Who is my neighbour?

From the Royal Mail, you can choose a functional response:

'Someone who lives in the same postcode area as you. For example, in most cases if your postcode is SE25 1AA, the same postcode area would be another address where the postcode also starts with SE25.'
(via this page)

Or a more nuanced one:

'For the purposes of delivering items, a neighbour is considered by Royal Mail to be a person who lives within close proximity of the address on the item. They may be a next-door neighbour or someone who lives sufficiently close by.

'Our postmen and women have the flexibility to make an appropriate judgement of which neighbour to approach and indeed whether to approach a neighbour at all. In exercising that judgement they may rely on their familiarity with their walk and pointers of occupation such as previous experience, a car in the drive, or an open window.'

(Why it might matter).

Comments

[Chris Gittins, Streets Alive]

A related joke from the TV: I am very English, I bought a book on the internet about how to have nothing to do with my neighbours. Trouble is, I was out when it was delivered.

[Kevin Harris]

Love it - thanks Chris!

[Martin Dudley]

The postie may have a computer generated 59 seconds for each delivery on his or her walk, so has not got much time to make a decision. Yes local knowledge, secret drop-off places and so on, but the PDA needs to be told 'delivered' or not if its a parcel [they don't have packets any more so its a letter or a parcel]. So the postie will be conflicted between his/her local service to people they may know well, and the requirements of [increasingly] programmed systems.