Going Postal

I went to the post office this afternoon, which I'm sure people do everyday. But, only the handful of people who have ever been to the Sunnyside Queens Post Office will have any empathy for what I am about to describe.

Go to the post office on a Saturday morning, and you will find a line out the door, disgruntled people fanning themselves, as New York 1 blares out of the TV in the corner, one half-dead looking woman behind the open service window. I assumed there was always a line because it was Saturday morning and the only time when most people could make it to the post office. This apparently is not true.

I went today, at 2pm. There was a line out the door. A line of people who looked so miserable that you would've thought they were on line for strip searches at the airport. So I do what I always do, go to the automated postal machine. Now in Manhattan, the automated postal machines usually have a longer line than the teller windows. However, in Sunnyside Queens, 90% of the people on line at the post office either are waiting to get money orders to send to relatives in South America, are 93 years old and want the teller to personally put a stamp on their Con Edison bill, or cannot read English (the only language the machine offers instructions in).

So I put my package on the scale and started transacting. I then hear, "Shut your f*cking mouth, just shut your f*cking mouth!" Assuming it was one of the disgruntled line waiters, I looked around to see who had attempted to cut whom in line. Then I looked back and saw it was the postal worker who was yelling at the customer.

The customer yells back, "I know you Danny, I know how you are. Try to get my package to the right place this time, last time it ended up in Uruguay." This Danny fellow he was yelling at, was a large postal worker with man boobs (all of our postal workers seem to have man-boobs) who just happened to be walking behind the window area.

Apparently Danny didn't like the fact that this customer apparently held him personally responsible for his mail ending up in Uruguay and announcing his incompetence to the entire building. Danny started yelling again and came out behind the magic postal office secret door into the area where everyone was waiting on line and had been for the past hour. He started screaming again, "Just shut your f*cking mouth, zip it, I don't want to hear it from you anymore."

The customer said, "This place is a joke it is always the same with you people."
Danny the postal worker, now more red in the face started yelling, "Just shut your f*cking mouth, it isn't our fault, they won't hire more people here, call someone who cares to complain." At this point, the one person who had actually been working at the desk came out to join Danny, as did two other postal workers in a postal worker gang formation.

I spun around and continued to type in the zip code of my package afraid that there was going to be a lock-in or something!

Disgruntled customer started yelling, "I call that goddamn number all the time, nothing happens." One of the other postal workers told the customer to watch his language, pointing to a child standing on line. Though when his coworker was dropping the F-bomb 10 seconds prior he couldn't care less about the kid on line.

Danny the red faced, man boobed, worker started screaming, "If you don't shut your f*cking mouth."

At this point my little automated postal friend-machine spit out my postage without cursing at me nor telling me I was a moron for not signing on the dotted line somewhere. I headed out while Danny and the worker were still arguing as I didn't want to have the people waiting on line tomorrow to witness my accidental slaying on New York 1.

So as you shell out your extra 2 cents for a stamp, rest assured it isn't going to customer service training for the folks in the Sunnyside Post Office, I can only hope it is going towards more automated postal machines!