US Post Office

I have to agree with the previous post. I’ve seen this time and again.

Disclaimer: These experiences are all with one particular worker (and he is ALWAYS there) who seems to delight in making people feel stupid. I suspect he goes home and his wife scolds him all evening. The other workers are quite wonderful. They get five stars, but scolding guy gets negative four. Thus the one star.
«Hi, I’d like to mail this please.»
«Don’t abbreviate the city, you need to write out ‘Honolulu’, you can’t just put ‘Hon.’! Don’t be lazy.’»
I’ve been doing that my entire life and no one has ever corrected me. Thank you, thank you for finally setting me straight. I’m am clearly so lazy that I can’t afford to write entire words. I also bathe with a baby wipe and there’s been a twinkie in the middle of my living room floor for three weeks because I don’t feel like picking it up.
«Hi, may I buy a $ 1200 money order please?»
«Twenties! You need to go to the bank and change these for hundreds before you come here. Now I have to count all of these twenties!»
My apologies. I was under the impression that this was your job. But now that you’ve spent exactly ten seconds counting my twenties I can see that today I have asked you to go above and beyond your usual services. Next time I will certainly make an extra trip to the bank with my three small children so that I can save you 6 seconds.
«Hi, may I buy a $ 1400 money order with these 14 hundred dollar bills?»
«Why are you buying money orders?!! You should send a check.»
Really? I can send a check? Gosh, I hadn’t thought of that. I just think it’s so super duper fun to come down to the post office and pay a fee for a money order because I love to make a one step process into a four step process. See? I’m definitely not lazy.
«Hi, I’d like to send these certified mail.»
«You have to fill out the address on the certification slips first. Don’t you know this?!!»
Oddly enough I was informed that I didn’t need to fill it out. Apparently the address is completely unnecessary and only for my own sake. But as you are the only postal worker in all of Hawaii that cares, from this day forward I will fill it out.
«Hi, I’d like to mail all of these perfectly filled out and addressed parcels. And may I send this particular envelope via priority please?»
«Do you have a computer? Do you have a printer? You know you can print priority postage at home, right?!!»
Well, I could have printed the one piece of postage for this one piece of mail and cut it out and taped it on OR I could just bring it down with my other four parcels that are not priority and stand here while YOU do it. Hmm. Decisions, decisions. BTW, you may not have realized this but if postage is eventually all done online some of you may, er, lose your jobs.
Standing quietly in line, my toddler decides to tap the dangling pen ONCE, which cause it to gently swing back and forth. No tugging, no pulling, no trying to hang from it like a limp rag doll, a tap.
«AH AH AH! NO TOUCHING THE PENS! WATCH YOUR CHILD PLEASE!»
And that is why I prefer driving to the airport.