Peter Cetera DID Tell Us it's Really Hard to Say

Well I was always taught that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Which is why earlier today I REFRAINED from giving the post office a piece of my mind. However, I don't think this same rule says anything about bitching... ahem... I mean venting openly about a concern, right?

So yeah. I am going to use my first blog back (NEW COMPUTER YAY!!!!) tell a story and complain a little. Okay... maybe complain a lot. See? Aren't you happy I'm back? ;)

On Saturday morning, I CAREFULLY packaged a few Christmas gifts to ship(appx one hour of wrapping and taping with cardboard) including a nice Christmas gift box for my parents. It was full of Spanish (and Italian) foods and goodies that I knew they would enjoy trying. There was a big jar of olives among many, many other tasty treats. A few of the jars were glass, so I (again)carefully wrapped each individual glass jar with cardboard before putting it in. The wine box I used ended up being the perfect size because by the time I put the last item in, I could JUST shut the lid. How PERFECT?! Nothing could even BUDGE! It couldn't have been a better fit. So, feeling quite accomplished, I slid on over to the post offce where I was pleased to see only one other customer (yay for no lines). Approaching the counter I noticed the employee was looking QUITE tired and unpleasant.
"Hi there!" I said cheerfully still simmering with the excitement of my sweet packaging job. He gave some sort of mumbled excuse of hello. (Can I just say that this was 11am not 7am on a Saturday morning?)
"That's so nice of you guys being open the extra hours for the holiday." Again... not much of a response.
"Well, it's probably not the best for you having to work on Saturday and all, but people appreciate it!" I think he might have mumbled a "yeah" at this point and continued slowly checking in my packages.
"Atleast you can wear whatever you want today," I said noticing his casual clothes, trying to help him to see his situation really wasn't as bad as he was making it seem.
"I still had to get up on a Saturday morning," was his response. SO at this point I decided casual conversation was sort of done with.

When my last package came across the desk I asked if he could mark it as fragile since it had some glass items. He stamped a few red "FRAGILE"s on the top of the box. And it was time to pay. I was shipping priority mail (since I'm a bit behind this year) so it was over 20 dollars just for my mom and dad's box of goodness. I paid and despite his blahness I said Thank you and goodbye before leaving.

Fastforward to later that day when I got a facebook message (Good old facecbook search) from an individual at the post office who after a brief introduction said this (copy and paste):

You came in today and dropped off a package with olives and whatnot and it broke in our bag. We need you to come back in on Monday and either take the box or bring another box and repackage it. Thank you

That's it. BROKEN and No "we're sorry about this" ... just... come get it thank you.

So the box sits there Saturday and Sunday and this morning I headed in there to get it. I will not list the whole dialogue that went down, but I'll give you the long winded gist.

The office was busy with holiday shippers, but I waited my turn in line (Of course. It's the only polite thing to do). I explained to the gentleman at the window counter (a different gentleman than the one who had been happily working on Saturday) what had happened and how someone was "nice enough to find me on facebook and send me a message." Yes. I said this. He said he would go look for the box. "Look for the one covered in olive juice," I said, with a halfhearted smile.

He came out a door and placed a clear garbage bag on the floor at the end of the post office. It looked like this:

I told him that I understood that he was probably not the one who had caused this, but I was hoping he could explain some things for me. How did this happen?
A woman joined him at this point (power in numbers). She casually told me it's glass and things like this happen with glass sometimes. The packaging wasn't very good she also explained. I explained how carefully I had packaged it all.
"What is this" I asked about my other package I had shipped the same day that appeared to be in good condition.
"That's not yours?" he asked. I told him it was and he explained that that customs paperwork on the top was soiled with olive juice and needed to be rewritten and replaced and that "probably some other people's packages that were in the same bag got the juice all over it too." LIKE THAT WAS COMPLETELY MY FAULT?!

Anyway, staring at my bag of trash (aka 50 euro of olive juice soaked food and gifts)I asked how this had happened. They told me how the box didn't even make it to the truck. When it got dropped in their bag it cracked and started leaking.
"Dropped?" I asked. "It was marked fragile." Anyway, I was told how everything gets 'dropped' into the bags and that 'fragile' is just a marking. It doesn't tell them what's in it and it doesn't mean that they aren't going to just start throwing the box around once it gets routed through Madrid. "But the box didn't GET to Madrid, it happened here." Right, well, they weren't in the wrong. Not at all. I basically got them to admit that they don't even treat Fragile marked boxes differently (both get 'dropped,' their words, not mine) because there are so many boxes they might miss the stamps anyway. I asked them how things like wine get shipped without breaking.
"We don't ship wine."
"Okay, I know, but I'm just saying how do people ship bottles everyday without breakage like this." (Ps, at this point I had lifted the bag and upon setting it back down could hear the SHATTERED glass. NOT a crack.)
"Well, they must just package it really good with bubble wrap and stuff." Well, FYI for those of you who don't know... THEY DON'T. They separate the bottles with a thin layer of cardboard, mark the box as fragile wine and call it a day!!!

At this point I just gave up on a explanation of an accident (which would have made me feel better than them trying to put all blame on a poor packaging job) and I even gave up on an apology, because it wasn't happening.
"So do I get any reimbursment?" No, because I didn't insure it.
"But you don't have to pay to ship it again," they said. "You just can peel off the old [olive juice soaked] shipping labels and use those and just put tape over them." Fantastic.

So not knowing whether I would even be attempting to reship any of the trash bag that was left of my gift box, I started to leave figuring my 20 bucks of shipping was out the window too. But I turned with one more question:
"So how do you suggest I package glass in the future."
"Package it really good. Try bubble wrap next time."
"And make sure it passes the drop test, right?... Maybe from a first story building?" Okay...I know it was a little snarky, but I was so upset they were not even offering an apology or telling the truth that either a) it was an accident or b) they had a moment of crazy Christmas carelessness. Anyyway on this note I think he offered one last "Well, that's exaggerating a bit but yeah..." and I didn't really wait for the rest of his answer. I just grabbed my bag of oliveness and left.

So why the frustration? This is the important part you need to understand. It's not the 10 euro jar of olives that got smashed. Not the waste of time spent carefully packaging. Not the fact that xmas is going to come a little late at the 'rents (or not at all). Not even the stinky mess I had to sort through when I got home. Here's the frustation. If the office had JUST explained that it had been an accident or if they had just APOLOGIZED ... there would be none of this complaining. Not even the type of apology that accepts blame; that says "It's my fault." I wasn't expecting that kind of apology because I fully believe that maybe I could have improved upon my packaging a tad. If it was an accident and it got dropped a bit harder than usual it wasn't just all on them. I COULD have packaged a bit better knowing that something like that could have happened. This is the case if it was an accident and not if it was carelessly "dropped" to the bottom of a bag on the floor despite fragile labels. The apology I wanted was an apology that said: We're sorry about this. We're sorry about the incovenience. We're sorry this happened to you. The interesting thing is, if they had said that, I TOO would have said, "Yeah, me too, Sorry. I'll try to pack better next time."

When was the last time you said you were sorry? Do you have a hard time apologizing because that would mean you're accepting all the blame?

There are two phrases in the English language that are infinitely important and seem to be used less and less in todays customer service interactions. Let's be honest, they aren't used enough in LIFE in general. "I'm sorry" and "Thank you." They're short and sweet, but they pack a powerful punch and EVERYONE needs to hear them on occasion. If you don't use them in your everyday interactions... work on it. Don't forget them just because everyone else in America seems to have.