Post office wrestling with volume
(CNS): The Cayman Islands Postal Service said that it is taking longer than normal for it to process parcels and merchandise arriving from the US and the UK as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. Because of mail transportation limits, sanitation requirements and the large volume of packages arriving at the same time, the service is wrestling to keep up. Customers are urged to help the processing by providing invoices and making sure that packages are properly addressed.
CIPS officials are asking people expecting packages to check the tracking on their items on either the website of the vendor or the Cayman Islands Postal Service website for updates on their items’ status.
Customers are advised not to go to the post office unless the tracking indicates “Item held at delivery depot” or “Item arrival at collection point for pick-up”.
Tracking information online provides the same information available to postal staff.
Meanwhile invoices can be emailed to parcelpost@gov.ky.
The postmaster general and CIPS staff apologised in a release for the inconvenience caused by the delays, which were described as “beyond their control”, and thanked customers for their continuing patience during these exceptional times.
Category: Local News
I might have some sympathy if the postal workers were not fat, unhelpful and lazy (with one odd, young guy at GT the exception). Would their attitude change if they got $500/month more ? I doubt it.
It’s all good and well for us to join the bandwagon, complain about and criticize the postal service and the staff, but how many of us have taken a moment to place ourselves in the shoes of a Cayman Postal Officer?
Let’s begin with the salaries shall we… I have read comments about cushy government jobs and lazy staff, how many of you are forced to work your fingers to the bone for $2000 pm??? How many of you have school leavers who could live on that salary even though they have no Bills and still live with mom an dad??? How many of you with families, mortgages, elderly parents etc etc etc could live on that salary in Cayman?? Take your time, I’ll wait……..
Oh yes I hear all of you there in the back…”well nobody told them go work for post office” “so just do the job”….. if you only knew how much postal officers give of themselves on a daily basis to go above and beyond when it comes to “doing their jobs!
Lazy you say??? Do any of you have any clue what a Postal officer has to go through with our “First World Caymanian Customers”??? People who are smart enough to spend their entire pension cheques on Fashion Nova clothing but aren’t intelligent enough to provide the tracking number given when ordering….. I guess the postal officer should miraculously have that information handy for their arrival huh?
How about when someone orders something from some shady website they see on social media, then go to the postal facility expecting them to refund money spent on a fraudulent website, I guess that’s the postal staff’s fault too?
How is it that the Postal Facility is the Absolute Least Paid in the Entire Civil Service but are expected to produce the highest of results??? Do they have the tools to do their jobs? Do they have the manpower to do their jobs? Do they have management that cares enough about you the customer or their staff to make sure the issues within the post office are resolved?
Hire more staff you say……will government increase their budget to do so?????
The same government that told the postal staff they were aware 6 years ago that at that point the postal service salary was 10 years behind the national cost of living.
The same government that told the postal service 6 years ago that they were aware they had not recieved a salary adjustment in almost 20 years!!!!!!!!
That same government??? I think not.
So please, before you go around criticising, demeaning, and attacking the postal staff, put yourselves in their positions and see for a moment if you could walk a day in their shoes.
If you aren’t happy with the service you receive I suggest you use that same energy you all obviously have to scream and moan and direct it at your leaders! The very ones you elected, aim it at them and demand better salaries for your postal officers, demand adequate working conditions for the postal staff, demand that the money is spent on proper equipment and training, how about all you keyboard warriors do something about the problem rather than simply complain? If you aren’t a part of the solution you must be a part of the problem!
Cayman Kind you say……how about a little Cayman Compassion, Cayman Understanding or maybe even some Cayman Unity so we can work together as a People to make the service better for all of us!
5:14 pm. If one takes a job for a certain wage. Then they should do a good job, not moan hollar like you, why they not doing a good job because of the wages, don’t take a job for a certain job then complain about the wages, and be late, call in many days of the week sick. Leave the job for someone else that is willing and able with good work ethics that be glad to get the job. Wages never makes makes good work ethics, also lazy
people should not get promoted
Why it takes 11 days for letters from Grand to get to the Brac, I tell you, because of lazy, calling in sick and no care workers
Wow!!!
I hear the next staff social for Post Office staff is being held at the brewery. I doubt it will be very well organised……
What a surprise. Every government department and their staff are slow, lazy and never respond. cayman is a joke in terms of government departments – third world quality. I applied for a work permit police clearance recently – they said takes 5 days. 3 months later not received and they never responded to on email or answer the phone. Despicable.
🤯🤬
Are there rules and regulations…postal Laws, governing Cayman Postal Service?
The workflow/process or operations at the mail facilities has been a disaster for at least 20+ years. When they implemented the “KY1XXX”…I thought that was a step forward.
Its time to be more streamlined. Focus on some descent customer service to start. Get off the treadmill…ya nah going nowhere with that approach.
We need to bring in FEDEX and DHL to sort this mess out.
The private sector always does things better😂
DHL is a disaster right now!!!!
So right!
No the private sector does not always do things better. Just look at the mess British Rail is in since privatisation. That said, its a joke for the post office to quote volume as a reason for delayed post. With perhaps one exception the post office is full of lazy free loaders.
Still no service from Canada either. Ask a question as to the progress with re-starting service from Canada and I get an abrupt unhelpful “it’s for Canada to figure out”! Asked why we can’t ask Canada Post to deliver to Cayman Airways in Miami for the time being…same unhelpful answer again.
