"I remember when the Postal workers started a slow-down strike for a pay raise. They had to call it off - nobody noticed." - Anon
According to the commercials I've seen frequently aired on U.S. television stations, there is a huge outcry south of our border over the intention of the U.S. Post Office to eliminate Saturday deliveries. I hardly remember a time in Canada when we had Saturday mail delivery. I know we had it during my childhood but I'm not sure when it disappeared. A couple of years ago a friend who holds an executive level position at Canada Post asked me how I would feel if Canada Post cut weekly mail delivery from our current five day service to three day service. I was actually shocked at the proposition and strenously voiced my opposition. She was shocked that I would all that much care. After all, in the age of the internet, there are few things we need to rely on the postal carrier to deliver anymore. We get most of our bills on line or through direct billing. Few people send letters rather than emails. And the vast majority of what is delivered to our mailboxes is junk mail. Canada Post is losing money. And therein lies the problem - the difference in ideologies between the belief that regular mail service is a basic right of all citizens and therefore needs to be considered a necessary cost and the belief that Canada Post should be a profit center.
I like getting mail. I rely on the mail. My clients send my payments by mail. I get my magazines by mail. I get cards by mail. I get goods by mail. I send a lot of mail. When Jacob and his friends went away to university, I started making frequent trips to the post office. I bought many ten dollar gifts that cost me twelve dollars to mail. It gave the kids a lift to find a bag of candy or pair of mittens or a new hat in their mailboxes at the end of a stressful day. I admit I was shocked at the price of these deliveries. The cost of the stamps almost always exceeded the cost of the gift. The price of sending a new t-shirt to Jon in Halifax was obscene. In time, I changed my packages to provide fewer pairs of pajamas and more gift cards, at least for the boys. But for the girls, there were still more tubes of lip gloss than Tim cards.
A couple of weeks ago, Canada Post left a card in our mailbox. It announced that we could expect to see some changes in the delivery of our mail in the next couple of weeks. For one thing, it may not be coming at the regular time (usually around 10 A.M.) and we may notice the postal truck being parked on our street. Yesterday I saw the truck parked on our street when I went out to run an errand at 9:30 A.M. I checked for our mail delivery every hour between 10 A.M. and 4 P.M. When there was nothing in the box by 4, I assumed there would be no delivery. I was disappointed because I've been waiting for a couple of things - not the least of which is a sizeable payment which is overdue from a client. Merv was out for the evening and didn't get home until after 9 P.M. I guess by the time he got home, the mailbox was stuffed with mail - not only our mail but all the mail for an address ten houses away. This is the fifth time in the last couple of weeks that we've received someone else's mail. I am annoyed.
I get that Canada Post is trying to create new efficiencies in deliveries and cut costs. I can even applaud that effort. But frankly, I think it is unreasonable to deliver mail so late in the day and the continual delivery to our home of other people's mail is unconscionable. The odd mistake is one thing. Five times in two weeks is another.
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