Russia’s postal service, a notoriously underperforming organization, is under fire again after a video was published on YouTube allegedly showing one of its employees unloading a railroad car full of parcels in a most uncaring manner.
The footage shows a man tossing out assorted cardboard boxes into
a large heap on a railroad platform. Most of them seem unmarked,
but some are wrapped in the distinctive blue-and-white packaging
of the Russian postal service. The man appears to care little
that he may be damaging the contents of the parcels.
The uploader of the video said it was recorded in Novosibirsk,
Russia’s third-largest city located in southwestern Siberia.
The postal service promised to conduct an investigation into the incident and discipline those responsible. However, it also urged Russians not to jump to conclusions over what may be the fault of an outside shipping company.
Russians have a generally poor opinion of the country’s postal service, with many complaining of bad service, poor delivery times, failure to protect packages from damage and theft, and how the service has branched out into areas not directly related to the transport of mail and parcels.
The largest recent scandal faced by the state-owned company was over its inability to process the large number of deliveries from abroad, many of which were goods ordered by Russians from foreign Web stores; the Russian government ultimately sacked the head of the service for his failure.
Another scandal recently emerged after a blaze struck a Russian
Post office in Moscow, with employees’ mistreatment of parcels in
the facility laid bare. Most of the packages were soaked by water
used during the firefighting operation, and the following
morning, heavy machinery was used to dispose of the parcels en
masse. The precise number of packages trashed is unknown, but
many went undelivered.
Disgruntled customers often vent their anger online, generating periodic tornadoes of sarcasm and bad publicity for the company. A popular meme among Russian Internet users is one branding the service as “Slowpost,” manned by snails or philosophically-minded workers who see no point in working efficiently in a large, lonely and disinterested universe.