LadyButterfly she/herEvery time...
TabbsTheBat (they/them)For what it’s worth, I think I’ve been to a post office maybe 3 times in my entire life. Only once as an adult, it’s not exactly a common occurrence in my life lol
OnomatopoeiaAs someone older than the internet, going to the PO was a monthly (if not weekly) occurance growing up.
But I’ve only been a handful of times in the last X decades, and frankly avoid it at all costs.
It’s never a fun experience, thoughy local PO is staffed by nice folks.
I just much prefer picking up my packages at a automated delivery box, rather than going to a post office lol :3. More convenient
The only times I’d need to go to the post office is if something can’t be delivered by my preferred methods… or if I was sending mail, which probably is not happening in the near future :3
That’s me, sorry. Every time I find myself at the post office I suddenly have no idea why I’m there or what I’m doing. Sure, I need to send or receive something… But how?!
XProbability would seem to indicate that there are those who frequent the PO more often than others, and that the use of the PO by average people is declining.
This, in turn, would cause me to guess that there are PO “power users” who, frequenting the PO more than others, are more likely to come in to contact with those who can count on one hand the decades it’s been since they last even thought about a PO.
Assuming any of this to be true, it appears as though Michael has just just now noticed this.
Your actually not far off. The power users are mostly just businesses and government offices. I know because I work for a major print company in my area and we actually have a mail department in our building that uses the Post Office 3-5x per day, not including our own delivery service, fed-ex, ups, etc. We also work with a lot of other businesses in the area and government print work, and use the PO constantly. During our Political Season, they will actually cut us off after a point and simply tell us they can only send so much mail by a certain date.
Missing the weirdly-dressed Boomer who clearly has been in a post office before, and has unreasonable expectations, but also doesn’t seem to know anything about how this post office works, and has questions and needs something special from the back.
People manage to do that at the supermarket. Either that or they walk up to the cashier and ask: “Excuse me, what’s the most complex transaction I can possibly engage in with you?”
It’s always fun when they open up another register and wave everyone over because they can see that this one customer probably won’t be finished within the next five minutes.
-RJ-Or it’s after 5pm or on the weekend and made up exclusively of old people who could go any time during the week.
AnUnusualRelicWho’s to say they aren’t there every day of the week? They need their daily exercise.
“What do you mean I need to buy a box!? You’re supposed to pack it! No, I’m not buying a box! I need this shipped today! You better ship this now! Fine, I demand the manager!!!”
gigastasioLet’s be honest. This is everywhere you go. Every morning, millions of people in your vicinity wake up, discover that their brain is broken, they no longer know left from right, can’t complete a sentence, forgot how to count to four, lost all concept of the physical space they occupy, and say to themselves, “Yes, today I shall go out and engage in commerce!”
jballsWhenever I’m driving and someone does something really stupid, I’ve started saying to myself “don’t be mad, cut them some slack, it’s clearly their first day driving.” I started saying it as a joke, but honestly it seems pretty accurate most of the time.
bleistift2I have a theory for why OWIHTP happens: Shopping is exhausting. Having to process all the products in the store, minding the shopping list, and what you’ve picked up already and what you need to pick up what isn’t on the list, deciding between alternatives and sometimes reorganizing big chunks of the list because what you wanted to get isn’t available – is immensely draining.
When you’re at checkout and don’t have anything to do mentally, you give the brain a rest it gladly accepts.
I only ended seem to end up there around the holidays. oddly it’s usually not for anything holiday related. I just end up breaking shit in the winter that needs to get repaired.
i always end up behind someone shipping like 50 international gifts.
it’s time like those that i wish it could be a norm in society for the holdup doing the long thing with the only customer service rep to let others cut in between their things so they can get out of there. like when you end up at a gas station that doesn’t allow pay at pump and the only attendant is held up by some retiree blowing their kids inheritance on a scratch off gambling addiction. I’ve been late to work multiple times because of that exact situation.
You’ll love my town then, because the exact same things can be said about some of the people working at my local post office.
Fortunately, the post office in the next town away is close enough to be an option for me and the employees there are, at least in my experience, all friendly and knowledgeable despite being over worked and under paid.
Where I used to live, the DMV was like that. When I got married, my wife moved to my state, and brought her car. She had the hardest time getting it registered in our state. It was like the DMV had never encountered this situation before. We went there several times, and each time they rejected what the last person told us to bring, and demanded a different document, so we’d go home for that one. Eventually, someone asked again for the first document, and we were at the beginning again.
So one day, I decided to try a different DMV office, and I was in and out in 15 minutes, with the car registered in my state.
It seemed that the Republican state had decided to privatize the DMV, and sold each office to a different “franchisee,” to manage as they please. Clearly the first one we went to was doing a terrible job, while the other one, 10 miles away, was operated competently.
We moved to a different state several years later, where the DMV is amazingly efficient. It never takes me longer than 30 minutes, and most of that is waiting. When I hear jokes about the inefficiency of the DMV, I think they should check out ours.
That happens EVERYWHERE I go. Haven’t you ever been in a drive thru line before? Have you never used a debit card before?
Well if I’m left with no option but to go to the counter at the post office it’s precisely because I have no idea how to do what I want with online resources.
E.g. post a flat cardboard package containing art that I made myself to a foreign country. The envelope sizes they sell at USPS stores don’t match the rates they post on their website. Often, the clerk can help a little bit with filling the customs form. The website says that you need a license to export art to foreign countries, the clerk doesn’t.
Stop blaming other people, start blaming the system: we need more clerks, better payed and better trained clerks.
konaltCan I get some meatballs or a few sheets of particle board?
There is probably a lesson to be learned in there somewhere.
I want to send this letter here to xyz.
clerk: This needs a envelope.
Yeah, please add one.
clerk: that’s not my job.
…what is your job then?
explodicleI check for envelopes! The buying envelopes line is over there.
Master
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