It became the talk of the town when social-media posts last week unveiled a sign saying: "Using the postal service of Thailand Post means repaying the debts of gratitude that you owe to your country". The message led to widespread negative criticism. Many people were upset and complained the state enterprise should not have demanded people's gratefulness when it offers a poor service.
I am among those who had bad feelings about the message because I had experienced an excellent postal service for decades until recently. In the past, I always praised postal workers for their best efforts to locate recipients' houses although senders gave wrong or incomplete addresses.
For example, my family's home address was changed several times over the past three decades due to the rearrangement of areas of jurisdiction by district offices and also by post offices. Although I have only one house, I have had three different house numbers and been under the jurisdiction of three district offices so far. Although I notified my friends, acquaintances and concerned agencies of all these changes in my address, several of them still used the old addresses. Surprisingly, postal staff were successful in delivering all the letters and parcels to me.
These are two of several outstanding cases. An elderly friend in Chiang Mai annually sent a New Year greetings card to me by mentioning only my nickname and my old address on the envelope, but I always received the cards. Several years ago, I received a letter from a duty-free shop although only my name and surname were printed on the envelope. Happily, I posted on Facebook a picture of the envelope and expressed my appreciation for the postal staff for their excellent work, and many friends pressed Like.
Unfortunately, all these good feelings are things of the past now. Over the last year, I have noticed that some of the postal workers are new faces. Sometimes, letters for other people were wrongly delivered to my address and my neighbours' and we had to give those letters back. My worst experience was the way one employee recently left only notices for me to pick up EMS (emergency mail service) letters at the post office. That postal worker did not ring the door bell or call people in my house, although my maid and I were at home at that time and waiting eagerly for those letters. As the post office was almost 20km away, I decided not to go there but let Thailand Post return the undelivered letters to their senders. After Googling, I found that many other people across Thailand have had similar problems.
Recent news reports revealed that two delivery staff dumped bags of letters on roadsides in Pathum Thani and Rayong provinces because they were probably too lazy to do their job. These alleged negligences upset many service users, including me. The last straw was the sign in front of a post office in Prachin Buri province saying: "Using the postal service of Thailand Post means repaying the debt of gratitude that you owe to your country."
I believe the people expect better service from Thailand Post, a state enterprise with a history dating back to 1883, when the Telegraph Department and the Post Department were established on King Rama V's royal command.
Back in 1880, Chao Muen Samuhjairaj, a senior official, submitted a letter to propose the opening of a post office in Siam to King Chulalongkorn. The king agreed with the proposal and appointed his younger brother Prince Bhanurangsi Savangwongse Krom Phraya Bhanubandhu Vongsevoradej as the first director-general of the Post Department. Consequently, the prince inaugurated the postal service on trial by accepting letters and books in both the Phra Nakhon and Thon Buri sides of Bangkok on Aug 4, 1883. The first post office was located in a large building by the Chao Phraya River at the northern side of the Ong Ang canal.
In 1898, King Chulalongkorn ordered the merger of the two government entities as the Post and Telegraph Department. The department's location was later moved to Charoen Krung Road and became widely known as the Central Post Office. For a century, the postal service was a public service. The department was transferred to be under Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT) since the latter's establishment in 1977 as a state-owned enterprise.
In 2003, the Cabinet approved the transformation of CAT in line with the Telecommunication Development Master Plan and the Corporatisation Act of 1999. CAT was separated and corporatised into two business entities, which are CAT Telecom Public Company Limited and Thailand Post Company Limited.
In my opinion, Thailand Post, which is responsible for the development of the postal infrastructure, should seek to improve its service amid fiercer competition with private entities instead of citing its state enterprise status in asking for sympathy. And I believe that state enterprises must work harder to serve the people.
Pichaya Svasti is a travel writer for the Life section of the Bangkok Post.