On Wednesday morning before the inauguration, an important and time sensitive piece of mail was sent to me through the U.S. Postal Service’s express overnight service. According to the package tracking, it arrived on campus on Thursday at 11:42 a.m. I should have, in theory, received that package on Thursday or Friday, maybe even Saturday, but I did not receive it until the following Tuesday.
I had stopped by my residence hall office a dozen times looking and asking for this important letter with no avail. With my community facilitator, I even looked through my dorm’s mailroom myself.
By Friday night, I was annoyed. I even called the University Police asking them if they could help somehow; tampering with U.S. mail is after all a federal offense, but they apparently “don’t deal with things like that.”
The piece of express mail was sent to me by my congressional representative. The envelope contained special tickets to the Presidential Inauguration. It was ironic that on Saturday, the day of the event, a letter was sent home by the “Colonial Parents’ Connection Newsletter” with a lengthy article outlining mail delivery services at GW. According to the article, the package was sent correctly. Also ironic was the letter that University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg sent home regarding the importance of attending inaugural events like our ball, because they happen only once in a GW experience.
Words cannot express and money can not repay the loss of that once-in-a-lifetime experience. The unfortunate reality of it has been an experience lost for inexcusable reasons. This is inefficiency at its strongest.
-Jean Resnevic
sophomore
