Oh No!

Oh no! The Canadian Postal Service is on strike! Whatever shall I do? How will I mail threatening letters to celebrities now? Why I’d have to use D.H.L., U.P.S., Fed-Ex, or Purolator, etc.
Let me give you some idea of how antiquated the postal service is: I don’t even use e-mail anymore. I factually receive more letters marked “Current Resident,” than I do to my own name. I average one letter to the wrong address a month. I don’t even know how those statistics are even possible. No one’s mail box is exactly overflowing these days. There has to be about a dozen or so letters going out to a street per day. So one in every three hundred and fifty or so letters goes to the wrong house. Then it magically becomes my duty to re-mail the letter because I-don’t-get-paid-enough-Jr.-shorts can’t do their jobs correctly. Tampering with the mail is a federal crime, so by throwing it in the recycling bin I’m becoming a criminal, no matter what the contents of the letter are (Here’s a hint: it’s not money). It’s the mail carrier’s responsibility in the first place, but they’re in no way held responsible for their neglect. Looking at the stats, I’d say it’s virtually impossible for them to even do their jobs 100% correctly over the course of their careers, which means every mail carrier in Canada is a criminal. Yet they’re demanding more money to do something which no longer needs to be done. That takes balls, which makes their shorts wearing a poor choice.
Everyone knows the postal service is a cushy job. All you have to do is carry a bag around, read the address on an envelope, and put it in the corresponding mail slot. Plus: you get to bone housewives while their husbands are at work. 90% of the mail these days is junk anyway, so you could just dump your entire satchel down the sewer and call it a day. Considering the insane amount of personal details business are accumulating these days, I don’t know why I’m still getting flyers to sell my mortgage my own house when they know I don’t own my own house. The fact I’m in a apartment or basement suite kind of testifies to that.
Working in the post office itself looks less complicated that working in Burger King. You’ve got your scales, you’ve got your charts, what more do you need? Your on-the-job training is being able to read tiny numbers with your eyes. It’s like watching six year old kids play pretend store. 88% of your job is telling old ladies they need wrap their package up properly before mailing it away. If that same old lady tries the whole, “I’m going to pay in pennies,” routine, stamps are the only thing that costs less than a dollar. You’ve got their pennies counted before they’re out of the purse and you’re on to the next asshole. It’s not like you have daily quotas either, so you could have that line backed up out the post office like you’re the D.M.V.. If anyone give you shit, just look over at the wanted posters on the wall, scratch your chin and say, “You look kind of familiar…” then reach for the phone.
The things they bitch about are insane. They basically don’t want to do their jobs. They want to work outdoors, since it’s the only job where you get to walk around unsupervised, but they don’t want to see any kind of animal. If you have a tea-cup poodle on a leash in your yard, you’re not getting your mail, you’re getting a call from animal control. They hate having to deliver magazines, DVDs, or anything not regulation letter size. The entire magazine industry is going under, so subscriptions are in shorter supply, plus Canada doesn’t even have a by-mail Netflix service.
As for consistency: I’ve seen letters of mine taken by hand and placed into the corresponding slot by the lady at the post office after the letter was weighted, and the correct stamps were paid for and affixed. Never fucking got there. I waited months, and never heard back, over a matter involving quite a fair bit of money. I had to call the company on the receiving end directly so they could verbalize their shrugs at me and tell me to fill out the same forms with the same information. Of course, they’d have to mail the forms to me, so I could mail them back, because I’m apparently living in the fucking Stone Age. Long story short: I got jack shit, minus postage. That’s what sucks the most about the mail: the waiting. You’re expect to wait five to six weeks on some things, but by that time you’ve likely forgotten you ever sent away for mail at all. If it doesn’t arrive, how would you know?
This very day, we had to inquire about why we weren’t receiving our son’s magazine subscription. According to online and phone services, everything’s kosher, but it’s not showing up at the door. Why? Because fuck me, that’s why. It’s an excuse I hear often.
