CSS



  Ever since the postal service went private I’ve had a calling. I was prematurely fresh from university life and the privatised system meant there were jobs going spare.

  I’ve never felt as at home as I do working for the CSS. You see, since the privatisation, many opposing courier companies have spawned, all of which show the utmost respect for the other companies, understanding that the public’s mail is a sacred vessel of pulp and ink. However, the human mind is a curious thing and if there is a sacred vessel we must wonder why it is so sacred. That’s where I come in.   No, I’m not one of these spies you hear about, nor a government official; I am a member of the Courier Sabotage Service.

  Like I say, it’s not heavy stuff, a smudge here, a line there, if the posties really did care about their job they would ensure a way for envelopes to be free from tampering. Laminate them, or something.

  It’s my job to make sure that the couriers are at their best, not growing sloppy. If they advertise how they will ‘go to the ends of the earth’ to deliver your package then a little misdirection shouldn’t be a problem. We keep them on the game.  You should be thanking me for keeping the cost of a postage stamp low and courier standards high.

It’s not all that easy to get into this business either. Some people think all you have to do is start tampering at home and we’ll come find you. Boy, are they wrong.

It takes skill. This is guerrilla posting at its best. I’ve hitched on FedEx planes; I’ve blown up a paper mill, mailed myself to a sorting plant. It takes guts. It takes skill. Practically every month you are hearing of another CSO found and ‘questioned’. They think one must have a mental incapacity to sabotage the majestic system that underpins the whole British way of life.

As for you: I don’t think you’re capable.



I first made my way into the service by painting a post box green. It sounds impressive on it’s own but when you realise I did it in central London, where even at night there are CCTV and passer-by’s it has so much more impact. Yeah, that was me.   Of course, Imperial College couldn’t have a student as susceptible to environmentalist impulses as to risk his place on the course and quite promptly curbed me.

  Yet the saboteurs didn’t come to me for another seven months. I was turned away from each job I applied to; it was bad enough that I didn’t have a university degree but a petty record too kind of sealed the deal. I began posting water bombs. A genius idea of mine if I do say so, which inspired imitation by the big boys themselves. After receiving a letter from my girlfriend over in Taiwan saying she had fallen for one of the people she had volunteered to help it went global. There’s a way of opening the bottom corner of an envelope just enough to push a small ink pellet in, which then explodes under the high pressure of cargo planes. I was in the airmail hangar anyway and my rage hadn’t subsided simply by destroying her mail (to be sent to her family, her friends, her bank) and so I crept into the outgoing mail and planted as many as I could. In some, I would put two pellets for a tie dye effect.



So you see, it’s nothing personal, you’re just not good enough. There’s no innovation, no necessitation, no anarchic order to you. If it was as simple as destroying mail you might be in for a chance, but sabotage is an artform. Tough break, kid.