Dear Editor,
I don’t have much to say to Peter Fraser concerning his response to my letter in the press about the hours of service by GRA officers at the New Amsterdam Post office. (SN July 28, 2010)
The fact remains: Guyanese go through hell and back in shabby and poor quality of services at postal centres nationwide. The system needs a heavy revamp immediately. I stopped posting letters years; ago; I email them now. And I need not the services of the Guyana Post Office Corporation except for posting a few cards now and again.
My point still stands: how much processing of parcels can be done in one hour? Just turn up on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the New Amsterdam post office and see the huge crowd there awaiting parcels or awaiting the GRA officers! Yes, I remember on several occasions sitting there, wasting time, and awaiting the arrival of these people! At one time, there I was, waiting; 10:30 passed. I subsequently left, as I could not have put up with that, and my time is valuable. I do not know what time they arrived.
On another occasion I thought I witnessed them as if they drank ‘laughing pills’, laughing and gaffing with each other and with the post office staff, all of this going on, while the general public stood there waiting patiently. This happened quite some time ago. What a poor display on their behalf and the general public was there as my witnesses.
Yes, Mr Peter Fraser, maybe you ought to look into the tardy and immature behaviour of some of your staff, at least those who were stationed just over a year or so ago at that post office. I should have raised the matter then.
I don’t know what’s happening with business ethics and standards of behaviour in this place. The other day I was in a photo studio in New Amsterdam and heard the persons working there cursing each other. The other employees, understandably ashamed, pretended to ignore the whole episode—in front of the customers, as the place was filled.
This is what I am talking about. Minibus conductors are harassing passengers, and sometimes overcharging them. The minibus is the last thing I would travel on the road with these days. I rather walk. Why can’t the government do away with these speeding elements whose drivers gamble with people’s lives on the road on a daily basis?
It’s like going into commercial banks these days in Guyana. You must prepare to spend the entire day in the lines waiting to be seen by either of the one or two tellers on duty. Like people don’t have anything better to do with their days than to spend all morning or afternoon in some stupid line at the local commercial bank. But this is all a waste of time. The GRA would not increase that hour nor will they implement other days (than the two assigned) for sending and receiving parcels. In this country, we are stubborn to change with the times. This cannot happen in any other country.
People are on time for work in other countries; people take their work and service to the people seriously in other countries; people provide meaningful services at the people’s request and need in other countries; they give service with a smile in other countries. Don’t the people call the shots for the system, Mr Fraser, and not the system calling the shots for the people? That is just ridiculous!
But as my former Math lecturer at CPCE, the good Mr Hackett’s comments on the letter of Mr Fraser read, “That’s the kind of service we’re offered here, Leon. We just have to grin and bear it and suck it up … until change comes …” That’ll be the day, Mr Hackett, I just don’t share your optimism about change coming.
Yours faithfully,
Leon Jameson Suseran
