Believe in yourself

Sigh, another American feel-good statement. I would kind of love a “have a good whinge about somebody who has really pissed you off” title so I could rant about Australia Post. And boy, I could rant for hours on that one.

You know (and some people would never believe this of me) but when I moved to Australia I would never ever have complained about receiving bad service. It’s not that I thought that I deserved to be treated like pond scum by people who stand behind a plastic counter in a Post Shop, but that my cultural reference was to not complain. I have never sent food back to a restaurant kitchen; inherently I will not eat it and just quietly pay for it and leave. Oh, I would never go back and I would be happy to tell my friends and acquaintances that the food was shite but I would never actually tell the restaurant themselves. Somehow I thought it was rude to do so.

Australia has been an eye awakening experience I must say. Not that the average Aussie is a whinger – but they are simply not afraid at pointing out injustices and when something is wrong. I remember my first real experience was in the mall at Castle Hill. I was shopping with my MIL for a dress to wear to Kelvin’s brothers wedding. Brianna was a baby and there was one pathetic lift working. We were standing there for some time and a couple of other people arrived after us.

When the lift came I had to maneuver the pram to get into the doors and before I could do so this couple walked in ahead of us and took the space. An Aussie woman went right off her nut at them – telling them in no uncertain terms that we had been waiting longer than all of them and they could jolly well just get out of the lift and let us in first. The first couple were shamed into leaving the lift and I was shocked and eternally grateful for the actions of this complete stranger. See, I would never had said anything. I would have waited to the lift had gone and told my MIL that I was annoyed etc, but would never have had the gumption to challenge the idiots who took my space in the first place.

Kelvin learned the lesson faster than me too – I remember him coming home from Big W a number of years ago where he had been queuing for some time in the ‘express -less than 5 items aisle’. A guy from the back of the queue quite loudly demanded to go to the front of the queue because he had only two items to buy. K turned around and held up the packet of Huggies and baby wipes he was carrying and said “Well I only have two items to buy as well. And all the people in this line have less than five items. You can wait your turn.” It’s funny how proud we were of him saying this!

Now I work to overcome my natural inclination to avoid conflict and make a point of getting angry. If I have rung Australia Post and they tell me that I can transfer my PO BOX to another branch and it will only cost me $20 if I get a letter of authority etc etc and then I go to my branch, queue for 25 minutes only to be told that ‘Oh no, you cant do that at all – you need to cancel your box here, pay a cancellation fee and then physically go to the new store and open an account. Oh and they don’t have any post office boxes there anyway’ I am incandescent with rage. That was me. Incandescent with white hot rage. And don’t even ask me to tell you how I reacted when the smiggle pen and pencil they had on ‘special’ wouldn’t scan properly and I had to point out that the special was $2 cheaper than what the POS machine was saying. Just don’t ask.

You know, in a funny way I have covered the ‘Believe in yourself’ thing haven’t I? By learning to stand up to bad behaviour, to feel empowered to challenge injustice and just plain bad customer service I have accepted once and for all that my opinion and experience as a customer / recipient counts for something and that I deserve to be heard.

How funny is that?