RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31123, 28 July 1966, Page 32

RANDOM REMINDER

THE POST OFFICE ROUNDABOUTS AND THE TELEVISION SWINGS

The remarkable efficiency of the Post Office ranks with the thermal regions of Rotorua, the All Blacks and the price of apples among the natural wonders of New Zealand. Tourists don’t come trooping in to watch them sorting letters and so forth, but there is no denying that by and large the P and T gives a service which is extremely satisfactory. Which makes it all the more remarkable when some imp of mischief takes charge just occasionally and starts blotting all the scrupulously clear and accurate copy books. We had a letter the other day from a woman who said that although she had only one television set, she had been sent two television licence account notices. This apparently, occurred because the Hutt Valley computer coughed or something. But when she wrote to point out the

error, the computer apologised very nicely. Off she went then, to pay her account, and as it was still before the due date, she was definitely one up on the department In the post office vestibule she thrust sixpence into a stamp machine: out came three threepenny stamps. Post Office, two down, because this was taking an apology a little too far. The woman took the threepence as far as the counter inside. There she returned it to a young lady who was, and had been for some time, heavily engaged in the construction of some black garment She kindly but absent-mindedly pushed a threepenny piece over to pay for the stamp. Post Office, three down. The woman left the threepence on the counter and moved on to a miscellaneous payments queue. She had the £6 10s ready (exact money). The man in front of her in the queue had a

huge sheaf of documents—radio licences or something —obviously he was renewing them for most of his friends and all his relatives. So our correspondent moved to another woman who sat behind the counter, without a customer in sight. But the attendant waved away the money airily and our heroine was returned to the back of the queue which had, in the meantime, grown considerably. Love-four. She now regrets having left the threepence on the counter very much because she later realised that it has cost her fourpence to get the television licence business straightened out And she’s tempted to take a handful of sixpences and have another go at the stamp machine. But she reckons that the law of averages is against her. As well as the entire staff of the New Zealand postal service.