The guys at Mabel's Grill discuss how not to run a post office
The world’s problems are solved daily ’round the table at Mabel’s Grill.
“What’s this?” asked George McKenzie when Dave Winston handed him an envelope at the morning coffee session at Mabel’s the other day.
“It’s the Christmas card for you and Martha,” said Dave as he distributed cards to Cliff Murray and Mabel as well.
“Saving the 85 cents are you?” said Molly Whiteside as she made the rounds with the coffee pot. “I wonder how many fewer Christmas cards will be sent this year with the price of postage so high.”
“Well saving the money is great all right, particularly with the price of corn down and the cost of drying all that wet corn making me wish I owned shares in a propane company, but I was mostly worried about you getting the card before Christmas if I put it in the mail.”
“We only live one concession apart,” snorted George. “Even Canada Post can’t take that long.”
“I don’t know,” said Dave, shaking his head. “The wife was talking to the post master here in town and he told her that with the new rules from Canada Post headquarters, they’re not supposed to sort local mail anymore. It all goes on the mail truck to London. And since they’re not sorting mail in London anymore, it goes on to Mississauga where it gets sorted and sent back to London and then back to our post office.”
“You’re kidding!” hooted George. “You mean instead of them walking across the post office and putting the mail in the box for a different rural route, and me getting your letter the next day, they ship my letter about 300 miles to go three miles.”
“Apparently that’s what the plan is,” said Dave.
“And you watch, the next time the price of fuel goes up Canada Post will say it has to put up the price of stamps to cover trucking costs,” sighed Cliff.
“What the heck are those guys smoking at Canada Post headquarters?” wondered George.
“So what are the staff at the local post office supposed to do with the rest of their day once they’ve got our mail put in the right box every morning?” asked Molly.
“Probably fill in paperwork for headquarters,” said Cliff.
“Or listen to people complaining about high prices and poor postal service,” said George.
“Maybe sell coins and stamps to collectors,” said Mabel from over at the counter. “Seems like the post office would rather sell souvenirs than deliver mail.”
“Well it seems like that’s all they’ll soon have left to do,” said George. “I can’t think of any plan more designed to put your company out of business than to hike the cost 30-40 per cent and then take longer to deliver the letter.”
“Already my kids hardly know what a post office is unless they have to go there to pick up a package with something they ordered from E-Buy,” said Dave.
“That’s E-Bay,” corrected Molly.
“It’s no-buy to me,” said Dave.
“Given the mindset at Canada Post, I’m kind of surprised somebody hasn’t decided to fly all the mail to India for sorting,” said Cliff.
“Well they wouldn’t be the first ones,” said Mabel. “The salesperson from the local newspaper was in here the other day to get an ad and when I asked her to let me see what it was going to look like she said she’d have to wait until it went to India to be put together and then was shipped back.”
“And we wonder why young people can’t get jobs!” fumed Molly.
“What gets me is that the idiots who make these crazy decisions at Canada Post or the other big companies are paid fortunes, as if they were geniuses,” said George.
“Yeah,” said Dave, “and I’ll bet they get paid by direct deposit. Maybe we’d have better postal service if they had to wait for the cheque by mail.”◊