Post office inanity remains strong

I’d like to alert Guardian readers to an inane Canada Post rule, lest they fall victim to it as we did.

Earlier this summer, we took a three-week trip to Poland. Naturally, I had the post office put a hold on our mail.

On July 15, at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in Warsaw, I bought two copies of the Museum’s Catalogue; I paid a hefty fee to have the catalogues sent by expedited mail to our home address in Charlottetown, because I planned to give one to my sister when I visit Toronto shortly.

Consequently, the books arrived while we were still in Poland. Now, considering that we had put a hold on our mail, we naturally assumed that even packages would be held until we returned. But as we were informed when we returned, packages are held only 15 days before being returned. So the books were sent back to Poland. Indeed, the clerk was unable to even tell me who the package was from and to whom it had been returned — I had to figure that out myself.

I have now had to contact the Museum and request that the returned books be shipped again to our Canadian address. Who knows how long it will take for the books to arrive back in Poland? And of course, we will be required again to pay for the books to be mailed to us a second time.

We are left to wonder at the logic that excludes packages from all the other mail that was being held for us.

Henry Srebrnik, Charlottetown