Chris’ Corner: Checking your P.O. Mail Boxes
By Christopher Johnson
By now many of you are checking your mail boxes to open the mail from your loved ones as well as facing bills from your suppliers which are difficult to pay. But wait what about those firms that keep their mail box keys in the office. Because you cannot go to your office you cannot recover your keys to empty your mail box.
This gives rise to consider problems that our deep thinking Government forgot in their wisdom to address. The knock on effect in deeply concerning.
Many suppliers still send out their invoices and monthly statements by mail. If the customer does not receive them they cannot be paid. Moreover some firms like mine which pays most bills by cheque left the cheque book in the office. Thus suppliers will not get paid. If they cannot get paid how do they meet their financial commitments including paying employees. If employees are not paid how can they pay their bills.
The next and less important facet of all of this is the mail boxes themselves. Not many are ten feet square to accommodate several weeks of mail. Thus much mail lies in the mail bags accumulating at the various post offices.
This reminds me of a story of the seventies which demonstrates the practical thinking of the people of our island. One Christmas the post office had serious difficulty clearing the mail. Bags of mail were to be seen stacked to the rafters at the George Town Post Office and clearly we were not going to receive our Christmas cards from our loved ones. In stepped the Chamber of Commerce when one Saturday some 20 highly qualified wannabe post office clerks stepped into the breach and cleared all the mail with the help of a lady whose name I just cannot recall, who knew everyones mail box number if they had one. Thus cards sent without box numbers found their way home.
This goes to show how we could get things done in those days using a practical approach. So CIG let us visit our offices to retrieve our keys to empty the mail boxes before the bags are stacked to the roof.
Not very good business continuity planning Chris. You would fail a CIMA inspection. Keys & cheque books should have gone home before you locked the office up.
Most local suppliers will email bills and arrangements should have been made. Local banks can pay other banks so you don’t have to write cheques. Try moving into this century & stop living in the past.
You did not address all issues. For your edification my firm uses bank transfers so you do not need to be rude. For your further edification my firm contacted all suppliers and we are meeting our obligations. Not everyone is as smart as you, nor in fact as arrogant as yOU. It is a fact that many people still have their keys in their office. You must also take into account the small retailers that use nothing but cheque books.Good for them as our banks are hopeless when it comes to electronic banking.
The fact remains, it is wrong for government to deny office owners or their nominee from going to their office on a one off basis.
Finally where does CIMA fit iin ? Whilst you may have to report to them we do not. We are not licensed by CIMA.
Thank you for your interest in the subject Mr Anonymous.
Touched a nerve? I was not anonymous, just didn’t put my surname.
You stated you paid most bills by cheque. The banks really do a very good job these days paying bills and making local transfers (I’m not an accountant but a banker for 40+ years) online. Again you claim you need physical mail.
These are not things you should be relying on in any business continuity scenario / with regulatory inspections or external audits in this day and age.
You questioned our governments wisdom. I merely addressed yours as you seem unable to cope without keys or cheque books.
Benjamin
As an insolvency practitioner I have no just broad shoulders. So do not be concerned.
I see you are a banker. Sorry to hear about that. Things can only improve. If you did a poll in Cayman you would find that compared with banks twenty years ago the industry is not well respected. They make far too many errors and their response time does not behoove their industry. I think you are wearing blinkers.
Thank you for the advice in running my office but you probably do not know what happens in the big wide world. What you fail to realize is that smaller retailers prior to the virus just sent out invoices by mail, similar to banks sending their statements out by mail, often months late incidentally. Many people, excluding myself before you comment, do NOT have access to their statements on line.
My article obviously did not refer merely to myself and having been in Cayman for fifty years or so I have got to know some of its population and thus can speak on their behalf.
Finally how can you not be anonymous if you fail to disclose your name? I’ve to say I love your sense of humour.