Many people working in the courier industry have had the experience of being unable to deliver their package or packages. Some of those experiences are relatively routine and can be put down to things such as having the wrong delivery address, the wrong consignee, or a squabble between the sender and the receiver with the latter churlishly refusing to accept the goods.

While this is all ‘business as usual’ for the average courier, there are also some reasons given for the rejection of deliveries that are worthy of being documented for posterity.

"Sorry, he couldn't get in today due to the weather"

Reasonable enough you may think, except that it was June and a beautiful sunny day. Presumably the weather was so good that the recipient couldn’t get in due to a serious reluctance to leave the garden unattended.

"I can't sign for it as I don't have a pen of the right colour"

If that sounds odd, you might find it even odder when you know that the problem was due to the recipient’s company insisting that all signatures must be given in black, as opposed to any other colour, ink.

"I have no choice but to sign for it as being opened and possibly damaged"

Once again, perhaps you think this is not an unreasonable position at face value? Well, you may change your mind when you discover that the person concerned had actually insisted on opening the sealed package to begin with - to see what was inside!

"Sorry, I can't sign for it as I'm not here"

This could lead to a very interesting philosophical debate, however, it was rather less interesting than that. The individual concerned decided that, as they were officially on holiday and shouldn’t be in the office, they couldn't really sign for parcel.

"I can't accept it - it's the wrong shape"

Although the package was entirely undamaged, because it was rectangular as opposed to the anticipated square shape, the recipient decided that signing for it would be too risky.

"I can't sign for it here - take it to the other entrance and I'll sign for it there"

If you're thinking this must have been a large object requiring specialist lifting gear to unload, you are mistaken. It was, in fact, a very small parcel containing some paperwork.

"You can't deliver it here - it has the wrong address on it"

Perfectly true - so a valid position to adopt, you may think? Well, not given that an attempt to deliver the parcel to the address on it had already been made, only for the courier to be re-routed to the correct offices where the recipient was based. So, although the delivery attempt was being made to the right location, because the address on the parcel was incorrect, they would not accept it.

"We can't accept it because we don't know what it is"

You may see this as a slightly paranoid reflection of the security conscious world that we are all forced to live in these days. However, given the parcel had been sent by the company's own head office, you would imagine that the security risks were relatively small!

Who said the life of a courier was easy?