Next Window Please
I went to the post office today. I met the slowest moving life form on the face of the planet.

Actually, I've seen him there before. When I go to the post office during lunch, I always find that there is only one post office employee working during that time, and often it is this particularly turtle-like employee faced with a long line of customers who are racing the clock to get back to their offices before the end of the lunch hour. This guy can't move even moderately fast. He talks slow, he walks slow, his movements are excruciatingly slow. If he wanders away from his station to look for a package in the back, you might as well set up camp in line for awhile because he's not coming back any time soon. He's painful to watch when I'm an anxious customer waiting in a long line to mail one tiny thing.

Now, it makes sense to me that lunch time would be a busy time of day at the post office, since this is a time convenient for people with jobs to stop by the post office during a lunch break. And I could be way off base here, but maybe it would also make sense that not all of the post office employees should take off for lunch during this time. Higher volume of customers would seem to equal the need for adequate numbers of staff to be present to handle the additional customers. Right?

So why do I always walk in to see just one lone employee behind of all those empty post office windows every time I go to the post office during lunch? I'm always greeted with a long line of counter spaces proudly displaying the 'next window please' sign, and only one available post office person there to help, way down on the end. 'Next window please' is just a polite way to say 'all postal employees have gone to lunch so that you have to waste your entire lunch hour waiting for us to get back from our lunch before anyone will help you.'

I'm not denying post office workers the right to have a lunch break. We all deserve our time for lunch. I'm just not clear on why the post office has to send all of the employees to lunch during business lunch hour, and leave the slowest moving and oldest living postal employee ever as the only one up front to help customers with their mailing needs. I'm not sure this guy is even real. He may be animatronic.

Truly, the post office may be the anti-christ. Because all I know is that for $.37 a stamp, I should be the one saying 'next window please.'

C.T.