“Thank you for calling Canada Post Customer Service. Have A Great Day!”

Customer service in this case would appear to be a misnomer. When I called yesterday to point out that the lock on my community mailbox was still frozen I was told by the customer service representative that there was nothing more that could be done, that I would just have to wait. For how long he couldn’t say. Apparently thousands of people have the same problem. Since I already have a ticket number from my initial complaint there was nothing more that could be done.

This is a new problem for me, and for anyone else who had had their mail delivery arbitrarily removed recently by Canada Post. I am sure those who have used community mailboxes for years have their own horror stories. You would think that having decided to expand the community mailbox system they could have hired someone to maintain the boxes so they could avoid the thousands of complaints from people who are not getting their mail.

Or, and I realize this is a concept that is probably beyond the capabilities of the Canada Post brain trust, they could just design the boxes so the lock doesn’t freeze. I have lived in Canada most of my life. It gets cold, sometimes bitterly cold. Yet no matter how cold it gets I have never had a problem with the lock on the door of any house I have lived in. Apparently someone can design things that work in a Canadian winter.

At least I was only on hold for 15 minutes before someone answered, which was an improvement over the previous attempt when I gave up after 45 minutes. I guess people don’t realize they are open Saturdays. Not that they do anything except say they can’t do anything. And while I was on hold the recording suggested a couple of times I could just go online and make a request for whatever service necessary. Been there, done that, got an automated response. I was hoping for something better from the human answering the phone, but I guess I was hoping too much. I forgot I was dealing with Canada Post, the corporation whose response to declining mail volume is to raise its rates. At least I have the comfort of a service ticket number to let me know just how much Canada Post doesn’t care about customer service.

How do I know they don’t care? I filled out another service request after I made my phone call. No, I didn’t report the lock was frozen, I reported that I have not received my mail, which is true. Or at least I think it is true, I can’t get into the mailbox to find out. I do receive mail both days though. As I pressed “send” on that complaint a response from Canada Post came onto my computer screen thanking me for bringing the matter to their attention and assuring me the information was important to them. In closing it read “we will not be contacting you further on this issue.” You see, they don’t care.

Looking at the two-week weather forecast, it doesn’t look like my mailbox lock is going to unfreeze on its own anytime soon. Looking at historical weather data for the Ottawa area, the next day the weather will be above freezing is going to be around March 10. That means two months with no mail.

I wonder if Canada Post will have been by to unfreeze the lock before then. Anyone want to make a bet on it?