The ineffectiveness of the UAE postal service continues to astonish me. There are no doorstep deliveries; all the staff at the sorting office have to do is put postage items into the correct numbered PO Box at the Post Office to await collection.
Today, at last, the company driver was given more than the usual amount. Instead of the usual half a sack, he returned from Sharjah Central Post office with three bulging sacks of mail. I have finally received a Christmas card from my mother. It was posted on 7th December. I also received the December issue of a professional magazine, which should by rights have landed on my desk in late November. But my missing mobile phone, mailed from UK on 9th January has yet to arrive. It may be in one of the sacks, or possibly in someone's pocket. The 'Track & Trace' website says the package left the UK, bound for the UAE some time ago.
What has the Sharjah sorting office been doing with the mail for the past six weeks? Not sorting it, that's for sure. Have they been short staffed? Or on industrial inaction? Or just too damned idle?
6 months ago
9 comments:
It ain't called 'snail mail' for nothing mate - especailly in Sharjah - and things could be worse, you could be waiting for post from the RAK Post Office! (unless things have changed since I lived there)
For some reason it works in reverse here in Spain: inbound mail arrives in 2-3 days normally, but outbound takes at least 10 days.
Great if you're ordering from ebay, but not so good for sending out the Christmas mail.
It is scandalous! In my long-drawn-out efforts to reclaim the deposit on my apartment in Dubai, I had to sign and return 3 documents. The documents were sent to me by email. I printed them out, signed them, scanned them and sent the scans to the landlord. Not good enough: originals needed. Obviously they scrape the Biro ink off the pages to add to their collection. The likes of DHL wanted about 60 Euros to deliver this baby, and that struck me as somewhat ex-bloody-essive. So I bunged the 'originals' in the post. On November 28th. 2007. In the post-Christmas period of fasting (brought on by having spent all the money on booze and presents and little suckling peegs), this dosh would have come in very handy, and so last week I began calling the 'concerned person' at Nakheel. I spoke to her voicemail once or twice, but never herself. It seems she never answers her phone and doesn't know how to work the voicemail. But she did respond to a sarcastically polite email, and said she had received the documents a week ago. That means it took eight weeks for a 3-page letter to arrive at its destination. And I can assure you that the Spanish snail-mail operation is up there with the best of them. That letter will have been in the hands of Emirates (we-can't-be-arsed-to) Post within five day of it being sent from Madrid. So what the fuck were E(w-c-b-a-t)P doing with it for seven weeks?
Fooking incompetent twats is a phrase that springs to mind.
Lucky any of it shows up at all. My first year here I had subscriptions to two different magazines. Know how many issues I got? Out of the 18 I should have gotten, I got precisely one. (And they weren't haram -- a cooking mag and a puzzle mag!! Harmless!)
I now do everything through Aramex's Shop and Ship in the US --no E(w-c-b-a-t)P for me anymore! Sure Aramex isn't great either, but not as wretched as the alternative!
I suspect that it is a deliberate policy of E(w-c-b-a-t)P. They note all those 'festive' greetings cards and packages and delay them, knowing full well how important a delivery before 25th December is.
There was a minor scandal in Qatar a few years back when someone discovered partially burned unopened mail in the desert. It would appear that the Qatar Department of Posts [sic] were too embarrassed to deliver stuff that they'd been sitting on for six months or more.
I suspect that E(w-c-b-a)P have the same principles as Itisatwat - if there's a problem, you - as the customer - will be the last person to learn of it. Last night, when this 'ere t'internet was running on fart fumes, no one would answer the help line phones. We learn from other sources that cables have been damaged, but good grief, don't tell the public!
If I call the missing phone there is incomprehensibe Arabic on the other end. I cannot tell if this is "this phone no longer exists"; "Who the deleted are you? I've owned this phone for three weeks since a man in the souk sold it me" or even "Please leave a message as our lines are busy right now." It's not in Goat anyway.
I suspect that the Viz character Postman Plod is now living happily and pursuing his normal line of showing up at the office in your neck of the woods.
Im ma ha' ta phone muta hariq... means 'The phone that you have called has been switched off or is out of area', or something.
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