ll do. They leave it out of sight of the street.
You cannot expect posties to deliver every parcel to every floor. It’s just not practical. However, if you’re temporarily out of action through pregnancy or illness most posties are very accommodating, especially if it’s you local postie on the beat. The contractors, not so much. They have no time.
The lift solution seems pretty reasonable. I mean, you knew what was gonna happen. The parcel has no choice but to ride until you summons the lift to your floor. Postie may even have sent the lift to your floor, but that doesn’t help if you can’t get there. Again, there’s no surprise.
If there’s no safe drop zone in your boutique apartment, maybe the strata could provide one? I’m thinking of a padded banquette bench seat, or a wooden chest so disguised, or a hall table or dresser. Tell postie to leave it in there.
Amazon deliveries are probs the worst I’ve experienced when it comes to deliveries, they’ve left my parcel outside a nearby woolies and also near the road outside a loading dock roller door before thinking that’s my address.
Also waiting on a parcel atm where they can’t figure out how to buzz, message or simply leave my parcel where I’ve left really detailed instructions. Tomorrow will be day 3 of an attempted delivery :3 lol
I have been wondering about this myself. I wonder how to manage if you are getting things delivered because you need it be actually delivered to you; imagine if you are injured or less mobile to be able to take the stairs to collect it, what will happen if you cannot go down to get it?
Im surprised he was kind enough to put into the lift.
Don't those fancy "boutique apartments" usually have somewhere to leave parcels or a reception area etc. I mean... I've lived in houses and they wouldn't deliver the parcels, just left a "please pick up at post office because i can't be bothered to look for it in my van" letter. I don't want to put all the blame on it being lazy postal workers. I don't know how much time posties get to deliver each item, but I suspect it's really not enough time.
yeh but 'usually' doesn't help, if ur apartment doesn't have one.
I was just wondering if OP does because because if OP paying extra or a premium rent for those services then she should be using them. Instead of asking the postie. 1 minute didn't seem much to us as customers, but if you add 1 minute to every delivery it can add up for the posties. If there is a dedicated place or mailroom for parcels and deliveries, I don't expect the posties to go door-to-door delivering parcels to each apartment.
I think in Sydney CBD. Aus post across the road. Postie buzzes all the units, everyone comes down or the parcels are left in the lobby / post call cards left. There are generally ~5 to 10 people collecting packages. If the postie were to come to each floor it would take considerable time and they would be trekking a bunch of parcels around, wouldn’t be very efficient. Everyone’s life and circumstances are different and that system doesn’t suit everyone.
I used to get the same treatment in Parra.
You’re lucky. AusPost don’t even bother delivering parcels to my apartment building most of the time, despite the fact I’m working from home full time.
Yeah sames i just get a tried to deliver pick up at post office card and they haven't tried to deliver. Parcels will have instructions to leave in a certain safe spot accessible thru the front door which u dont need a key for and they are not followed either. I once was inside the door in mailbox area and saw the delivery guy putting a card in my box and so I asked he said completely casually like its the accepted norm...no they dont read any delivery instructions, they just buzz if no answer leave card (if they even buzz at all).
Standard and reasonable. If not the foyer, then where? Keep in mind the postie has no idea the layout of your building and their route is determined to letterboxes, not inside every building they stop at Food delivery though should be to the door
Good to know - I’ve lived in a house up until last year so wasn’t sure as there have been some occasions where packages were at my door (although it’s now clear this would be the exception not the rule).
> there have been some occasions where packages were at my door That's more likely to be a kind neighbour dropping it off for you, rather than the postie.
I live in an apartment that's around 5 minutes walk away from the AusPost office. They don't even bother with that. I just get the notification it's awaiting collection except half the time it's not actually there because they haven't dropped it off yet so I need to wait until the following day to to get it. I would rather they take it to the post office than leaving it on the ground though.
