Pacengo Post Office Closure Due to Staff Training and Organizational Policies
Today, the Pacengo post office will be closed. Not due to a strike or for maintenance work, but because the only staff member will be occupied all working hours in Verona, attending an update course organized at the central headquarters. Certainly, a sign has notified customers in advance of a few days about today’s disruption, and nearby counters at Colà and Lazise are still operational. However, for the residents of the village, this remains an unpleasant situation.
Those who use the P.O. box, in fact, will not be able to collect their mail for the day, and there are always elderly residents who cannot travel by car to reach other offices. The same situation occurred six months ago, and there is always the risk of seeing the shutters down without notice in case of illness, especially on days with deadlines.
Home mail delivery, on the other hand, will continue as usual because the postal carriers depend on the Lazise post office. “The mayor had also written a letter to Poste Italiane’s management inviting them to send a substitute on such occasions,” explains Fabio Marinoni, the public works councilor who lives in Pacengo and is familiar with all the issues of that district. “However, we have not received any responses in this regard.”
Post Office Responses and Organizational Criteria
The fact remains that the disruption could be more severe during the tourist season, from Easter onwards, because in Pacengo there are three campsites, all with P.O. boxes, and numerous summer residents living in apartments. It is clear that today, the residents of Pacengo cannot use Poste Italiane, now a corporation and even a bank.
In this area of the Verona shore of Lake Garda, there are at least another six post offices. Poste Italiane explains the situation as follows: “The closure of the Pacengo office is caused by organizational needs of the staff,” says Gaetano Ieluzzi, the human resources manager of the Central Post Office. “We do not plan to replace the employee. In case of illness, we try to relocate other staff from better-equipped offices in the area.”
The criteria for assigning employees to various offices naturally consider the workload at each counter. “The closure to allow staff training,” continues Gaetano Ieluzzi, “generally lasts no more than a day, and in our organizational plan, we always try not to send employees who work alone at counters in the same area of the province, such as Lake Garda, at the same time.”
We also ensure that the need to close a counter does not occur more than twice a year. The date of the training course was scheduled considering that the tourist season has not yet started: “We would not have chosen the same timing if it were during Easter or summer, when customer flow is more intense.”
