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Thursday 9 October 2014

Ongoing Service Frustrations

Earlier in the week, I wrote about some problems we have had with some local retailers and our frustrations carried over to this week.  As Fall settles in in the capital, we are accustomed to seeing our fair share of rain and this week hasn't disappointed.  So, imagine my frustration when every day we've seen rain this week, my newspaper has been soaking wet because the carrier doesn't see the need to close the lid on the mailbox.  Now, I'm sure carriers work hard for meagre pay but, all the same, I doubt anyone would mistake the job as being high-knowledge and high-skill.  If it looks like it may rain, close the damn lid.  In fact, close the damn lid regardless.  I called to complain and get a dry paper each time and the guy who manages delivery in our region told me the problem would be fixed, but this morning the lid was, as always, left open, though the rain had not started falling yet.  Gadzooks!

The other frustration this week has been Lena's school bus.  Pretty much since school started, the bus has been varying degrees of late.  Rarely were the kids getting to school before class started.  Two days in the past two weeks, the bus came 30-60 minutes late.  This is highly disruptive to the teachers who have to stop what they're doing as kids file in late to say nothing of the safety issues when parents are leaving their kids at a bus stop for what they think will only be a  few minutes only to have them stand there unattended for up to an hour.  Earlier this week the Catholic school board had a cross country running race for which Lena has been training since school started five weeks ago.  She takes these events very seriously.  This was the day the bus was nearly an hour late.  Fortunately, I got home from the gym early enough to get her to school in time to catch the bus to the event.  She would have been devastated if she had missed it (she finished 27th in a field of over 100 kids, by the way).  Numerous phone calls to the bus company over the past few weeks yielded little improvement.  Finally, after this last one hour wait, I e-mailed the school board, the school and the bus company to complain and I gather I wasn't the only one.  This seemed to do the trick.  The bus has been on time since.

Anyway, I feel better having got that off my chest.  Thanks for reading.

2 comments:

  1. Both of these are ridiculous, but especially the school bus! I remember there being a problem with bus schedules in Ottawa, but the school buses should ALWAYS be on time. There's no excuse to be running an hour late!

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    Replies
    1. The City buses still have schedule problems. In fact, during rush hours, in particular, they should just dispense with schedules altogether and a bus will come when it comes.

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