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@supershifters wrote: 

I just arrived home 30 Dec 2015, from a 2 months overseas working holiday and I asked my elderly mother who has poor eye sight from diabetes to post me an express post document before 5pm at the post office 30 dec 2015 to arrive to me 31 Dec 2015. The Auspost worker behind the counter took her money for the yellow express post envelope and my mother inserted the documents I needed but the worker did not tell my mother that there was to be no postage 31 Dec 2015 and that my document would not arrive until Monday 4th January. I was pacing up and down the garden path all day until 4.30pm 31 Dec 2015 until I had to call her to see if she had received her usual post. She had not. I live in Queensland so of course my time was 4.45pm but in Sydney the time was 5.45pm (due to day light saving).

 

I was now panicking because I had missed the offices in Sydney to scan the postal documents I was waiting for. I was furious because if I had known there was no postal service 31 Dec 2015 I would have driven to my mother’s house the night before (about a 1 hour drive away) and picked up the documents myself in person. Of course when I filed for compensation it was denied even though Auspost didn’t deliver on a day that Australia was open for business.

 

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sorry, I gleaned over your post before replying earlier, my mistake.

In your recent posts you seem to have fixated on public holidays and whether it was widely known or who did know.  As I posted previously, put things into perspective here.

Let me get this right, although you only live an hour from your elderly mother who has poor eyesight is almost blind (among other health issues like diabetes), you chose to ask her to go to the Post Office to express mail some documents to you?  I hope I have read that correctly, otherwise this next bit will sound just plain insensitive and out of order.

How long would it have taken your elderly mother to locate the documents . . . . . get herself prepared to head out . . . . . lock up the house . . . . . get to the PO (not by driving I hope) . . . . . lodge the documents in an express envelope . . . . . get home again?  I know that it would take me the best part of an hour to do all that, and I have good eyesight and I drive.

Having been away for two months, why didn't you go and visit your elderly mother instead of asking her to post the items to you?  I'm sure she would have appreciated the visit having not seen you for months.  Let's forget about the documents, and the Express Post 'rage' you now feel . . . . . and ask the question "what was so important that you didn't drive the one hour to visit your mum on the 30th?"

Now, that is where I may have come across as insensitive, there may be a very good reason for you not driving one hour to visit your almost blind elderly mother, but I can only go with the information you have provided and I apologise in advance if I am looking at your whole situation too simplistically.

You spent two months doing something good for others in Africa, building houses for people who don't have a house, but have come back to Australia and started sweating the small stuff almost immediately.

I travelled extensively for a whole year some 20 years back.  Including through PNG, Mexico, Guatemala and Belize.  I had guns pointed at me and I saw unwashed little kids wandering the streets in hardly any clothes begging for money or food.  It changed me.  For some time after I got back I realised that what seemed like big issues for me were certainly not a threat to my everyday welfare.  I am not perfect, and have slipped back into stressing about things of little consequence every now and then, but not where family is concerned.

Take the one hour drive and thank your mother for her efforts with the documents.  Don't talk about how disappointed you were that Aust Post were closed on the 31st, she'll probably feel bad that things didn't work out with the Express Post . . . . . and I know you wouldn't want that.