Is this a universal experience?

Today I went to the post office to mail something internationally. So I get there, wait in line for a half an hour, and get up to the front of the line to discover that I didn't fill out the customs form correctly. The line behind me sighed in unison! The postal worker was mean and nasty and there only appeared to be two people actually WORKING.

Is the post office like this everywhere or is it just in the states?

No - they're usually very helpfull here! You sometimes have to wait a bit, particularly at busy times of the year, but they go out of their way to help you out, so you don't mind the wait so much.

Why do they have a half dozen service areas at the counter but only staff one?

At Christmas?

Its like that everywhere my dear

I think it's everywhere!! I feel like such an idiot whenever I go mail something and I'm not quite sure just how to send it.

Everytime I've gone into the Post office, its been empty or one person ahead of me.. and they have always been helpful to me.

Maybe I'm just lucky.

Always HUGe lines here and very slow-moving rude workers at the counter



I hate going to the post office these days!

I try to avoid the post office. The one in my town takes an hour and a half lunch break. The one in the next town over usually only has about one person working, and of course when I had to ship something international last time (which I usually don't do) I made a huge long from all the forms I had to fill out. She wasn't rude, just disinterested

My one PO that we go to most of the time is really nice though understaffed as always. But I went to another one and the lady was an absolute jerk to me.. SHE didn't know how to ring up the package I had and I had to tell her how to find the right buttons to do it. Then the next time she did it wrong and sent it as the wrong thing! Dork! We mail out a lot so we are very proficient with the methods and what not, but that lady was a compete dweeb!

there's been times where I didn't have to wait but the staff was still rude, they are always rude!!! and condescending and I HATE that

dont know where you are sending it to,
But i have found sending fedex or ups is much better then normal postoffice, for overseas shipping and i have found less stuff missing, once it gets there.

Originally Posted by gemlady

Why do they have a half dozen service areas at the counter but only staff one?

Click to expand...

Or, conversely, why do they have half a dozen service people standing around, but only one helping?

I rarely go to the main post office here. I go to the small one that is near me located inside a Shopper's Drug Mart pharmacy.

There is one person behind the counter, and sometimes the line is 5 or 6 people long, but not usually. And the girl that is usually behind the counter is very nice.

They are really nice here too.Maybe you just caught someone on a bad day for them?!

It all sounds normal to me, except the nasty postal workers.
We have very nice postal workers, including our mailman, who gave us a new flag as a X-mas gift last year, he's a sweet old guy.

UHHHH! The same thing happened to me recently when I got my hair cut and took it to the post office to donate to locks of love. I was soo annoyed! I had put the hair they cut into an envelope then waited in line almost an hour because they had 2 people working- going slow as all get out mind you- and by the time i got up there they told me i needed to put it in a bubble wrap envelope then mail it- i asked if i could go get it real quick (remember i had been waiting over an hour) and this heifer of a lady was like "NO! You have to go get it and get back in line" I had the biggest urge to tell her to well....i'll leave that to your imagination / So after waiting almost an hour and 45 minutes...i finally got the darn donation mailed. I was soo annoyed- there i was trying to do something nice and those heifers were total deamons! Next time I will use FexEX or UPS! I have never been treated rudly by them! USPS is a nightmare to deal with.

The post offices in the city are like that but the ones in the country are a bit more friendly and less crowded.

Always HUGe lines here and very slow-moving rude workers at the counter!

Having lived in both the U.S. and Canada, definitely Canadian postal workers are more laid-back and relaxed. They also don't deliver mail on Saturdays and won't pick up your stamped letter from your mailbox.

I don't know if it's just Victoria or our street, but our postal carriers only come around three times a week or so. And if there's a Monday or Friday holiday, or inclement weather, don't look for them at all that week. I lived here for over two years before I saw mail delivered on a Friday. I honestly thought it wasn't delivered on Fridays.

They are friendlier at the Canada Postal Outlets, but seems to me there's a trade-off.

Post offices just suck in general. They never seem to want to work fast no matter how many people there are in line, and they get so annoyed when you've filled something in wrong.

There's various customs forms (we often ship back to Australia), and I'm never sure which to send - I think it depends on the value of the package and whether you want it express or not, so I just fill in all the customs forms and let them take whatever they need...

Around here, if you fill out the wrong form, they send you away to fill in the right form, but they tell you go back to the front of the queue when you're done, so that's something...