Hello, I blog!
I share all my sporadic and toilet thoughts in here, because I am random like that.
Dealing with lost mail in Singapore
Recently established my presence on Carousell – a mobile app for anyone to sell their stuff, kind of like a community-generated marketplace. Two weeks into using it, I’m beginning to find myself hooked.
Like many others, I started out selling my second-hand stuff on a Livejournal community called SGSellTrade since late-2005. What started out as a really vibrant community had soon fizzled out into nothing, and it was becoming increasingly harder to sell stuff online. (And flea markets are pretty tiring.) Thank goodness for Carousell.
Even then, selling online is not without its risks. Like lost mail, for example.
In my 8 years of selling online, I’ve had my mail lost 5 times. Thrice when I was selling, and twice when I was buying. The first time my mail was lost, it was gone into oblivion. My buyer never received her item, neither was the mail rerouted back to me. Needless to say, I had a very unhappy buyer on my hands. The second time round, the mail was sent back to my home – apparently, my buyer had provided the wrong address. But that ended well.
And the third time, unfortunately, is now.
When your mail goes missing (whether you’re a seller or a buyer), you’re pretty much helpless, especially when it is through normal mail which Singpost can’t do much about. Registered mail, though it costs $2.24 more, provides an ease of mind as the mail’s delivery path will be completely tracked. But since lost mail is pretty rare, most will just absorb the risk and not register their mail.
After consulting the counter staff at Singapore Post Centre this afternoon, I have a pretty clear idea on what happens behind the scenes when it comes to mail delay. Hopefully, this will enlighten the thousands of sellers out there.
Smaller Mail: Letters/Flat parcels
Delivering smaller mail is straightforward. The postman will simply drop it into your letterbox. If mail in this category do not arrive as expected, it’s due to:
1. The recipient’s address does not exist.
If that’s the case, the mail will be routed back to the sender if there’s a return address. This takes up to 10 working days.
2. The recipient’s address is wrong (leads to someone else instead).
Your mail will land in someone else’s hands, and chances of getting it back is very, very slim. Even if you’ve written a return address, most people won’t bother returning your mail.
3. The recipient’s address is correct, but the postman delivers it to the wrong address.
If the mail is delivered to the wrong letterbox in the same neighbourhood, you’ll still have a chance, although slim.
Large/bulky Mail
Large mail wouldn’t fit into the typical mailbox, so the postman will deliver it directly to the recipient’s doorstep. If no one is at home at the time of delivery, the mail will be routed to the nearest post office, with a delivery advice slipped under the recipient’s door.
Occasionally, the postman might have difficulty slipping the delivery advice under the door due to obstruction (eg. houses with animals might have additional metal grilles to keep the pets in). If this is the case, the delivery advice will be inserted into the recipient’s mailbox (immediate) or mailed to the recipients house (additional 2-3 working days’ delay).
When the mail reaches the post-office, the recipient has roughly 5 working days to collect it on-site (with their delivery advice).
If the mail is still not collected, the mail will be re-routed to Singapore Post Centre in Paya Lebar for subsequent handling. Once at Singapore Post Centre, uncollected mail with return addresses will be mailed back to the sender. (Time taken for processing and re-routing generally takes an additional 5 working days.) Those without return addresses will be stored at their lost mail department for an unspecified period of time before they are eventually disposed.
If your parcel has not arrived by the expected time:
1. Look out for a delivery advice.
This will be under your door or in your mailbox. If you have not received a delivery advice, wait out for an additional 3 working days.
2. If the seller has included a return address, just wait.
Chances of mail retrieval are higher is the seller has included a return address. Although it takes up to 15 working days for the above-mentioned mail routing to take place. Ask the seller to alert you if the mail is returned to his/her place.
2. All 3 possibilities listed for smaller mail apply.
Tips when sending out mail
1. Include a return address. (Can’t emphasize this enough.)
2. Write the recipient’s address and your return address in permanent black/blue ink. (If your mail gets soaked in the rain and your ink is not permanent, the address will no longer be legible!)
3. Seal your parcel tightly, this means masking tape over all the flaps and other areas that could possibly break open.
4. If you’re sending out a higher-valued item, take a photo of the parcel before you send it out. (It helps should you need to describe the parcel to that bewildered, confused-looking counter staff at Singpost.)
