Rate Your Postal Service

[Sigurd]

2. Government-run, owned and paid. There are some other delivery companies of course, but that's mostly for packages, I don't think anyone else delivers letters.

Just to clarify.
Posten Norge AS is a state owned limited company. It's on the stock marked, but the state owns all the stock. The Government has limited say on what goes on and it is basically run as a private company where making money is the big focus.
It wasn't like this back before 1996 when I worked there after my military career. Back then the postal workers could earn money based on how much they did during the work hours (If you could do two routes, you got double pay), and the state run company had plenty of really good workers.
But then it changed. The company was deregulated in 96 and became Posten Norge AB, a step into the deregulation that it will have to complete before 2013. The focus became efficiency, earning money and make the business comparable with the big ones in Europe.
Needless to say, the best of the workers found other things to do.

[Guildenstern]

Rating: 3

1) Italy
2) "Poste Italiane" is the government-owned postal service of Italy.
3) If you fold your A4 to get a smaller format, it costs €0.60. If you send your letter flat using an A4 envelope, the price becomes €1.40.
4) Complaints are common about the Italian postal service, but I think things are getting better in some way, if measured strictly against the previous service levels, which have always been dire. However, besides providing core postal services, Poste Italiane Group offers integrated products, as well as communication and financial services all over Italy. The group offers a wide range of postal products, from express mail services to a broad selection of financial products (in particular life insurance and investment solutions).

[Seamus Fermanagh]

More feedback requested -- the backroom brawlers already had their shots.