La Poste and I

The minute I see any combination of golden yellow and navy blue, I think of La Poste. Those are the colors of the French post office, where I seem to be spending more and more of my life. Those of you who picture me whiling away a rainy winter afternoon with friends in a cozy Parisian cafe or discussing Franco-American relations in a smoky brasserie? Uh-uh. Like as not (and like it or not), I'm probably either at the post office, or getting ready to go to the post office.

If neither of those options applies, I'm probably sticking close to home (-office) during the peak hours of postal delivery, in the hope that I won't miss the drop off of a package, a registered letter for Denis, or God forbid, an item sent by Chronoposte, the "express delivery" arm of La Poste. Trying to outguess the French postal service on their delivery times is next to impossible. While the regular mailman delivers registered letters (and he comes twice a day), packages are delivered by a separate department. Packages or documents sent Chronoposte, on the other hand, are delivered by ghosts, which manage to slip unseen into the building to leave an avis de passage (notice of passage), even when I am bodily present in my apartment.

It is commonly accepted by the French public that one's physical presence has little to do with whether or not an item requiring one's presence will in fact be delivered. On the yellow avis de passage slips, there are not one but several reasons which may be checked to indicate why your package could not be delivered. If none of the choices seems to apply, the agent will feel free to add one of his own, inscrutably encoded in private acronym.

Needless to say, you will then have to hunt your package down yourself. In the simplest scenario for me, this involves going to my postal office branch, bringing along the yellow slip and a piece of identification. If by chance the item has been addressed to my company, I must also bring along my documents of its organization. Already I'm weighed down and I haven't even picked up the package yet.

When picking up a missed delivery, I usually walk to la Poste because there is absolutely nowhere to park nearby, except in the bus stop zone which stretches the entire length of the building (the length of several buses). I take a shopping caddy with me as I have no indication on my yellow slip as to the origin of the item, so I have no way of judging what it might be or how heavy. I yank my empty caddy up the three steps of the post office, avoiding the eyes of the chomeur (unemployed person) who is allowed to station himself at the door, opening it for you in the hopes of getting a handout.

A wave of stifling heat blasts my face, and I immediately unwind the scarf from my neck. Three seasons of the year, the post office is heated to broiling temperatures. In summer it is not air conditioned.

I eye the queue, or line, gauging its length against the number of guichets, or windows, open and functioning, in order to estimate the probable length of my wait. Appropriately, there is a chair available for aged or ill persons who cannot remain standing this long.

One of the main reasons that the line in the post office advances so interminably slowly is that in France, the post office offers financial services similar to those of a bank. This means that in any given line, over half of the customers are likely there for a financial transaction of some sort. And given the enormous seriousness and discretion required for any financial transaction in France...well, you get the picture.

Add to this the fact that any public transaction here requires the exchange of pleasantries, and the attitude of the French that after they've waited through everyone else's interminable transaction, they're darned well going to take their time for their own turns, and--well, let's just say you never go to the post office if you have a pressing appointment in the near future.

If the wait looks as if it will be lengthy, I take off my coat, so that perspiration won't soak my inner garments while I wait, an eventuality that I know will add to my sense of panic at the amount of time I'm wasting. French people absolutely never remove their coats--not in the boiling hot post office, not in the oven-like department stores, not in stuffy, over-heated Métro cars. This is one of the things that makes me realize I'll never be French enough to be French.

On such a Monday last month right before the holidays, I was standing in line, clutching a letter from Chronoposte in my hand. Somehow I had missed the delivery of a wi-fi network setup and ADSL modem sent by France Telecom, who had notified me in a very well-organized and efficient manner that the package would be delivered between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. the previous Friday.

During those hours I had stayed in the house, not even daring to take a shower, play the radio, or talk too loudly on the phone for fear of not hearing the door buzzer. I was especially anxious to receive this delivery because it meant that we could switch from our fiber optic cable connection, which had been down an inexplicable almost 40% of the last 2 months, to a more reliable and even faster ADSL line. Of course, it didn't arrive, so I was in line at the post office with my Chronoposte letter, feeling just the tiniest bit more anxious than usual as I couldn't figure out why I had received this letter-like object instead of the usual yellow slip. I feared, well, some sort of irregularity which I might find confusing or be somehow unequipped to deal with (e.g. missing the necessary documents).

At last my turn came. I handed over my letter, explaining I was here to collect my Chronoposte delivery which I had missed! The postal service employee gravely took my letter and scanned it. Maintaining a carefully noncommital expression, he typed the reference number of the delivery into his computer. While I watched anxiously, he scrolled and clicked around through several screens. Finally he looked up. "We don't have this item," he informed me. You must pick it up at the Chronoposte depot. He shoved the letter at me, his eyes already seeking the next customer.

"Wait!" I implored. "Where is this depot?"

"In the rue Cardinet," he replied shortly.

"Where in the rue Cardinet?" I asked, relieved that it was in a street which was just a couple of blocks away, but also worried because it is a very long street, stretching through several neighborhoods.

"In the middle," he replied in dismissal. At which I planted myself squarely in front of his guichet, getting an inkling but no real idea of the extent of the saga that lay before me.

"Is it west or east of where we are now?" I asked, narrowing his choices. "What is the address?" which, under the circumstances, seemed like a reasonable request.

