Going postal

So my folks sent me a package with the parka I left in Arkansas and some books my mom wanted to get rid of (my old Lloyd Alexanders among them. The nerve!) so badly she put them in her "go ahead and 'borrow' these books" bookcase at school. If I hadn't decided to go to the post office to pick up the package rather than have it delivered to the lease office I never would have seen a near riot.

What happened was the downtown office was very foolishly understaffed this morning. Some guy named Steve was it. And when I got there the line wasn't too heinous. But this is the post office, and conditions change very quickly. And Steve was giving the old fashioned kind of service one sees, if ever anymore, in the sorts of small towns where people are either related to each other to some degree or can't run the risk of angering anyone else because generations of grudges will be born. I mean, he was chatting with people, whistling while he worked and taking his sweet time about everything.

While this was irritating, and much more so when the line stretched for about half the length of the nearly-city-block-long building, what set the whole thing over the top was the guy with the passport application. What a maroon. From the moment he did the "what? I'm next" look of surpirse and I saw his Tarpon Bay, Fla. t-shirt, I knew this was going to be a very special conversation for Steve. When Steve called out, "oh, a passport!" I think we all knew where this was going.

And going. And going. I heard Steve and Tarpon talk about where Tarpon was going, how often he traveled, how Steve didn't get to travel too much because he has two weeks a year, but when he retires he has some ideas about where to go, etc. etc. etc. I clocked this transaction at 15 minutes when Willie, post office person number two, showed up and acted like he was going to take over another register.

But no sweet relief yet. Willie didn't have a key to get a cash box, so he went looking for the manager, then Steve went to get him and give him a key to get a cashbox because the manager had left, then there was more aimless running around for a few minutes ... it was like a victory for alacrity was snatched out of our hands.

Anyway, Steve keeps flapping his gums with Tarpon. And the lady in pink decided to rebel.

The lady in pink was a middle-aged Black woman in a much-too-short pink frilly dress — kinda flapper frilly more than girly frilly, with layers of ruffles overlapping each other with a hot-orange line print. Also she had hot pink thongs on with big hot pink flowers on them. And hot pink toenails and hot pink hair accessories. The funny part was that she had all different shades of hot pink on so she looked less coordinated than crazy. She was also clutching her neck because she had some kind of issue with it.

"This is not a social call for you, will you hurry up?" The pink lady let out.

Something about that set off the bald retired honky in green-lensed glasses behind her and another old guy behind him. All three of these folks just started going OFF on Steve. Who came back with some pathetic, "I'm just providing good service" line to them. At this time Willie reemerges with a cashbox and sets up and serves about three people in rapid succession.

Pink lady: "Oh, please. You are too slow and you act like this is social hour every time I come in here!"

Green glasses: "This is ridiculous, the line is too long for this kind of stuff!"

Other guy: "C'mon buddy, some people don't have all day!"

Tarpon looks a little amused and a little embarrassed and he kind of realizes he's done with the passport thing but has a few more words to say to Steve (enabling jerk) so he hangs back like he's going to get into the line AGAIN to waste other people's time or maybe to give Steve a special goodbye.

But he leaves because Steve gets grumpy and stalks off from the counter and comes back with a manager who asks if he can help anyone. Well, you don't have a cashbox, I think, so there's a limit to what you can do.

But the post office rebels don't want their packages ("I do!" I think), they want to burn Steve at the stake. A torrent of noisy invective is flung at the manager like so much chimpanzee poop. Albeit chimpanzee poop that should be listened to. This is not a case of an overwhelmed post office dude doing the best he can, this is a case of a guy who does not appreciate that rapidity is an all-important part of customer service.

Pink lady had the best comment, however: "You pay him $30 an hour to go slow; I could do ten times as much!"

Manager: "Who says I pay him $30 an hour?" Which manages not only to not address the issue but also to antagonize the pink lady, whom he then further insults by saying, "There is a test one takes to get into the postal service, it is going on now if you would care to take it we are looking for new employees." What a crappy manager. We are all hating the crappy manager. And Steve, who is now surly, has managed to help not even a single man, the guy after Tarpon is still standing at the desk. In the meantime, four people have been discharged from Willie's window.

I get to the window, ask Willie if this happens often and he said, "Just today." He handed me my package and boom, I was gone.

The dispersal of the postal riot people would not have been possible if not for the quick hands and non-surliness of Willie at that time (although if the cashbox thing had been resolved earlier there may not have been a near-riot at the post office in the first place.) Willie was the true hero today. Steve, champion of slow-food values but not actually nice enough in reality to know how to be a window worker and the manager, who did everything in his power to avoid the fact that he had understaffed the front desk, and with a turtle-human hybrid to boot, and actually goaded an angry (and clearly crazy, because that was a lot of pink) lady, were the losers.

It was quite an experience for the Northwest. You people in the east coast and south know from confrontation; out here the whole Scandinavian culture is all about playing nicey nice. You never see this stuff. It was awesome.