This Is This

I do not like the Post Office because:

1. I dislike standing in line

2. I don’t like talking to someone through a glass partition. This stems from my fear of going to jail.

3. The staff LOVE the fact that they know more than you, with their stupid brand names and metric system. “Well in that case, you should have asked for Parcelpost instead of Priority Mail.”

4. They try to sell you insurance which covers the item in case they lose it. Why can’t we just pay more in regular postage and they can take greater care not to lose the item?

Me and them (a true conversation. Some of the names have been changed.)
Them: Would you like insurance?
Me: Why? Are you going to lose it?
Them: We will try not to. But if we do, you will be covered if you take out our insurance.
Me: How likely are you to lose it?
Them: I can not answer that, Sir.
Me: Are you more likely to lose it if I do not pay insurance?
Them: No Sir, but it can happen.
Me: Can you please make sure it doesn’t.
Them: I can not do that, Sir.

5. They can not guarantee a morning or afternoon delivery. Can’t you at least pin it down to a 12 hour window?

6. They do not pay their staff enough and they train them at busy times when people are buying complicated things like a TV licence for a blind person on benefits. “Sorry, that’s for six months. I should have said.” (looks over shoulder at waiting customers and smiles apologectically)

7. I often get letters for other Joneses who live across town.

8. Postal workers leave rubber bands on my path because they can not be bothered to pick them up when they drop them.

9. They are always going on strike.

10. They are a monopoly.

11. Almost everything they sell, from travel insurance to stationery, is a rip off compared to what you can get elsewhere, but poor Mrs. Muggins picking up her widow’s pension with her one good arm isn’t going to know that.

In the UK people use the phrase “going postal” with the American sense meaning to embark on a (sometimes) metaphorical bloody rage against one’s colleagues after the US Postal workers penchant for violent crime in the workplace. This isn’t founded on any reality. Over here, the same phrase should be used to describe a co-worker who is just “being a little bit shit.”

Tomorrow: Actually going postal, then brightening up for the weekend.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 5th, 2005 at 11:32 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or leave a comment yourself.