"I don't know, Madame," he answered, looking at me with the panic of a cornered animal in his eyes. "Here, I'll give you their phone number," and he scribbled some digits on a slip of paper. I looked at the number to make sure I could decipher the French handwriting, and went on my way, muttering and cursing under my breath.

I went back home and maneuvered my car out of the interior courtyard into the street, heading toward rue Cardinet. Doing some quick thinking, I headed east, because the part of this street that heads west I go down almost every day and I'd never noticed a Chronoposte building. I drove slowly, eliciting honks and obscene gestures. I was trying to peer at all buildings, because it's amazing how well hidden a building can be in Paris. After having gone some distance with no sign of Chronoposte, I pulled over to the side of the street and phoned information to get the number for said depot on rue Cardinet. Ca n'existe pas, Madame, I was told. Not "no such number is listed," but rather, "it doesn't exist," setting the tone for the surreal events to follow.

I called the post office where I had just been, and explained my situation to the person answering. After a hold of a few minutes, he returned to the phone. "It's at 147 rue Cardinet, Madame, he informed me politely.

Somewhat mollified, I pulled back into traffic. When I got to the 120's, I seized a parking space. The rest of the search I would do on foot, as I was now in a rather bizarre industrial area near the enormous artery of train tracks that runs down into the Gare du Nord. Perhaps due to the fact that I was now in a warehouse area, the numbers on the street progressed incredibly slowly on the odd-numbered north side, while progressing busily into the 160's already on the more inhabited south side. (Beware if you're ever in Paris searching for an address: the numbers on either side of the street may bear little or no relation to each other.)

After walking about a half a mile, I came to 143 rue Cardinet. At last, I thought, and walked a little farther past the entrance to a weird, grungy sort of industrial park, which was numbered 145. The next building with a number was 149. Where was 147?!, I felt like wailing. I took shelter from the traffic noise in a doorway and redialed the post office. The same guy answered. After a brief hold, he apologized. "It's 145, in fact, Madame!"

Okay, at least I wasn't going crazy. Inside the industrial park, I identified the Chronoposte terminal by the scores of yellow and blue delivery vans parked outside its loading dock. Less obvious was how to access the building, which seemed to admit only trucks. I walked around it, finding no entry door. Finally, passing a pollution-smeared office window behind which were living human beings, I gestured wildly. A man opened the window and let me in on the secret entry.

I found myself in the selfsame office, and wearily showed the gentleman who had guided me in my by-now rumpled Chronoposte letter. A stern lady sat imperviously at a computer behind him. After scanning my letter, he showed it to her. They exchanged significant looks. "Where do you live?" he asked me.

I gestured at the address clearly visible on my letter, and added it was just by Parc Monceau. Now eyebrows were raised and a slight smile played around his lips. Even the stern woman seemed on the point of snickering. Just what was so funny?

After checking a list, on which I was sure I saw my address, he gave me the explanation. On the previous Friday--the day my delivery was due--the driver simply aborted his run, stealing the delivery truck with all its contents. It had not been recovered. My delivery had fallen victim to a disgruntled postal worker! It was so absurd that I had to laugh. We all shook our heads. They advised me to call France Telecom and report what had happened, and request another shipment.

I was back in my car headed toward home before I wondered why this information could not have been relayed in the original letter, saving everyone involved--especially me--a lot of time and hassle. There must have been some sort of weird face-saving involved. Would that this were the end of my story.

I duly reported to France Telecom. Another delivery was scheduled and not delivered. I think you'll have to agree that at this point we must invoke déjà vu, in all its corny glory. Just rewind the tape back to the beginning and replay it up to where I'm at the Chronoposte depot, minus, of course, the address confusion. By now I'm feeling like a regular.

In the office, the same man takes my letter. He summons an employee from the non-office side of the place and head out into the warehouse together. Twenty minutes later they come back, without the package, and begin an explanation of breath-taking complexity. I'm thinking about Occam's razor when I'm brought up short by a glimmer of recognition in the eye of the office man.

"You're the lady with the package on the stolen truck, aren't you? Wait just a minute..." and he disappears for another 5 minutes, this time reappearing with a tattered box which has obviously been retaped shut using bright yellow and blue post office tape. "We found the truck! Most of the packages on it had been emptied, but yours wasn't."

Together we inspected the contents, which seemed to be intact and filled the dimensions of the carton. After a serious discussion on the best route to take, I decided to go with the bird in the hand, in spite of a slight risk of invisible damage. "Just refuse the new shipment when it comes!" my new friend cheerily advised.

Indeed! Refuse to trudge to the post office--or here!-- to retrieve it, is more like it, I reflected as I navigated back to my car, clutching my precious if tattered cargo.

That evening, Denis asked me for the latest update on the arrival of the modem. I gestured at the dogeared box on the floor, bearing its layers of blue-and-yellow tape like bandages over war wounds. "Let me tell you a story," I began.



This postcard is dedicated to all my faithful customers who have had to fret over the slow (by sea, not air) arrival of their economy rate packages. See the Carré Pro sign in the photo above? That's the post office for "professionals" from where I mail all your packages. They don't even open until noon! But the miracle is, no customer's package has ever been lost. I guess it's more difficult to hijack an ocean liner than a delivery van.

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