May 17, Admin Part 2
Whilst I was teaching the sixth graders directions by allowing them to be my GPS in an obstacle course, unbeknownst to me a crisis was unfolding.
On Friday I filed a complaint on the post office website. “The tracking for my car title says it was delivered to the post office, but when I visited the post office they staff told me it had in fact been delivered. However, my school doesn’t have it either. Where could my package be?”
What I didn’t know, and what would soon trigger a series of events, is that the complaints filed on the post office website go to the government agency. And unlike the US where I imagine my complaint is submitted to an every-emptying PC recycle bin, these complaints come down like a hammer on their subordinates.
So, while groups of twelve-year-olds were screaming at me to go straight or turn left, the following occurred:
The local post office, having now felt the effects of my submitted query, called my school in a panic. When I say call my school, I mean that all the people who I would hoped never to be involved in a mail scandal were dragged in. The office staff. The teacher’s staff. The vice principal.
The two now increasingly panicked bodies, the post office and a poor admin, searched worriedly for the answer until finally it was found: the admin office had indeed received it, but unlike large boxes, my mail had been delivered to the teacher’s room where it was promptly forgotten by the admin who had put it there. So when Helen asked the admin office if it had received my mail, no one had remembered getting it.
When I came back from class, I saw a brown envelope sitting on my keyboard as if to say, “here I am! You can’t say I’m lost now!” I also had a missed call from the post office and a text in Korean that said the teacher’s room had my mail.
I know this because Helen was asked to relay all of it to me.
On one hand, I feel embarrassed that this blew up so spectacularly and that some poor soul is bearing the brunt of the miscommunication. Have I perhaps muddied the waters with my school? I hope my track record keeps me in good graces.
On the other hand, I also feel viciously joyful. That’ll teach the post office to be more helpful to confused foreigners in the future!
If no one will help me, I’ll help myself!