Post Office

This morning, I experienced something that I never have before. I walked into the Stuyvesant Town Post Office on 14th Street and there was no line. In addition to this welcome site at this notoriously horrible PO, the workers were smiling (they DO have facial muscles!) - there was even one standing outside of the glass enclosed back (among us lowly customers? unheard of!) who was teaching a small girl how to properly affix a return receipt tag onto an envelope. I actually heard the postal employee say (without IRONY), 'See? Wasn't that easy? Now you know for next time!' The little girl skipped out of the PO. With all these open windows, I didn't know which one to choose - so, being me, I went to the closest one (thereby avoiding a waste of energy that I could potentially use for more exciting things later in the day). Once at the window, I was further shocked by the cleanliness of the workspace. There was nothing except the computer screen, the keyboard, and 6 sheets of commemorative stamps displayed neatly across the desktop. Was I on candid camera? Where were the crumpled up tissues? Where was the mess? Where was the attitude?

It was then that I spotted them. A group of individuals standing behind the glassed off area intensely watching the woman serving me. They had clipboards. I think one of them may have been the Postmaster General. He looked at me. I tried to catch his eye. I couldn't figure out how I could tell him what this post office was normally like. I tried Morse Code with my eyes, but before I could spell out, "Lies! Lies! It's not normally like this here! This is the den of evil. E-V-I-L!" I was asked politely if I had something in my eye. Suddenly, I feared for my package. What if this woman currently stamping 'FRAGILE' on my box read Morse Code! She is, after all, the same woman who weeks ago stamped 'FRAGILE' on another package before tossing it EIGHT FEET into a bin behind her in true basketball star form. (Luckily, she had pretty good aim.) I was scared now. What would become of my package if they really knew what I was thinking?

Very quietly, I fed my money under the little glass window, averted my eyes, took my change, for some reason nervously bowed as I said 'Thank You', and backed (yes, backed) out of the post office - avoiding 2 (out of 4) broken doors and the broken handicap lift that hasn't worked for the last year and a half.

It was only then that I looked back and saw the Postmaster General and his team smiling happily, checking off little boxes on their little clipboards, and giving the woman who served me the thumbs-up. It was at this point that I realized these people were not here to make sure the PO was treating its customers correctly ... oh no ... on the contrary! They were there to teach postal employees how to better scare their customers into submission. The new tactics worked quite well ... and to tell the honest truth, I was becoming a little bored with them yelling at me and giving incorrect change. At least they are mixing it up a bit.