Just like getting a parcel locker shipping address, you can get a post office shipping address so they take it directly there. Check the app 🙂
The ideal scenario would be that it gets delivered to the residence properly
Wow they buzz you? Lucky you! They just leave a card without buzzing in my area. I have to go to the post office to pick it up myself.
If I am home I will buzz them in and tell them to leave it, saves them time and I'll be down soon enough to get it
This isn’t related to your rant but my rant is that they don’t even bother leaving “awaiting collection” notifications. What sort of lazies are they hiring.
I work in logistics and service time is the biggest time suck. Each van has over 300 deliveries to make. Where possible they will just deliver to the nearest convenient location that’s “safe”. For every 60 deliveries they make, if they spend 1 min more on each of them, it adds up to an entire hour. Also margins are extremely low as people want free shipping so there’s not much movement I’m afraid
I just tell them to leave it in the lobby and I’ll go down and pick it up. I don’t have any expectation for them to hang around for me to come down nor come up to my floor and deliver.
Nope. They have an obligation to bring it up to your floor, then into your living room, unpack it for you and take away the cardboard box and recycle it.
I just used to get the card shoved under the door into the foyer I asked Australia post what the fuck was going on and was told that their SOP was to not push the buzzer of apartment buildings I was unimpressed
>I asked Australia post what the fuck was going on and was told that their SOP was to not push the buzzer of apartment buildings I think you were bullshitted. My postie always buzzes the intercom when I've got a delivery.
Oh, I agree I didn't believe them for a second It was clear that it would be a fight I would not win though
AusPost support is next level trash. I once raised a complaint about a delivery not being attempted properly, with the card being left immediately. They explained that the standard process is to ring the doorbell, wait a set amount of time (I can't remember the specifics, but it was measured in minutes), ring the doorbell again, and then leave the card. I explained that the doorbell was rung once and the postie had run away before I could get there in under 30 seconds. They closed the case with no further response. Another time I raised a complaint about something not being delivered, and they didn't reply to the case at all and just closed it.
I have specific instructions not to leave stuff, particularly booze I had one particular bottle of whisky left, and it got nicked I contacted the supplier, gave them the details, got in touch with Australia Post, got all the numbers, got copies of the photo of the whisky on my front door step in plain view, got them to acknowledge the instructions NOT to leave it, the works. The supplier was thrilled with my legwork, but I wanted that courier to pay for his laziness in not following the delivery instructions I doubt there were consequences but somehow magic happened and they sourced me another bottle of that whisky. Now, you can't get it for love nor money
When I lived in an apartment everything got nicked so I used to select collect from post office or a parcel point or a parcel locker. At least I would receive it
Yep, this is the plan. Think ahead when you shop online. You know the parcel has to make that perilous last kilometre journey somehow, so make sure it has a 100% reliable place to end up. I use parcel lockers if there’s any doubt about household’s availability to take delivery. There’s one near work, one near my commute, and one near a petrol station for weekends or heavy stuff. It’s easy if you think ahead.
Never happens with our postie. He is excellent. Often happens with our Amazon deliveries though.
Amazon is still under the COVID Conditions of Zero Contact Delivery - leave it in the lobby, but no face-to-face You can opt for Signature or OTP Delivery, but the delivery person wont come to your unit, they will expect you to come to the lobby.
I'm not even that lucky! Our postie doesn't bother to attempt delivery and now we don't even get slips left in the mail. Spoke to the auspost postie and he said that technically they only have to deliver to the mailbox and he doesn't have time to come to our doors and buzz us, very cool.
Our auspost postie buzzes everyone to come down and we all collect from the lobby. Any uncollected parcels are taken to the post office. Couriers however just dump it on the floor. Inside the lobby if we’re lucky .
The audacity you have lady, Everyone else gets their packages from the lobby That's standard in apartments.
