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Lines, Service
at Big City Post Offices Can Be Frustrating
(By Stacy Jones, October 23, 2006) |
Gone
are the days of local post offices inside general stores, one-stop
venues where patrons can purchase sundry goods and mail letters
for pennies under one roof. At 32, I can barely remember this
era, but I have a vague recollection of an early 1980s post office
at Guys, Tenn., located conveniently on the west side of J.L.
Wren’s Grocery. After customers bought loaves of bread and
canned goods, they could visit the P.O., a place presided over
by none other than Mr. Wren himself. Mr. Wren habitually chomped
a stubby cigar, rings of smoke encircling his head, as he punched
the buttons to ring up rolls of stamps on his cash register.
Customers generally didn’t
have to wait in lines, but if they did have to wait a few moments,
they didn’t mind. They could use the time to catch up on
the latest local gossip, or to exchange pleasantries with neighbors
who they might not have visited in the last few days. These stores
were the centers of community, where people bought staples to
feed their families, mailed news to and received news from faraway
family members and friends, and even chose the individuals they
wanted to represent their best interests, as government elections
were also held at the local store-slash-post office.
Now post offices are situated on
federal property, housed in standardized modern pseudo-stucco
or brick buildings. Grocery items are not sold there, and the
aromatic cigar, like the one Mr. Wren smoked, is not to be found,
as smoking is not allowed on the premises. In fact, the place
smells very institutional, not unlike a hospital or public school
building. Moreover, the cost to mail a letter has increased from
mere pennies to over one-third of a dollar. However, one of the
most striking, and annoying differences, is now the wait time,
particularly in larger cities.
I never realized the extent of
time that could be involved in visiting a post office in a larger
city until I moved to Memphis. I grew up in rural Guys, population
483, according to the 2000 census. After Mr. Wren’s store
closed and a new post office was built, the volume of business
usually required and still requires only one postal clerk at
the counter.
In 1996, I moved to Loudon, Tenn.,
population 4,476, per the 2000 census. Depending on the time
of day, I discovered, I might have to wait in line a few minutes
at the Loudon Post Office. However, usually only two or three
people would be ahead of me, and at busy times of day or around
the holidays, two clerks would be working the counter.
In 2004, I moved to Memphis, population
643,000, according the same census, but the post offices are
markedly different. Granted, Memphis boasts 471 posts offices,
according to a search on USPS.com, in comparison to the single
postal facilities in Guys and Loudon, and each one usually has
three to four clerks working the counter.
However, consider this: 643,000,
the population of Memphis, divided by 471, the number of post
offices in the city, according to USPS.com, equals 1,365. This
number divided by three, the average number of clerks working
most post offices in the city on any given day, equals 455, less
than the population of Guys, which offers residents one small
post office and one clerk at the counter.
But walk into a Memphis post office
in the heart of the weekday, anytime, say, right before noon
all the way up until closing time, which is either 5:00 or 5:30
at most Memphis post offices, and expect to wait sometimes half
an hour before reaching the counter.
Because Memphis is such a large
city, customers waiting in line tend not to know any of the other
customers. Scanning the faces, you notice that they can be unusually
sullen, blank, unamused. No pleasantries are exchanged. Each
individual waits in silence, propping elbows on the table in
the middle of the floor, shifting back and forth, biding time
until they can take care of business and exit through the heavy,
mechanical doors of the post office.
A few days ago, I waited in line
at a Memphis post office, in fact, the postal facility that the
U.S. government considers to be my home post office, despite
the fact that no one there ever knows me. When I went in the
main office, I noticed immediately that the line ranged from
twelve to fifteen people deep. I settled in and resigned myself
for the wait. I passed minutes by scanning the host of items
the US. Postal Service thinks the public might be interested
in buying, including a tote bag emblazoned with a Ronald Reagan
stamp, a coffee mug imprinted with a Martin Luther King stamp,
and a cheap, plastic key ring fashioned with the likes of Bugs
Bunny smiling back at me. I wonder who really buys these items,
since I never see anyone who even seems to notice them.
That day, I finally reached the
counter and completed my transaction in just under thirty minutes,
which seemed like a veritable eternity. I tend to try to make
small talk with the postal clerk once I reach the counter, but
most of them seem about as enthusiastic to be there as the customers
do, perhaps even less so. They nose in just above public librarians,
in my opinion, on the personality scale.
Trying to engage the clerk in cheerful
banter, I made note that it was hot that day in the post office.
“Don’t they let you all turn on some air in here?”
I asked.
“I don’t like air blowing
on me,” she said, expressionless. I noticed then that she
was wearing a sweater. It must have been close to 90 degrees
outside and just above 80 inside. Maybe she doesn’t get
hot, I supposed, because she’s so cold-hearted.
On a different day I ended up being
the last customer in a clerk’s line before she turned her
sign over to read “Next Counter.” She made a point
of letting me know how happy she was that I was her last customer.
And, finally, drum roll, please:
the act that gets the top award of “Less-Than-Excited-To-Be-Working-as-a-Postal-Clerk”
goes to a clerk who grumbled when I handed him a stack of mailers
that each had to be weighed and stamped. Apparently, he didn’t
enjoy the process of weighing each item and stamping it, a task
I guess I ignorantly assumed to be part of his job description
as official U.S. Postal Clerk, although I might be wrong. Perhaps
he was in another state of mind that day, dreaming of the munificent
retirement package offered to U.S. Postal Service employees rather
than the task at hand.
“It would help,” my husband
Mike said, “if they would at least be cordial once you reached
the counter after such a long wait. That’s why,” he
continued, “ I like going to the post office in Walnut.
There’s no line, and the lady who is the clerk there remembers
who I am and is nice to me,” he said, making reference to
the small post office in Walnut, Miss., one we sometimes visit
to mail packages on our way from Memphis to Corinth.
Waiting in line in at a big city
post office is indeed enough to make a person want to move to
a small town like Walnut. Or like Chewalla, Tenn. My friend Delise,
whose grandmother still lives in Chewalla, told me about how
the post office there continues to operate, despite its scant
number of postal patrons, estimated to be in the low 20s. One
disadvantage, however, is that it is only open from 8:00 a.m.
until noon each day, but I bet one thing: there is no waiting
in line.
(Stacy Jones, a Southerner,
is a Master of Fine Arts student in fiction writing at The University
of Memphis. She is a native of Guys, Tenn., and her columns,
which appear on Sundays, are archived at Southern-Drawl.com.) |
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