Aviz
Here’s a travel tip for you longer-term straini: don’t have packages sent to you in Romania.
Your first surprise will be to learn that the Romanian Post Office does not deliver packages to you. Spoiled western, how dare you expect service. How silly of you to think that merely because the package contains your address, it might therefore actually be intend to arrive at the inscribed location.
You will instead get a slice of dead tree with a hand-scrawled note, perhaps legible if you squint carefully with your head cocked to one side like a curious dog after a pepper spray attack, which announces that a package has been received.
Just not received by you.
It’s not because they postal carrier stopped by your house to deliver the package and found you not at home, as you might believe. It’s simply that Poşta Romana could not be bothered to try in the first place.
The notification will indicate the date you are allowed to retrieve the package. In that past, showing up one a different day might result in you being unable to obtain your package.
Never mind that you might be away from your apartment because you went to the seaside. Never mind that perhaps you have business obligations scheduled for the particular day assigned to you.
Feeling sick? A tad forgetful? Twisted your ankle? Detained by police for questioning after a particularly colorful evening out on the town? No excuses. The notice clearly stated the date you were permitted to come to the post office.
Granted, the locals have begun a campaign to convince me that change has come to Romania and, perhaps, these days you’re given a 3 day grace period before the package is return to whence it came. One person claims a week, which is not entirely unreasonable, if true.
Mind you, showing up on the prescribed day (or shortly thereafter) during regular post office business hours is not advised. Rather, the paper alert slipped into your mailbox will let you know what hours of the day you will be allow entrance.
So, mark your calendars and set your alarm clocks.
In the recent past, the window of opportunity to collect packages was typically a scant handful of hours, but recent paradigm shifts in customer service have vastly expanded available service hours to almost a full eight.
This gives you plenty of time to sneak out of the office or ditch school in order to travel to the post office and find out if your package still available.
For those of you receive packages outside of Bucureşti, I recommend going as early as possible. In all the other Romanian cities wherein I’ve received packages from the outside world, you are often met by bitter employees working at a snail’s pace.
Typically, they’ll attempt to batter you with a confusing stream of paperwork and identification checks. Often, you must deal with one or more of their colleagues as the staff enjoy a good game of monkey-in-the-middle as much as the next bureaucrat.
Keep your patience, stranger. For what lies next is the fearsome Customs Officer who will glower at you with disdain, tear your carton asunder, and rifle through its contents hoping to damage whatever it can. When this ritual ends, they will point to one or more objects which require a dubious tax for which they issue no receipt whatsoever.
Congratulations, you’ve just bought the post office staff dinner.
Ah, but in the shiny happy sophisticated magnificently glorious beacon of ubermodernity, the capital metropolis of Bucureşti, you will more than likely will not have to subject yourself to unnecessary customs harassment.
However, don’t expect to go to the post office just down the block from where you live. That would be entirely too easy. Too convenient. Too logical.
No, no.
Check your package notification for the welcome news that you will be required to fight your way across town to some distant post office located somewhere you’ve never been before, so you can enjoy the adventure of becoming lost in the city.
But the best news of all is the pick-up depot has been carefully chosen to exist in a strategic location. A neighborhood famously awaiting your presence with open arms, straine.
Unde? Pantelimon. Drum bun!
January 30th, 2009 at 12:02 am
Which is exactly why I never have anything delivered to me by post (international, or otherwise). That’s right, I’m paying the courier tax, and my deliveries (if any) arrive by FedEx, UPS, or absolutely anything else, other than Posta Romana.
But, of course, my taxes still fund them. Isn’t this a great country to live in?
January 30th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Oh, forgot to mention, I almost bought something from Amazon recently — it probably arrived by mail, there may or may not have been an aviz — all I know is, a couple of weeks later, I got the news from Amazon that my shipment had been returned, and got a refund.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:33 am
Every time I can reasonably specify FedEx or UPS, I do so. From the US, their prices are a bit on the outrageous side for anything heavier than a birdfeather. Whereas the US post office charges quite reasonable rates. Things arrive in RO within 1 week… but you get notified after 2-3 weeks, if you’re in Bucuresti.
4-6 weeks if you’re elsewhere in the hinterlands where Posta Romana apparently delivers by ass. Someone should bonk the executive offers on the skull and tell them about teh intarwebz can improve business.
Interesting about Amazon. If those boys ever make a play for the RO market, I’d bet a nickel it would force a change. On the other hand, that could be exactly one of the reasons why Amazon *doesn’t* care about Romania.
January 30th, 2009 at 11:07 am
You get 8 WHOLE hours?! *sigh* Drobeta Turnu Severin – Tues & Thurs, 10:30 – 11:30. Gata. Though I do have to say, thank goodness I’ve never had to pay over 3 lei. Small miracles.
January 30th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
HJ & JW – Welcome to the show! Say, I’m impressed, you get the old school treatment of a 1 hour window and only two days a week. DTS sounds like a fine city, a fine city indeed. You’ll have to keep us apprised of the cultural disconnects lurking about.
