Think it’s tough negotiating the line at the Post Office? You could be in Kiev:

Post offices here are NOT easy to navigate.  You can potentially stand in a line for HOURS, only to find you’ve been waiting in the wrong line…

This time we opted for a short line.  Jeanne explained what we were doing, the clerk smiled, pointed us to the next area (where the line was extremely long) where the package needed to be taped with their official tape.  Once the official tape was on, THEN come back to her.  Oh, and, by the way, the forms written in green would not be accepted…” 

Postal Adventures « The Heart of the Matter

That’s the only conclusion we can draw when a newspaper actually takes the time and effort to editorialize about this:

Postal Service should reinstate tickets for waits

According to an entry on the WindowBook blog, the Mailing & Fulfillment Service Association is looking for “examples of inconsistency” in mail verification and acceptance by the USPS. Specifically, the MFSA is looking for:

situations in which your DMU or BMEU has failed to correctly apply or perform the established mail verification and acceptance procedures (whether with MERLIN or other activities), failed to demonstrate awareness or understanding of the applicable standards and processes, or was inconsistent in applying or interpreting DMM standards, it’s important that you send me a detailed and specific report.

Need Your Input - Urgently! - DMU and BMEU Stories

It sounds like an item from the Lake Wobegon Herald Star: “Post offices dump ticket system in favor of stand-in-line system“. But it’s apparently for real- one of the “Top News” stories in the Yuma Sun actually reports on a postal service announcement that “from now on, customers should simply form a line when visiting the post office to ship a package or pick up some stamps”.

Prior to this, apparently, they’d been using one of those numbered ticket machines you see in delis or bakeries.

The postmaster seems excited but cautious about this daring innovation: “I haven’t heard any comments yet. It’s pretty fresh,” he said, adding that this is the local post office’s slowest season without the winter visitors. “Plus, it’s only August. October and November might be a truer test of the new and improved system. I think it’s going to be pretty dramatic in the winter months.”

Yuma- on the cutting edge!

And while we’re visiting jimmywayne22’s photostream, maybe someone could explain why we’re spending good money ’standardizing’ nice, homey, popular post offices in New Jersey when we have dumps like this in West Virginia?

Bartley, West Virginia 24813 on Flickr

An interesting story of a book gone astray in the postal service, which confirms a couple of things:

• delivery confirmation is essential
• the USPS is a really, really big place where stuff can get lost sometimes
• having to go through a voice recognition 800 number to reach a local post office is not a good idea, especially when it never actually connects you to a human being

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