On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, d... wrote:
quoted 10 lines about 2 weeks ago i sent $15 u.s (i am in canada)> about 2 weeks ago i sent $15 u.s (i am in canada)
> to gil for some cd's he had advertised here.
> i e-mailed him yesterday asking if he had received
> my money and i got a 'it's been lost in the mail' reply.
> he went on to say that he has horrid luck with the
> USPS and that he constantly loses stuff at the hands
> of the USPS. i called the USPS and posed this scenario
> to them. the man i spoke to laughed out loud and said
> that on occaision the USPS loses mail but never to
> the same address multiple times inside of a month.
Well first off, do you really expect that someone at the USPS (or any
postal service for that matter) is going to say "Oh, yes, it's quite
possible that we could lose a lot of mail to the same address, in fact it
happens all the time". Not bloody likely.
Anyway, here's a post office nightmare that really happened to me:
Up until a few weeks ago, the post office in my neighbourhood was
located in the back of a small stationery store at the end of my street.
From my first experience with them when I moved into the area 3 1/2 years
back, I didn't like them. It was a family run joint, and every member of
the family (mom, dad & two sons) were either apathetic, rude or both
everytime I went there.
Soon after I moved into the area, I started doing freelance music writing.
A little while after that, I started my radio show. As a result, I started
getting promo CDs sent to me from all over the place. I'm rarely warned
by the labels when stuff was sent to me, so I never know what to expect in
my mail from day to day.
Now, most small packages (1 or 2 CDs) are delivered by the mailman. But
anything larger than that is sent to my local post office who are supposed
to send me a card telling me to come pick up the package. These cards
would arrive occassionally and I'd go pick up the discs.
But then, I started getting email from a couple of labels saying "hey,
how come the latest (insert names here) discs that we sent you haven't
been showing up on your playlists?". Well, that would be because I never
received the discs. After this happened a couple of times, I asked about
it at the post office and got a typical "we know nothing" response. I
considered a call to the Canada Post complaints line, but never got around
to it.
Until I had a package of CDs that I *paid for* go missing. Well, I hadn't
actually paid for them yet - I'd ordered them from BMG Music Service, who
I called and told that the package hadn't arrived. So they shipped another
one.
It disappeared too.
I called BMG again. They were very understanding, and offered to start
shipping to my work address instead. They did so, and I had the discs
within a week.
I also called Canada Post and lodged a complaint. They didn't seem too
concerned, but said they'd check into it.
Well, it appears that they did, because about a month ago, I returned from
vacation to find a "parcel pick-up" card with a new address on it - the
post office had been moved to the drug store down the street. When I went
to pick up the package (a bundle of goodies from Dot! woo hoo!) I
mentioned how glad I was that they had moved the post office, and was told
that I wasn't the only one. In fact, many of the people coming in to
pick up stuff at the new location mentioned having problems with the old
place.
The woman behind the counter then told me that a criminal investigation
had been started against the stationery store. I cruised by a few minutes
later to fine the "post office here" signs in the window replaced with
"store for rent" and "everything 1/2 price" signs. I was very, very happy.
Bastards.
The moral? Mail *does* go missing more often than the postal service would
like you to believe.
Of course, since my story involves packages, not letters, and employees of
a sub-contracted private shop, not actual postal workers, it doesn't have
whole lot of bearing on this particular situation. But I needed to vent.
Greg