In my hometown (in Newfoundland), there is one central post office, and then there is a Canada Post outlet in a convenience store in another part of town. Basically this outlet serves as a full-service post office for the citizens in that area of town (my hometown is really a small city, I suppose.)
Anyway. Just a little backstory, right? On to the bad service.
On March 5, my mother mailed me a St. Patrick's Day card (I'm away at school in Nova Scotia.) She also mailed me some papers I needed for school, in the same envelope. She bought a stamp from the postal outlet and left the card with the clerk there to drop in the mailbox.
Apparently that wasn't a good idea -- because as of today, March 27, I have not yet received the card. There is no sign of it at all, and according to Canada Post's website, the standard delivery time for an interprovincial lettermail item is 4 business days.
So when I talked to my mother two days ago, I let her know that I had still not received the card, and yesterday she went to the postal outlet to ask what had happened. Apparently she was treated with disdain, as though the clerks couldn't be bothered to listen to her complaint.
This is not the first time this has happened. Last year, a friend of mine back home mailed me a Halloween card at the same postal outlet. Three weeks passed, and I did not receive it, so I let my friend know. She went to the outlet to ask what had happened, and insisted that the clerk look around the postal area while she watched. Lo and behold, the card was found -- wedged between the cash register and the counter. It had never been deposited into the proper mail receptacle.
I called Canada Post today and lodged an official complaint. Not so much because I didn't get my card (although, hey, I need those damn papers, and the school will only accept the originals), but because I feel that the staff at this particular outlet are not properly trained in handling the mail, and frankly they don't seem to give a shit about the service they are providing to people. Not only that -- I don't know if there is actually a policy on this, but they have the same people working the convenience store and the postal outlet, so a lot of the time the employees are doing half a dozen things at once, and the postal duties take a backseat more often than not.
I am just so pissed. I know that I will never use their services again, because they are obviously completely incompetent.