Speccie - I take it that you wouldn't go into work one day and suddenly be told "oh actually we're changing the hours you work, you're starting at a different time" or "sorry you're ill in hospital......we'll take the days you are off from your AL".......
Our posties are lovely - every fortnight DH gets his pile of visits from work delivered by Special Delivery (and sometimes on the alternate week his stationary gets delivered the same way). As it happens we are one of the first on the "walk" that he does or if it's someone else doing the special deliveries almost always first on the list. This means that invariably it turns up at around 7am.....which is 1hr earlier than we get up, and earlier than I would like DS3 to be woken up by the doorbell.
Anyhow, in the last month or so both of them have started coming to us later sometimes - we're still first on the list of deliveries but they both realised that we were being disturbed almost on a daily basis by them......and said that they would come back to us part way through their post/at the end . They don't do it every time - but it's lovely once in a while not to be disturbed by our regular delivery