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2 August 2021

Upkeep takes a lot of time, energy and money, but what can be done now versus 20 years ago is miraculous.  It is just that the importance of small businesses is not hyped on any of the TV channels that I have seen.  Why?  I cannot imagine, but I can see that it is this energy of people everywhere that makes the world go round.  This village has blossomed again after the destruction of communism and in spite of the greed of the ones who are not correct in how they acquire and/or spend funds available to them individually or in their role in government.

Today we have had air conditioners checked and they are all okay.   The repairman came and worked efficiently and correctly.  The charges were well worth it for the satisfaction of knowing the job was well done and in a timely fashion. 

Our mail comes as it should.  We must go into Bucharest to receive packages, but the postmistress in our village is helpful and very correct.  We so appreciate her even though they do not allow her to receive our packages which is sad.  The trip into Bucharest is a long way to get a package that does not even require a customs fee.  It also requires a climb up a winding staircase to wait until you can get your package and they tell you that you owe no customs fee and that you have to come just because anything from the U. S. is suspect!   I so miss our post office at Banu Mantu where they were ever so correct and kind.

The Post Office

 

1998

 

Here is my story for the day... I do believe that there are times when one should indeed show anger strongly and clearly.

 "Stop yelling," he said.  I said, "I will stop yelling when you give me my package."  I had banged on the door loudly enough for anyone inside to hear the knock clearly.  It was 13:00 and the sign on the door indicated that the office was to be open on Fridays until 15:00.  We had an appointment at 14:00 with the contractor and we had taken a taxi all the way to this prime post office on the other side of downtown from where we live.  It was way past Piata Unirii and was a post office that is supposed to be large enough to handle packages; it did not appear very large at all.  It was full of people in a small space.  The taxi driver said that he would wait for us.  We thought that it would take just a minute or two even if there was a line.  We have been to four other post offices to pick up packages besides the one where our post office box is located, the one where we got the note on the weekend and had to go back on a week day to enter the post office so the girl behind the desk could give us another notice which revealed the location of the package.  The rules say that I have to pick up the package myself.  No one can take my ID and get the package for me, unless of course, I was a business.  It turned out that I should be a business.  Friday was the first day that both of us could go together to claim the package.  I always need Eugeniu to go with me to a new post office because they have different methods that require a lot of conversation in the Romanian language.  At the post office on Banu Mantu where most of our packages are sent, I do not have any difficulty and enjoy the courtesy of the employees.  I can go there alone and they give my package to me every time.

 

We entered the Post Office on Calea Vacaresti and gave the notice to the postal clerk at the first window.  He said to go to the window at the end of the room.  At the end of the room they told us to go to the office next door.  Two doors down the clerks said you cannot receive packages here.  You can send them, but not receive them, but that we should go back to the other office to the window straight in front of the door.  There the man finally opened the window and told us that we had to go to the last door at the end of the room.  I was getting upset and said that this is idiotic. We found the door at the end of the room to be closed and locked despite the sign that indicated clearly that it should be open.  I knocked loudly and every head in the post office turned my way.  I did not care.  I wanted to get the attention of someone there who knew exactly where there might be a clerk who could read the notice and give my package to me.  There was no one there.  "You cannot keep my package," I shouted.  It did not matter.  The clerk who did not like my insistence said that there was no one there.  We must go back to the other office again. So, we returned to the desk two doors down.  Finally, the manager came out. She kept my notice, but she did not give me my package.  I asked her what right she had to keep my package.  It is not the first mail that I have lost here.  I have had so many letters lost that no one writes very much anymore.  There is no point.  The letters with pictures of weddings and new babies and family and friends are of no use to anyone here.  I keep wondering why they keep them.  I am told that the postal workers are poor, so they tear open the letters that come from other countries hoping to find money in them.  No one sends me money, just pictures and messages about what is happening in their lives.  Of no use to anyone else.  Why do they keep them?  Why do they not let the mail go through?  Whether it is criminal or not to steal mail in Romania, I do not know, but I do understand that it is mean.  It is just plain mean.

So I say to the woman in English that she has no right to keep my package.  I have the notice, I have the identification papers and I want to get my package as directed by the Romanian Postal Service.  All the while she is telling my husband that she cannot give me the package because I am not a juridical person.  I am a physical person.  This means that I am not a business, I am just a person who has received an item of mail.

This particular post office does not give mail to "physical" persons.  This particular post office just gives packages to businesses.  Yes, she has my package, but she cannot give it to me.  Someone thought that my name was a business so they sent my package to this post office.  “It is a mistake,” she said, “but I cannot give you your package.”  Am I in never‑never land?  What is wrong here?

 Someone at the post office made the mistake, but she could not give my package to me even though it is right there and I was right there.  She said that she will send it back to my post office by next Friday.  They will then give me another notice to enter the post office to receive another notice and this time they will let me retrieve my package from my usual "package" post office.  Maybe.  I do not know anything about this package.  I am not expecting anything.  I only know that it is from the U. S.  I do not know if I will ever get it.  It will probably go the way of all those letters with the missing pictures of my friends and family.  I told my children not to send pictures of my new grandchildren because letters with pictures are not delivered to me.  I do not know where they go.  I do not know what happened to my last two expected business letters either.  They usually get through to our post office box, but not this month.

 I do not understand this way of operating a post office.  I cannot understand how it is useful to send people all over town to get packages.  I do not understand a post office that cannot accept a reasonable customer friendly method of correcting their mistake.   Why did this woman have to send the package back to another post office?  Who was served by this cruelty?   How was this helpful to anyone?  Why do all "business" packages have to go to this post office?   Does anyone think of making the retrieval of packages and special mail easy on the customer by allowing them to be picked up at the nearest post office?  Does anyone see that this could be actually easier on the post office?  Why does one have to go to a separate post office for packages at all?  Why does one have to have two notices before one knows where to get one package?  If the first two notices are not received, does the post office send another two as reminder or in case the first ones got lost?

 What I do understand is that this left-over attitude from communism is still far too rampant in Romania.  There are too many public servants who wish to make people uncomfortable and who wish to make it as difficult as possible for ordinary people to receive ordinary public service, be it postal or otherwise.   A customer at the post office nodded slightly and his eyes sparkled because he agreed that they were acting like idiots at the post office, but he could not speak because he knows what would happen.  I may never get the package.  I may never know what it is or who sent it, but I have shown a few people that they can protest about rude and disdainful treatment.  Those postal workers did not care whether or not I got my package and they sent us on a merry chase before I ever uttered one word in protest.  We spent a bit of money ‑‑ I never asked how much ‑‑ for the taxi that took us there because we did not know where it was and we had to get back to that shop to see if they could repair the three things we left for their appraisal and still get to the meeting with our contractor.

Isn’t there supposed to be an attitude of support for business in Romania with its faltering economy?  Is this a way to treat small and medium-sized businesses that are finally getting recognition for their contribution to build a strong economy?  Is this one of the ways they are providing "facilities" to help them grow?  This postal system is due a good systems analysis.  Perhaps their customers could provide some useful input.