Staff modelling at Post Office a mockery

Victor Mulangisi

It is true that to understand one’s pain better, you ought to have gone through the same disease.

After numerous complaints and invitations by various customers at the Kuruman Post Office to come and witness their various agonies they go through in getting swift service, my small parcel from overseas did the awakening, like the biblical Thomas, I proved by seeing the real wound. It took almost two hours to collect the parcel.

 While it is beyond no doubt that the post office is inundated with clients ranging from deposits, withdrawals, grants, pensions and other services the categorization of services is quite perfect. It is the execution of duty that leaves a lot to be desired, the sensitivity to attend customers is just but a mockery. There are more haphazard movements by the cashiers than customer attendance. 

 All the clients who had been attended to, come out without a single smile. An official from the Department of Home Affairs vented out that she had had an hour or so before she was attended to. The cashiers completely disappear for ten, fifteen and twenty minutes respectively doing what one could appropriately call strange modelling from one office to another. Customers are not irritated by the delay to be attended to, but by being completely isolated without a single cashier in sight for such long intervals.

 No matter how long queues are; clients are happy to see those in front of them being swiftly eliminated through expeditious service, they justify the delay with certainty that their turn is coming soon. Random movements within offices by cashiers leaving them unattended is sparking hullabaloos. Another customer’s turn comes and presents all the requirements for the cashier to go and retrieve the parcel. Two cashiers go for the single parcel and both fail to locate the parcel and come back to the client that they cannot see the parcel.

 For twenty minutes the parcel is in the wilderness only to come back and check the parcel dispatch sheets again, then finally the parcel is retrieved. Many a times staff shortage is the front-page reason why services are delayed however lack of customer care at this post office while modelling within offices is beyond anyone’s ken.