Have you encountered lost mail when selling/buying online? If so, how did you handle the situation?
Remembering the jet-setting grandmother
Almost a month ago, almost the entire extended family stood in vigil as my grandmother breathed her last, in bed 3003 in Mount Elizabeth Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. We watched as her heart rate fell from the 50s, to the 40s, the thirties and the sudden, prolonged 0.
Two months ago, nobody saw this coming. She was still happily playing mahjong at home.
And six months ago, I definitely did not see this coming, because I posted the following status on my status page.
I recall that weekend, I was preparing to conduct my first ever workshop at a gamification event. It was a stressful period – rushing slides, preparing material and all. On hindsight, I guess I got too caught up.
My grandmother was still perfectly healthy at that time, and I completely took that for granted, thinking that “I could always attend her birthday next year”.
Someone commented on that status update which made me think a little bit. Initially, I berated myself for ‘thinking too much’. At the very last moment, I flung all my stuff aside and raced all the way down to her birthday dinner venue to catch the last 30 minutes of the festivities.
I’m glad I did, because that birthday turned out to be her very last.
In December, my grandmother landed up in hospital briefly. Everyone came down to visit one by one. No one thought much of it though, and the usual family drama occurred (one extremely loud aunt apparently spoke so loudly in the ward that the patient in the next bed complained – resulting in everyone being thrown out). My grandmother got discharged, everyone was relieved.
Then, it turned out she had stage 4 cancer.
A secret so well-kept that only a grand total of 6 people knew. I only learned about this a week before my grandmother left. Likewise for a handful of my cousins. As for the remainder of the family, they only discovered hours before her death.
As for my grandmother, she was completely clueless that she had cancer.
The people heavily involved with my grandmother’s treatment had a rationale for keeping it from everyone (and even my grandmother herself), which I understand. They didn’t want the rest of us to worry. She had been undergoing a special kind of chemo which didn’t cause her hair to fall out so everyone was none the wiser. Plus, she seemed to be doing well.
As of March, her tumour markers was almost down to normal. Things looked promising.
Then in April, she decided to skip her medication (the one supposedly to support her immune system which was damaged by the chemo), thinking that it would be okay.
It took only 2 weeks for it to go completely downhill.
During her wake, my cousins and I transformed it into a celebration of her life, getting our hands dirty on Day 1 creating three large posterboards featuring my grandmother during her happier times – travelling to Hong Kong, China, Vietnam and even as far as Canada and the US of A. They were put up around the wake for all visitors to look at.
We want people to remember her as the jet-setting grandmother who went everywhere, always surrounded by her loved ones. And not the frail version of her former self which we all last saw of her.
Her death was a huge wake-up call that I’ve been neglecting the people who matter to me most – my family and extended family (whom I used to see almost weekly or at least monthly, but only every 4-6 months in the past 4 years).
Although it’s too late to start getting back the lost time I could have spent with my grandmother, it’s not too late to start earning back moments with the other important people in my life.
I’m still in shock at how things turned topsy turvy so quickly in less than 6 months.
Treasure those you have with you now, because they are not going to be there forever.
Rest in peace, grandma. And I hope there are snow mountains for you to look at, and the grizzly bear which you wanted to take a photo with when we were in Toronto.
A tribute to my awesome team and everyone in entrepreneurship.
‘Starting Now’ is written and sung by local songstress Tay Kewei. It’s the theme song of a current drama serial on entrepreneurship here in Singapore. Titled Start Up!《创!》, it looks into the trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship including betrayal. (No forms of betrayal going on in real life, thankfully. (;)
I did this cover on a whim one weekday – because I loved the melody and the lyrics struck so deep a chord I just wanted to sing it. Yes, that is my voice you’re listening to, and me strumming the ukulele in the background.
This video highlights moments from my start-up journey with my awesome teammates in Gametize (and our flagship product GameMaki, now a simple gamification platform).
This is a tribute to you guys, and everyone out there breaking out of the conventional mould and chasing their dreams. Keep pushing on!
Tay Kewei (郑å¯ä¸º) – Starting Now
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