Going Postal

I could (and I promise I will) write about non-post office happenings. But too many good stories come from that (usually) wretched place. Fellow lovers of snail mail, read on!

Money, Shmoney…
On a sunny June morning, I walk into the post office with a stack of letters to send out. Most are sealed in envelopes, but I’ll have to buy a couple more, too. It’s a slow morning, and no one is at window 5. I walk up and make my requests. He takes my letters to glue on stamps, and gives me blank envelopes, insisting that I fill and seal them before he puts stamps on them. I concede and step to the side and start writing. In the meantime, two young men come in to collect a package. It’s clear their business is far more important than mine, so I wait for my last couple stamps as these three Kazakh men get things squared away. As I wait, another employee comes up and asks if I am Denise, then explains that I need to pay the yearly fee for my mailbox. I dig out the money, but wait until I am again first in line to hand it over. I give it to the man along with my last envelopes, irritated that what could have happened in minutes is now going to take 45. He fiddles with my mail, and then indicates that I ought to be leaving now. I’m befuddled, but walk away, taking note of the line that has formed during my wait. But I can’t get myself through the door, knowing I haven’t paid my rather large bill for the stamps and envelopes I just got. I make an about-face and call over to him in Russian sprinkled with arrogance but completely devoid of elegance, “Pardon, stamps no need to pay?” Instantaneously his face expressed his shock, and in seconds he had darted to the back room and come back to calculate my expenses. No need for a line, he took my money with an efficiency that soothed my American soul and placated my Christian conscience.

The Bane of My Existence
My mom tells me of a postmaster back in the States who is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to make business better at his post office. So when I shared the following with her, she insisted on passing it on.

At the end of June, I got a birthday card ready for a July 12th birthday. I still struggle with staying two weeks ahead of all holidays, but I thought I was doing alright, trying to send this one 13 days ahead. What I haven’t done is buy stamps in bulk… a great idea I wouldn’t think twice about in the States. So on June 30th, I walk into the post office, walk up to a window that (amazingly) doesn’t have a line. Before I can even finish asking for stamps, I’m told that they aren’t selling stamps. They’re doing inventory. That’s right. Inventory.

With a sliver of hope, I walked over to a much smaller post office in another part of town. And there I got the same line. Come back in July, I was told. So the next day, July 1st, I went back to the small post office. Now the woman had the gall to act irritated with me. Come back in a week, she said. As though I should obviously know that doing inventory takes a week. Now there’s an idea to boost your business…

Is that a whiff of …redemption?!
When I had all but lost hope in the post office being anything but a repulsive establishment completely incapable of posting mail, they went and earned themselves two points. The first one came around the middle of July, when long lines of people wait for hours on end to pay their bills. (Sidenote: can you really call it a post office? It’s more of a… business center. Or financial hub? You go there to pay bills. To utilize Western Union’s services. To collect your pension. And dozens of Avon saleswomen get their monthly orders. And 2 of us collect letters.)

I look at the long line at window 5, where I usually buy stamps, and decide to try window 6. That man clearly communicates that he will absolutely not sell me stamps. So, I decide to walk around the line of people, where I can ask window-5-man if I can buy stamps from him. He casually replies, with the slightest hint of a grin, that he’ll be with me in a second. A second?! Like, he’ll sell me stamps without me going to the back of this 5+ person line?! Sort of in shock, I stand a little off to the side to wait until he’s done with the person he’s currently helping. And to listen as people around me get all anxious about who’s last in line, who’s saving their spot but sitting over by the window, and who is standing in the wrong spot. In between people, he takes all of my letters to be posted and even gets me the one envelope I need. I get the envelope ready and hand that to him as well. Another 10 minutes and I’ve paid for everything and head for the door. As I walk away, I grin as the woman next in line complains about how long she’s been waiting there and how awful it is that he would help someone wanting stamps at the post office before he attends to people there to pay bills. Little did I know, there’s a sign taped to window 5 saying that people with letters and packages don’t have to wait in line with everyone else. And little does she know, in a land far away, people pay so many of those bills without waiting in a single line.

Point two came not so long after, on a slow day. One woman was working with window-5-man to get a package delivered to a town in Russia. Much paperwork is involved, making the confusion I cause seem minimal – or at least manageable. I patiently waited behind her… 10 minutes turned into 20, and 20 into 30. Gave me lots of time to read and reread the friendly little printout giving those of us with packages and letters the right-of-way. On the tails of my recent success, I happily waited behind someone doing post office business. A sizeable chunk of time had passed when a Kazakh woman walked up to demand an envelope. Window-5-man starts to get more information, and then backs off in favor of the package business at hand. On the verge of outrage, the woman tries a different approach. She’s Kazakh and he’s Kazakh… so she speaks Kazakh, demanding to know why in the world is she not being catered to. At least that’s the message I imagine she spit in his direction. As a fascinated observer, I noted that he said next to nothing to her in Kazakh, but, sticking to Russian, repeated to her that there is a line, and just as I had been waiting, she also needed to wait for her turn. Because, for the time being, anyway, I can find no sign indicating that Kazakhs get to skip the line.