While it is a complete pain in the tonsils, especially if you've taken the day off work to be at home, I can see it from the postie's point of view.

They do have longer routes that take longer to get round these days so most deliveries are after workers head off on commutes. With so many dual-breadwinner homes, postmen probably have a pretty fair idea of which houses are occupied or not during the day. When they're sorting, it's not entirely surprising that they don't bother taking those parcels that they're pretty sure they're going to have to lug back anyhow.

It would be good if they could just tell you that the parcel was available immediately from the sorting office rather than maintaining the farce by telling you to wait 24 hours, mind you!