This shot's a bit unfair (I've always found Australia Post to be pretty reliable and fast) but it was one of those "Seize The Moment" shots that I couldn't resist.

Now had it been a Telstra van or a van of any of the other "communications" providers who supply Fraudband (slow, expensive and download-limited) in this country, THAT would have been a fair call!
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Edit from 23 August 2023, just 3 days short of 18 years after this shot was taken. Oh gods, I need to let that sink in. A child who was born in Bleak City on the day of this shot has completed (or nearly completed) their entire school life, and will be able to vote in 3 days. Ooohkay.

This was so long ago that I was still (a) shooting .jpg rather than raw, and (b) using the 18-55mm kit lens which came with my EOS 300D. In line with the gallery vibe of "fun stuff", me thinking that a kit lens is "adequate" is laughable in itself. (Though to be fair, it did a good job here.) Regarding point (a), I would be shown the light relating to raw shooting in Deke McClelland's Total Training course on Photoshop CS2, which I would buy later that year.

This shot was taken on my first trip to Bleak City (Melbourne), as I mostly referred to it then. Back then I was still counting my trips, though I've no idea how long it has been since I was last there now. If I recall correctly it was a trip to train some colleagues for work... and I DO remember correctly because earlier shots show the hotel that I was in, and there's no way I, rather than the company, would have chosen it. (It was fine, just very, very old fashioned is all. Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong stayed there, and I half expected to see one of them come around the corner. Or would, had they not both been dead by then.)

Regarding the subject of the shot, the backside has of course long since fallen out of Australia Post's snail mail business. The volume of letters grew by about 75% from 1988 to the early 2000s. By the time I took this shot they had plateaued, before hitting an unlikely (and not much higher) peak in 2008. As of 2020, however, the volume had plunged to about 60% of 1988 levels and was still in a power dive at close to a 45% angle year on year. Australia Post has built a good replacement business as a deliverer of online shopping packages, but the snail mail business, is now a massive loss making drain on resources. It still requires the company to service every house in most of the country, 5 days a week, for ever-diminishing volumes. The daily mail service is on its death watch, and it'll reduce to 2 to 3 days per week sooner rather than later. Unfortunately also on death watch are the jobs of many posties. (Australian for "mailmen".) The then "pun intended" sign of "Delays Expected" will become a reality, but not an unreasonable one. You wouldn't believe that back in the 60s there were 2 deliveries a weekday, morning and afternoon, and one on Saturday morning, all lugged in backpacks by the posties.

Thankfully the bad old "fraudband" days are behind most of us as well, despite the efforts of a previous government to build a half @$$ed National Broadband Network. If you can stream high definition video as and when you please, something that would have been unthinkable in 2005, you really can't complain TOO much. Well, aside from the quality of some of the shows on Netflix, anyway.

Oh, and as of a couple of years ago? That green building was still standing there, still empty, still unused, and increasingly buried under posters and graffiti. I don't know whether that's still the case now.