I moved in recent months and didn’t opt-in for the change of address service at the post office, since it only last six months. I instead changed my information with every service I could think of that I wanted to get mail from. I’ve gotten about seven letters in five months, mainly from the government telling me they want taxes and all of the personal information about myself that they already should have, because they’re the government. You want me to fill out my Census? Go look at my facebook profile like all my other would-be stalkers. Don’t pretend you’re not paying someone to do that already. Facebook knows more about me than my own country, and they’re selling all that data to organ thieves in Bolivia.
Mail theft is a huge problem, especially in my area of the country. Any time I’m being mailed a new bank card, there’s a good chance someone’s going to clean out my entire back account. What’s being done about that? Jack shit. It’s not the postal service’s problem, even if they’re the ones stealing or looting my mail. My point is the mail service is basically designed to give people newer insight into dementia. When your Grandma’s screaming about how people are stealing from her at the home, that’s basically you with the postal service, and just like your Grandma, you can’t prove shit. It’s a victimless crime, except for you. You think some ace detective is going to stake out your corner mail drop-off for a week to catch the criminal? He’s got minorities to shoot.
So if the mail doesn’t get there? Who can tell what went wrong? It could have been stolen; it could have been dropped; it could have gone to the wrong house; it could have had the wrong postage; or the mail carrier could have looked at the handwriting on the envelope, decided they didn’t like what they were seeing, then rolled it into a doob. There goes your passport. It’s not like a pizza delivery service where if you don’t get your pizza in thirty minutes you can call and say, “Where the fuck is my pizza?” then some poor kid gets fired. Then he goes and lights a doob.
Have you ever mailed away for something and then not gotten it? It’s a terrible feeling. I remember sending away for a StarCom Catalogue when I was a wee lad. I waited months and months patiently. And months. And more months. Then I turned into an adult and started drinking to numb the pain. Or else you get something, but it’s insanely late, or the package is badly damaged, or it’s even clearly been opened. Have you ever looked at your mail and seen that the border service opened it, and rifled through it, with a note telling you, “Fuck you, we went through your things.” What the hell is that about? I’ve gotten issues of my now extinct ToyFare magazine like that, a magazine about action figures and whimsy, and they went through it like it was fucking contraband. Every issue of my magazine also arrived late, despite the fact it was supposed to reach my door the same time it hit shelves. I could download the issue online and read through it all weeks before it would arrive at my door, just in time for the next issue!
Then of course there’s the notes on your door telling you to go to the post office and pick up your package. They could have knocked, or rang, and given you the package, but slapping that note on your door is easier somehow than carrying it from their mail truck. They’d have to be ninjas to not get my attention at the door, but then they expect me to drive across town and sign out for a package I don’t clearly remember ordering, and never expected. Of course, it’s worse when it’s for someone else at your household, and you were the one home at the time. The write down the time just so you know who to blame, and they are most assuredly blamed. That’s why they have the notepads to begin with: to fuck with you in your own house. The looks you get when those notes are discussed. The questions that arise. If doubts about you didn’t exist before with your loved ones, they will sure as hell crop up after. It’s a mindfuck. They’ll be looking sideways at you later while cutting up vegetables, wondering what you’re plotting, with the knife in their hand.
What really gets me is how traditionally difficult it is to break into the postal service. You’ve got to know somebody and be blood, and a minority, and speak French to get in. Once you’re in though, it’s smooth sailing, because these fuckers get paid more than I do. I’m on my feet all day, I’m lifting heavy items, I’m out in the pouring rain, and I’m dealing with the public like them, and they’re getting paid more than me. Plus: they’re striking. I can’t strike for shit. Fuck them.
I’ve got a baby on the way, and with babies come cards of congratulations. Those aren’t coming now, or if they are, he’ll be seventeen by the time they make it to my door.
What truly makes me an insane person is the belief that somewhere there’s an office with my letters in them, waiting to be delivered, and that if I go down to the office I’ll receive a veritable treasure trove of goodies. I’ll get dirty magazines and graduation money, and letters telling me that Doc Brown isn’t be dead, he’s just stuck back in Ol’ West.
So basically: fuck the mail. It’s criminally evil, and so are the people who deliver it. Them and their short-shorts, toned legs and bushy moustaches. I hope they get fucked over by their own unions and the government at large, because if I’m not getting mine, why the hell should they get theirs?