Day uhmmm four?

This is day four of the big, slow, move down the hall. Day four for Mom and daughter but only day two for me. *thank god*

This was a productive day but it seemed like all I was doing most of it was waiting on people.

The telephone was hooked up early this morning without any intervention from an actual person, well maybe there was intervention but it would be akin to Homer Simpson pressing a button rather than someone coming out with a tool belt and friggin around with wires. That was good. Rogers cable did have to send a tech out though. They said they would be here between 11:00am and 2:00pm. The fellow arrived at 11:10am with tool belt, back pack and clip board in hand. He looked very officious even though I guessed he was only 14 years old. Perhaps it was because he was Asian that he looked so youthful. In any event, he was very efficient and had everything up and running in no time.

My building had also scheduled Rogers cable to come into my unit today to do repairs on the line that runs down this end of the building. There were two of those fellows working on that little project so it became very confusing whenever another Rogers cable guy came to the door and wondered where the other Rogers Cable guy was. I could never figure out what guy they were looking for and it invariably took a few questions just to get that far. I'm not sure but I think I detected a little bit of impatience when I just didn't come out with the answer they wanted immediately. Of course, once I explained that there was "my guy" and the "building guy", it was all perfectly clear. The building cable guys frigged around in and out of my apartment until after 2:00pm.

My daughter asked me to give her a ride to work this morning prior to any service people arriving and I thought it would be a good time to change my address at the Post Office. I never imagined that something that should only take approx 5 min would end up taking close to an hour.

I know, you're already thinking that I should know better, especially since I'm a government worker myself, but I am not your typical government worker. I have good work ethics and do believe in customer service.

Not so, where I visited this morning. It was about 10:05am. The Postal Station is located in the mall where my daughter works. The lineup was already 6 deep when I filed in at the end of the line.

No problem, two people are working. Shouldn't take long.

Postal Worker One was an East Indian woman with Henna markings all over her hands and arms. From my location at the back of the line, I thought she had either burn marks or had tried to slit her wrists at some point. She took a long time staring at the computer screen over the top of her bifocals in between short conversations with her client who actually departed the store for about 5 minutes before reappearing in front of her again while the rest of us just stood and watched.

There wasn't anything else to look at because Postal Worker Two, a 40ish woman with long, stringy blonde hair who looked like she had just rolled out of bed after a night of heavy drinking had quickly departed through a doorway after her one customer had left.

She was gone forever and I wondered if the bag that she was looking for was located at the other end of the mall. Or perhaps she had to drive the envelope to a secret location in another part of the city. One could only wonder, because it seemed like she had completely vanished through the mystery door when all of a sudden she sauntered slowly back into view.

The woman at the front of the line waited patiently for Postal Worker Two to call the next person, but instead a lady who had been working away at an envelope at one of the stations off to the side, jumped in front of everyone else and asked Postal Worker Two for a piece of tape. This was not a quick request. It's difficult to move quickly after a drinking binge. Postal Worker Two moved in a sloth like manner to fetch the tape dispenser off the back counter. I was afraid she would have to enter the mystery door, but breathed a sigh of relief when she stopped short and reached the tape without disappearing from view.

Postal Worker Two must have been happy for the diversion because she chatted a little bit with the line budding woman, even chuckled before saying goodbye.

Impatient woman at the front of the line was not happy. She even spoke out against Postal Worker Two for serving someone who clearly had not been standing with the rest of us. Postal Worker Two was like a viper, sarcastically asking if she was wanting to be looked after now and then making a point of letting us all know that she had waited on the line butting person prior. This must have been last week, or the week before but she tried to tell us all that the woman had just purchased some stamps just moments before and it was not necessary for her to have to stand in line twice. I tucked that away in the back of my mind, because I had a funny feeling that I would be expected to step away from the counter once I made my request and then I would have to wait once again to hand the completed forms in.

I looked at the woman behind me in disbelief at the rotten customer service and told her that I guess the rest of us should take note not to expect good customer service, or rather any service, and if we have a problem with the level of service we are receiving, we better not speak out about it or we are liable to get no service at all. She laughed and agreed. She then confided that she purposely came into the Post Office an hour before needing to be at work, because she knew that she would end up spending most of her time in a lineup.

She questioned why the gentleman that had come out of the mysterious door once, handed a roll of coin to Postal Worker Two and had glanced around the room at all the people waiting, didn't open one of the wickets to help clear the crowd. I laughed and told her that was wishful thinking. He was clearly a manager. Besides, what incentive do they have to speed up and provide good service? There is none. If we are unhappy about it, then we can go home without our stamps, but the reality is that our mail will never get delivered unless we go back, stand in line and take the shitty service that will be doled out to us.

In the end, I got Postal Worker One, was handed forms, told to fill them out over there and then I jumped back in front of other people who were waiting. I was home about an hour after I left.

The balance of the day was spent looking after the cable guys, going to buy my mom a new box spring and mattress, buying a new entertainment centre, buying a new computer desk and putting it together, then throwing my computer together to finally get back online by 11:00pm tonight.

Tomorrow is another day. Things that still have to be done are: gather balance of belongings and lug down to new apartment, fill all nail holes with pollyfil, clean entire apartment, unpack and arrange new apartment and hopefully enjoy some time doing nothing. My body is aching from all the strange physical exertion and I'm glad that we have had so much time, otherwise I'm not sure my Mom or I would have survived.