We Have Issues: Front counter workers for the Post Office

I use to hear things about government workers.  About how slow they worked.  How complacent they are.  How they rode it out until they retired.  Today I want to declare that some of the worst Government workers I’ve seen were at the United States Post Office.

This not to say all Postal employees, but the ones I just encountered sucked.  There were 4 of them.  Three were at the cash registers and there was 1 who was trying to get some info from their cash registers.  The 3 on the cash registers were older women.  All 3 looked as if they were close to retirement.  The one who was trying to get info from their cash registers seem as if he was working his last day before his retirement.

This was one of my worst Post Office experience during a non-holiday time frame.  The 3 women will be dubbed, W:A, W:B, and W:C.  We’ll just call the man Tom.  W:B spent upwards of 6 minutes applying that “post office” shipping tape to a box the size of a shoe box.  She seemed to be enthralled and mystified that the tape was actually sticking.  An it didn’t help matters that her customer spoke very little English. 

W:C was moving at the speed of tar.  Then out of the blue, she had to stop helping her customer so that she could help out W:B.  Apparently, W:B couldn’t perform a certain feature on her cash register.  I’m sure she uses the cash register everyday.  On cue, here comes Tom from out of the back.  Smiling and joking around.  Soon he was looking at the long line of people searching for a familiar face. 

Tom eventually identified a few regulars and shouted at them in a friendly manner.  He also joked around with W:A, W:B, and W:C, of course distracting them.  W:A slowly finishes up with her custom and Tom slid in her spot and checked something on her register.  Still joking and laughing; annoying the hell out of the line of customers.  He eventually moved on to W:B and W:C. 

I finally was served by W:A.  She could tell I was annoyed by their shenanigan.  I was the 4^th person in line and it took close to 20 minutes for me to be seen with 3 clerks working the cash registers. 

What’s seriously problematic is when there is a long line of people and you see workers standing around at the counter.  As a customer, you’re wondering why that lazy person is standing around and not manning the cash register.  This leads to customer anger and causes people to stereotype government employees.  Postal employees that is. 

Do your job and quit screwing around!