A big errand day for me. The biggest being the post office. Being an old Ebayer I pride myself on packaging my Ebay parcels professionally, and making my time at the Postal counter move as smoothly and quickly as humanly possible for those behind me in line. Today, though, I got "the" clerk. Every post office has one. The "new" clerk that looks at the process of postal automation like it is some sort of mysterious puzzle they doesn't have all the pieces for. Now, I know from reading the papers over the last decade this is a stressful job that causes some postal workers to wave guns around screeching. But nobody seems to have sent the "new" clerk the hurry up memo, and here she generally moves very, very slowly. The line was long when I arrived, and this is a small town so I knew that the "new" clerk was one of two on duty. I got her by luck of the draw.
She immediately saw me as I walked up to the counter, and started to cop a 'tude. I guess it is because my postal work does seem to be complicated and scary (Bwaahaahaa) to her, but I am always prepared with everything marked and ready. All forms filled out, I even use nine digit zip codes whenever possible. On today's agenda, first came the ritual of cashing the existing money orders. Usually I just use them to pay my shipping at the end, but this clerk always recoils in horror when she sees them and requires I cash them up front because she doesn't know how to apply them to my ticket at the end. OK, never let it be said I won't compromise. But today was a special day for us both, as she took my endorsed checks and placed them into the open cash drawer, closing it after. Only upon shutting the drawer did she then realize she had forgotten to run them through the computer for number verification. Oops.
What happened next was tragic and comical all at the same time. Very Fellini-esque, and if I wrote it in a script and delivered it to a Hollywood producer I doubt seriously they would pick up my option. The entire system shut down. Yes folks, if you ever want to bring a United States Post Office to it's knees, just force the clerk to forget to authorize a lowly money order. And not just my clerk's system, the other clerk's computer module went as well. For thirty five long, tick, tick, tick minutes not one piece of mail could be processed at the counter. I stood there trying not to notice the lynch mob forming behind me. I felt the heat of a gathering storm of irked humanity. The line had been exceedingly long before, but after this mishap it became even longer. And do I have to mention how hot it is in Texas at 2:15 pm in the afternoon in a jam packed post office? Tick, Tick, Tick.
After what seemed to be the longest thirty five minutes of my life, and after watching six postal employees try at least 38 ways to "fix" the problem the postal computer was finally tricked into opening the drawer and rebooting the system. I luckily escaped with my life and the ability to tell the tale tonight. But then there is always tomorrow's shipments. :::::shiver::::: UPS maybe?
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