Thursday, September 15, 2011
They call it 'Snail Mail' because......
My sister in Ontario mailed a letter to me on August 30th, and it finally arrived here in North Vancouver today, September 15th. And I bet they're wondering why they are losing business to the couriers and electronic media like email. A popular courier service can deliver packages from Toronto to Vancouver overnight, so why does it take Canada Post 16 days to deliver a letter? Thirty years ago or more, we had much faster service, because the long distance mail was put on commercial aircraft which had space in their cargo hold to carry it. These days, it's like the old 'Pony Express', except I think that was faster. This is totally ridiculous, especially at today's prices.
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That's NUTS, Ray!! And...I'm sure that you've heard that the U.S. Postal Service is on the verge of going bankrupt, as well, yeah? We'll have to get a pony...if we want anything delivered via "snail mail" in the near future, it seems! Couriers are getting mighty expensive, as well! :-(
ReplyDeletePerhaps we'll all just have to spend more time talking to each other via cell phones; Skyping; e-mails & blogs. Paper will be gone but God DAM (get it?! :-) there'll still be electricity 'cuz we're ALL *so* durn dependent on it, now! :-(
@ TC[Girl] -
ReplyDeleteHi, TC - Yes, it is nuts! And the problem of course is that some things can't be done by email, like sending an actual 'hard copy' of something.
But if Canada Post or the U.S. Mail
is dying on the vine, they've got nobody to blame but themselves.
I dunno...
ReplyDeleteSure post can be uneven sometimes, also here in the UK. But who else can hand-deliver a letter anywhere in the country for 40 pence? Or in Europe for I dunno, but less than double.
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Captcha: "buggrox". Huh? I think I'll use that as a swear word from now on.
@ Eolake -
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Eolake - we couldn't get anyone else to do it that cheaply, but then don't forget that the service is heavily subsidized by all of us taxpayers, so the stamps don't reflect the true cost of it.
We're paying more and more for a service that seems to be not as good as it was in the past. If I could get a letter from Ontario in five days 30 years ago, why should it take 16 days now?
I liked the nice woman postman who was wearing a broad straw hat on sunny days when she was delivering the mail.
ReplyDeleteI know her by her first name, and didn´t mind when she delivered the mail an hour late because of all the chatting she did to "her" customers.
That was some 3 years ago.
We still have a postman, but times have changed.
Sent mails sometimes get lost. Unimagineable only a few years ago when you could be 100 per cent sure about their service.
@ Monsieur Beep -
ReplyDeleteI would have thought that if anyone knew how to run a postal service it would be your country. I'm sorry to hear I was mistaken.