crazy lady at the post office
August 21st, 2009
The other day I stopped at the post office to mail two packages. They were birthday presents for my brother and Annalie’s playgroup friend Annie, and by some miracle only one of them was late. (Sorry Ben!)
Does your post office have an Automated Postal Center? Mine does, and I love it. It’s hardly ever being used so it makes my post-office trips much quicker. So as usual, I planned to use the APC to mail these two birthday packages.
When I went in, I saw there was one woman at the machine and about ten people in line for the counter. I still had to get a priority box for Annie’s presents and put all that together, which took me a few minutes. Just as I finished, the woman at the machine seemed to be finishing up, waiting for her receipt to print. I thought, Great timing, she’s done!
As she was taking her receipt, she turned and saw me standing there and said, “I still have all these left to do!” She gestured to a shoebox full of manila envelopes, probably about 15 of them.
I thought she was offering me the chance to go ahead of her, so I smiled and politely asked, “Would you mind if I mailed these two real quick? It’ll only take a minute!”
She scowled. “No! I told you, I still have all these left! I’ve been here ten minutes doing this already, I still have all these to do!”
Rather taken aback, I replied, “Uh…so you won’t let me mail these two things? It would literally take me one minute.” And it would have. I use that machine so often I don’t even have to read the questions. I automatically know which part of the screen to tap.
She snapped, “No, no! You may as well go away!”
Now, this woman was probably perfectly sane. She certainly looked normal, just your average dressed-for-comfort middle-class grandma. Maybe she was having a bad day, or maybe she didn’t like using computers and that was making her cranky. Perhaps she has a phobia about being watched. Whatever the reason, even though she’s probably not crazy, she was certainly acting crazy. Still, I made an effort to remain civil.
“Well, ma’am, I have to stand in line either here or over there. I can wait till you’re done, it’s no problem.”
She shot me a nasty look before turning around to resume her mailing. I waited for a few seconds, but when she glared at me over her shoulder and mumbled something under her breath, I thought, Maybe I’ll just take these over to the Postal Annex….
So that’s what I did. Luckily it’s right across the street from our post office. They don’t have a self-serve machine, but they have ample parking (our post office shares a tiny parking lot with the library and it’s always packed). What’s more, the people who work there are always very pleasant, and there are fun office and stationery supplies to browse through while you’re waiting in line—and I’ve never had to wait in line for more than a couple of minutes. It doesn’t cost any extra, whichever shipping service I use. Best of all, I’ve never once encountered a crazy person there.
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This reminds me of a time I ran into a crazy lady myself. We were looking at a house and considering it to buy. We were walking around the neighborhood and listening to traffic noise, dogs… A nice looking older lady was walking by, so I ask “Excuse me, do you happen to live on this block?” She looked at me very strangely and replied, “Why would you ask a question like that!?!” I’m thinking that we did not look very threatening as it was my husband and I and our two kids. So I simply replied, “We are considering buy this house” and jester to the house with the For Sale Sign. She walked away quickly saying me some terrible things and we really had to wonder what kind of paranoia she was suffering from. It was rather disturbing. Anyway, we did not buy that house (for other reasons besides the crazy lady walking down the street.)
I think the post office brings it out in people… isn’t that why it’s called “going postal”? ;)
I once got so fed up with one of those machines that I went to UPS instead, but I was trying to mail a quilt with insurance and the machine wasn’t giving me the right options… grrr. I usually love the machine, though.
I love using the machine! I don’t think I have ever been to any post office where someone was already using it. Now I’m afraid that if there’s ever someone already using the machine I won’t dare wait for it, for fear they’re afflicted with The Crazy.
THAT IS WHY PEOPLE GO POSTAL!!!
I hate going to the post office. Especially here in my home town (where we’re visiting). Thankfully I don’t have to! My goodness, if I had a heap of packages I DEFINITELY would let someone with TWO go ahead of me!! Especially if I was really slow and had no idea what I was doing! Yikes.
Also, they should get those self-serve machines in Canada. Seriously. I hate the post office.
or maybe she’s just a nasty old woman!
Craaaaaazy. Something about this story gives me such a chuckle. I don’t know why? Maybe because I’ve dealt with my fair share of CRAZY when I worked at Disneyland.
I’m glad you found a better place to do your postal business.
The nerve of some people! Crazy people are just another reason I despise going to the post office.
Oh no! I wonder if she was having trouble w/ the machine, and that was making her cranky? The other day I was doing the self checkout at evil Wal Mart, and some lady behind me was asking questions, and I couldn’t FOCUS on my pin number – I finally had to tell her to wait a minute, please! It was sooo frustrating, and I LIKE to help people. But anyway. Your lady was a little crazy, for sure. Going to the post office is always a crap shoot – could be good, could be bad!
I used to work at a local grocery store when I was 16. I was the cashier and a woman came up to me with a few items of fruit. I grabbed what looked to be a banana (it wasn’t a plantain, I don’t remember what it was but the grocery store I worked at carried alot of exotic fruit)and had to call produce to get a code to weigh and enter the price. This woman FLIPPED out on me, even calling me STUPID and when I calmly explained to her that I had to look up the code she stormed to customer service and told my manager that I was being RACIST. At this point I was crying and feeling completely embarrased.
I am Caucasian and she was East Indian (my manager was East Indian as well) and he laughed at her and said, “Please don’t upset my employees by acting ridiculous. Please leave my store.” He knew I was a good employee and DEFINATELY not racist. Thank goodness for great employers!
Some people need to get a grip!
An automated postal center? I’ve never seen one before. Wonder if it’s because our post office is so tiny. Or maybe it’s because I don’t go to the post office often (though I desperately need some 1 cent stamps and keep using two regular stamps to cover postage). Or maybe I just don’t pay attention. :)
And crazy rude woman, why in the world wouldn’t she let you go first? I dislike rude people so much.
OMSH! That was certainly a crazy acting lady you encountered.
Our post office is so tiny that they still use stamps to amount to whatever the postage is… If you ever get a package from me with a gazillion stamps, then you’d know I went to my local post office. LOL
Our APC is *always* out of order. Always. Always. Always. The last time I went in, someone had taped a mass card to it with a note that said, “It’s been more than three days – it’s not coming back!”
When she gave you that last glare over her shoulder would have been a great moment for you to poke her in the back of the knees.
We had a Crazy Lady experience at Walgreen’s yesterday. A grandma-like woman in line in front of us was buying bandaids. They scanned for $1.79 and she blurted out, “Nuh UH! Those are $1.50!!” The check-out girl asked her to wait a second while she went to check. She came back and politely told her, “They’re $1.79 each or two for $3.00.” The woman turned beet red and said, “Half of $3.00 is $1.50! Give it to me for $1.50!!” The poor check-out girl was trying to explain that you get a slight discount if you buy two, when Crazy Lady yelled, “WHATEVER!!” at the top of her lungs and stomped off (almost mowing a bug-eyed Sophie down in the process). I’m telling ‘ya, it’s a nutty world out there. :-0