Grinch steals Tyler Reguly's Christmas

SooToday.com received the following note tonight from Tyler Reguly, a former Saultite now living in Toronto.

************************* I believe that Dr. Seuss may have been mistaken when he penned the words: "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch."

I believe he may have meant: "You're a mean one, Canada Post."

At a time when the Internet, telephone and postal service should be helping to bridge the distance between families that are apart, Canada Post has chosen a the apathetic path.

This story will share how Canada Post single-handedly put a damper on one family's Christmas celebration.

This Christmas was to be the first time that four generations of my family celebrated together.

But due to work schedules and hectic lives, being physically together was not a possibility.

To combat this, as we did last year, my family opens their stockings together at midnight on Christmas Eve while everyone is on the telephone.

While there are four generations of my family living, my grandmother will not remember this Christmas, nor will she be overly lucid. You see, this year our family matriarch quickly descended down the slippery slope that is Alzheimer's.

However there is reason to celebrate this holiday:

- It is my nephew's first Christmas, which is sadly happening after his first surgery.

- My 17-year old sister had her gall bladder removed.

- My mother beat cancer.

- While we've had a number of lows, we're all still here, so there's reason to celebrate.

Another thing to know about my family, like a lot of families this year, is that there's not a lot of extra cash to go into Christmas.

Everyone tightens their belts and we make it work so that everyone has something to open.

My mother, bless her heart, struggles to put together stockings for everyone, so that we can maintain our Christmas Eve tradition and have a sense of togetherness across the distance.

To ensure this would go off without a hitch, she shipped parcels XpressPost on December 15, 10 days before Christmas. ht Given the two-day delivery guarantee that Canada Post offers, that's plenty of time to make it to their destination for Christmas Eve.

Or so we thought.

Here we are, Christmas Eve and I have still not received my parcel.

It was shipped from its destination on the 15th and arrived at the local postal facility on the 16th.

However for eight days it has been looping in their system.

Now you may say that it's probably impossible to find a lost parcel around the holidays, but my parcel is not lost.

In fact, it has been scanned six times in the eight days that it's been at the facility.

Seventy-two hours ago we opened a case with Canada Post through a nice but apathetic agent who said they'd contact us within 48 hours.

When that didn't happen we called again and this time were told that a case was open, there was nothing we could do but wait.

Today, the last day to possibly have my item delivered, I called again and again I did not receive an adequate answer.

I was told it was being repeatedly scanned but that no one could do anything about it.

I've been complaining about this on Twitter and Facebook and I've learned that I'm not alone.

Our postal service is, for lack of a better word, useless and many others are having problems as well.

If Canada Post had said, we require 15 days to ensure package delivery for Christmas, not a problem - we would have taken that route.

But they didn't.

They said two days.

And yet somehow nine days are still not enough.

If Amazon.ca can ship me an item from Mississauga to Toronto overnight (ordered Sunday night, delivered Monday afternoon), why can't Canada Post ship the same distance with an extra eight days?

As one final last-ditch effort, my mother attempted to contact Canada Post again.

She was informed that there was nothing they could do and that it was happening to "many people."

Something like this should not happen to "many people" when your sole job is to deliver mail.

Perhaps it's time that Canada looked into privatizing national postal operations.

Having a monopoly has been clearly made Canada Post lazy.

So back to my original claim, that Canada Post is the real Grinch.

Canada Post has taken the one tradition from my family that brings us together over the holidays, just like the Grinch stealing Christmas from the people of Whoville.

So thank you Canada Post, thank you for your apathy, your lack of motivation to provide customer satisfaction and the laissez-faire attitude with which your employees tackle their jobs.

At least Canada Post has given my family a new tradition.

Next year we'll ship with UPS.

Thank you, Tyler Reguly

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