Reminds me of my first couple months of living in Romania, when I was in cartierul Poarta Schei la Brasov and received my first package. Well, received my first package notification. It was like being dunked in a vat of ice water. And took more than one attempt to try and actually collect my package. From there, things went down hill as the staff eventually came to recognize me and dislike my insurgent presence in their fiefdom.
January 31st, 2009 at 12:56 am
Rarely I have to deal with Posta Romana but last summer i had to recive some money thrugh Western Union…So high spirited I arrived at Oficiul 6? from Brasov to get my little amount of cascaval.thinking that wouldn’t take more than 5 minutes. wrong assumption from my part. As the mult prea rujata lady behind the counter started to fill her computer form sho got stuck at step 2..uff:(..no problem she said..i’ll ask my collegue..start again step1..ok..step 2..couldnt pass it again…the software is in english they explained frankely… Wait they both said..we’ll call support ..15 minutes and 2 calls later we were still stuck at that awful step 2..what can a man do at this stage but help the 2 ladies in distress.. so i offered to translate the field names they were supposed to fill…Evrika ! 40 min passed and we finally beat that english monster of computer form
Gratefully they handed me the long waited marafeti and i was ready to leavewhen they asked me … ‘We have like a target at money handled from WU !?Come again’. Gladly was my response especially that I knew that form by heart at that point…and I like recieveing money;)
Conclusions:
1. Next day I asked my friend In London to send me more mony cause the ladies at the Posta had to reach their target ;)
2. Posta Romana: If we are incapable in dealing with customers at least let’s do it in teamwork.
January 31st, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Mihai – You’ve found a new excuse for directing your London connections to wire additional funds! That is a silver lining to the dark cloud. It is rather pathetic that Western Union operator software is in English, when it should be localized in Romaneste. On the other hand, I can suggest you switch to MoneyGram as the fees are lower.
So, in the meantime, how much will invoice Posta Romana for your consulting and training services?
January 31st, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Sorry to disappoint you guys…while living in the south of Romania, you’re description fit perfectly…to a tee. But here in Cluj, we do things a little differently. First of all 8-2 Monday thru Thursday…Friday 8-12. Come pick up your package at your convenience…and they hold it for 30 days before sending it back. Wait. It gets better. The lady (wonderful lady) calls us (we gave her our cell phone). She calls us when she sees the list for tomorrows deliveries has a package with our address on it. So, they never send out the little paper (which would take a week to get to us if they did). We get the call…and the next morning waltz into the VAMA and pick up the package which is waiting for us….only once have we ever had to pay a fee; usually 1 or 2 lei at the most.
February 1st, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Oh, sure, here come the reports from Koloszvar, where everything is modern and perfect. Nyah, nyah, nyah! Heh. Well, okay, so we’re a little jealous you seem to be getting all this extra attention. I’m surprised you get advanced phone call warnings!! That is indeed spaga-worthy service. Surely you’ve done something to earn this treatment… she couldn’t possibly call everyone in town, so you’re doing something to attract her help. Tell us the secret!
February 1st, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Hi Romerican! I’m a Finnish girl living in Targu Mures. It’s my first comment even though your blog has helped me quite a bit especially before but also after moving to Romania. It’s just great to read experiences of other foreigner in this strange country.. So first of all thank you, multumesc and köszönöm!
Now you got to the topic which has given me reason to lose my nerves couple of times during this last 2 months. So far I’ve received 2 packages from Finland and I still have no idea how the process really works. At least it’s a far from what I’ve used to.. Both times I got the notification, actually for the first package also after I had already managed to pick it up from the post. What’s confusing me most is the fact that different types of packages have to be picked up from different counters and always I’m trying the wrong one first. And for sure nobody is speaking English in the whole office. And the amount of paperwork, checking God-knows-what in numerous notebooks and reading my passport more careful than any customs officer has ever done.. Well so far I have managed to get the packages in the end, so I must have done something right, I guess.
If you don’t mind, I will link this to my blog (unfortunately in Finnish only) as Posta Romana is one of my favorite topics so far and you just know how to describe it right.
February 2nd, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Jaana – Tervetuloa! Welcome to the show! Let’s hope the great statue in Targu Mures is still embiggened, then, shall we? Quite. I’m glad you managed to find a useful scrap of info here and there hiding in and amongst the filler. I am very glad to have your corroboration that receiving packages in Romania is a bloody nightmare of epic proportions throughout most of the country, because Posta Romana refuses to modernize its policies to reflect modern concepts like personal liberty and privacy or amazing new concepts such as customer service in light of increased competition within the package delivery space, their performance within which will determine whether the institution even survives beyond 20 years into the future.
Oh, yes! And the paperwork. You’re absolutely correct. The endless glancing and murmuring, the constant shuffling and flipping of papers, the persistent flowing of ink from the pen which denotes all manner of things. Have you seen the rubber gloves lately? It may only be in Bucuresti, for all I know, but now the robotic package handling staff wear rubber gloves ….in case of… I don’t know… anthrax in Pantelimon? It reminds me of a scene from THX 1138.
July 9th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Oh, should I mention that packages can be picked up in Bucharest?? Heck, it could be worth it if you make frequent visits…