You Canadians are as bad as vegans and CrossFitters
I thought vegans and crossfitters were Canadians.
No mail to or from Canada since early March? This is so Third World…if they cannot figure it out maybe Nikole Poirer can help them out she seems to have flight direct to Canada every month!
People are saying to hire more people but that is solely not the root of the problem. Like someone mentioned, the staff there are lazy and have poor customer service. You asked them to do something there is an attitude or they simply just don’t want to do it
The whole reason Trump lost, his ballots from Cayman didn’t make it in time.
AHAHHAHAHAHAH
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
It’s no surprise that that they are overwhelmed given the current international transportation issues. The article did not mention if the Postal Service had a solution. Perhaps hiring a number unemployed tourism sector employees to ease the flow would help put somm money in the bank for some for the holidays and reduce the backlog for the CPS.
What? They are getting less volume because of the restrictions on mail arriving, so they are overwhelmed? How will hiring more people help that?
Perhaps if those that are there get off their ass and actually do some work it would be better. They all want a job and the pay but not the work.
The problems may be simply due to the universal ambition in C.I. to emulate the U.S.A., which has the worst postal service in the world.
Well, that’s because the drumpf put his crony into the head spot to fork with mail in ballots. It’s about to be fixed come January 20th.
Postal Service in the USA only started going downhill when Trump started cutting back staff and machinery 3 years ago. Another great gift from Trump.
“Postal Service” in the U.S. has been an oxymoron for more than 15 years. The smaller MPOs function well for the most part, but the BMOs (bulk mail centres) function poorly, relying entirely upon mechanisation to get anything done.
Does Cayman have a ‘dead letter office’? There are thousands in the U.S. They will also not track or be responsible for international packages and mail that are lost, even those which are insured.
Most of this vast inefficiency well predates the Trump administration.
Obviously you know nothing about the US Postal Service.
They finally went back to work?!
They never stopped.
You just didn’t notice.
Useless as always…
Hire people! Even temporarily to provide a little boost to some for Christmas.
They have the people but they all need to come into work all day and don’t take anymore sick days this year.
Past time for an international postal conference methinks.
Always an excuse for being inadequate. I recently called the CBC to ask a simple question and almost got my head chewed off. Not only was she unhelpful, she was rude and sounded like I was disturbing her nap. With all the dept numbers at her fingertips she was unable to point me in the right direction. Do they carry out customer service training for civil servants. I cringe to think travellers to our islands are subjected to this kind of treatment and third world behavior.
No, it’s a local problem. They really can’t be bothered to go above an beyond cause they got a cushy gov job.
Customer service is not a part of our Caymanian culture. We are a unique people who love our 🐢 stew.
CBC is NOT the Postal Servics!
I went into a branch of the post office today and I was the only customer in there at the time but they had three staff sitting behind the counter waiting to serve people. Perhaps a better allocation of staff might help?
Nothing new here? I can remember back in the pre-internet days PADI mailed a whole load of time sensitive material to us and it arrived two months after its effective use by date.
Jesus H Christ…. hire a bunch of taxi drivers to shift the backlog… let them earn their money for once!
they can’t be trusted…
Are they still working from home?
I sent a simple letter from the US to Cayman in early October and as of yesterday, it still had not arrived. Ridiculous!!
I just mailed all Christmas cards. Hopefully, they can process cards in 1 1/2 time.
US to Cayman? A bank in Cayman sent my office a letter that was stamped by West Shore Post office on the 13th October – and we received it on the 28th October. Why? What’s the problem? 15 days? Come on…
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In other words now that it has finally resumed service it can no longer keep up with the work. Typical civil service. It used to be just unreliable, now it is dysfunctional. Just another thing that went back to third world status on island.
It may be beyond the control of the postal service. It is not beyond the control of the civil service and government.
Blame the top
I do, for the simple reason that is where the blame, and the responsibility, lies.
2.04pm Exactly- they can employ additional workers from the pool of the Covid unemployed, or is it too much work to sign them up?.
They can’t keep up because of COVID, they can’t keep up because of the volume, they can’t keep up because they need a new computer system, they can’t keep up because they have a new computer system, they can’t keep up because it’s Christmas blah blah blah blah. Can’t we just admit that they are utterly inept and have no desire or incentive to provide a real postal service?
I recently sent an express letter to the UK. It took 4 people behind the counter and an hour, to figure out how to do this!
Why are the post offices still closed on saturdays?
Too many of the staff always on sick leave and coming to work late. then got to go eat . Lazy bunch of people. On the Brac one person only comes to home a few days a month, that been going on for years and nothing done about it.
Wrestling with competence you mean.
the usual incompetence of the civil service.
as i said before….an audit needs to be done on the productivity/performance of the civil service during lockdown…
Maybe hire all those out if work people to help. This is ridiculous.
They need to stop being snowflake people and start work longer hours! I work longer hours due we are busy dealing problems with a/c’s.
Do you know how long they work? Are you there at 4 and 5am??? Working til 7 and 8pm?? Ignorance is bliss tom.
Can’t the Cayman Islands Regiment help? They were so useful in the latest storm cleanup.
they are boot lickers…not stamp lickers
They’ll be busy at the new helicopter base on the Brac.
Carrying Ozzies luggage
#worldclass