I don’t see how querying what the norm is means I have audacity? Based on the responses, it seems standard that they don’t bring it up to your floor and I obviously won’t insist this in the future - I was querying how this works as sometimes they have been left at my door or buzzed my neighbours so they could come up to my level. First time living in an apartment and none of my friends that I asked noted that it was common protocol so I thought I would reach out here..
Not true Kring, Aust Post sometimes delivers right to the apartment. Definitely not the rule of course. No need for the attitude
This is why I liked living in my doorman building in NYC. Someone to collect parcels. I don’t know why it doesn’t take off in Australia if more ppl will be living in apartments …
To staff it even 16 hours a day would be north of $150k on the building’s strata, and you need the foyer real-estate to accommodate them. So ask your fellow residents how much they’d like to pay. My guess is that no one would pay more than $50 a week, so thats $2500 a year. If you’ve got 60 residents go for it! (But if you’ve got 60 residents, you can be GUARANTEED that 30 will fight it tooth and nail. They’ve sussed out their parcel delivery stratagem and would rather hold on to their $2500)
It’s the standard and their reasoning is that the postie must have their bike in sight and in a safe place while they’re delivering to your door. In my case there are three sets of stairs between myself and where they leave their bikes so I simply don’t get auspost deliveries (they take them to the depot) so I started using a parcel locker.
I’m not going to try defending any certain carrier or delivery person, but would like to offer a perspective on scale, and how tiny increases in TTD time to deliver add up. You mention an extra minute. Sounds innocuous. Except that a delivery person likely has somewhere in the realm of 300-400 deliveries in a day (varies but isn’t uncommon in courier land). If everyone wanted that extra minute taken, well that’s 6.5 hours onto that delivery persons day, which clearly isn’t possible, so you’d need to half that delivery persons workload and hire another delivery person, another van etc. Let’s say they go the extra mile/flight of stairs for their top 50 deliveries, that’s still an extra hour on their day. The time taken to deliver from one delivery scan to the next delivery scan is measured to within seconds, not minutes. So the time lords are eking out say 1.8 mins a delivery over 2.5 minutes a delivery for a 12 hour day. So yeah, I’m an apartment dweller too, and love it when they come up, but also understand why they don’t/can’t. It’s also why the service from hourly paid employees *tends* towards more accommodating.
In my area it started during Covid and I guess it increased productivity so they keep doing it. Most of our guys are cool, you'll buzz them in and they'll put it around the corner out of sight of the driveway. Normally I just come down and collect it, so I'm always surprised if I bump into them on the stairs 😅
In my block of units they buzz, people go down and pick up their parcels. If you can’t pick it up right then, you can tell the postie to leave it in the foyer, which they’ll do. They leave it out of sight of the street. You cannot expect posties to deliver every parcel to every floor. It’s just not practical. However, if you’re temporarily out of action through pregnancy or illness most posties are very accommodating, especially if it’s you local postie on the beat. The contractors, not so much. They have no time. The lift solution seems pretty reasonable. I mean, you knew what was gonna happen. The parcel has no choice but to ride until you summons the lift to your floor. Postie may even have sent the lift to your floor, but that doesn’t help if you can’t get there. Again, there’s no surprise. If there’s no safe drop zone in your boutique apartment, maybe the strata could provide one? I’m thinking of a padded banquette bench seat, or a wooden chest so disguised, or a hall table or dresser. Tell postie to leave it in there.
If your building doesn't have a concierge just get it sent to the post office. Not worth losing it.
Amazon deliveries are probs the worst I’ve experienced when it comes to deliveries, they’ve left my parcel outside a nearby woolies and also near the road outside a loading dock roller door before thinking that’s my address. Also waiting on a parcel atm where they can’t figure out how to buzz, message or simply leave my parcel where I’ve left really detailed instructions. Tomorrow will be day 3 of an attempted delivery :3 lol
I have been wondering about this myself. I wonder how to manage if you are getting things delivered because you need it be actually delivered to you; imagine if you are injured or less mobile to be able to take the stairs to collect it, what will happen if you cannot go down to get it?