Post Offices

I've been in work today, and let me tell you it was a welcome break to get out of the office at lunch time to run an errand for Phil, ie. shoot down to the post office to send a parcel to his sister recorded delivery.

I'll complain about work in a moment, but first let me get another one of those British idiosyncrasies off my chest. Post Offices, like marmite, you either love them or hate them. Some days you can go to the post office and there is no one waiting other than you and you end up being confronted by a barrage of counter staff waiting to serve you. They are polite, but succinct and get what ever it is you need doing done quickly and efficiently. Other days however (like today) you end up queuing behind 20 people (the majority of which are old), there are only 2 counter staff on and they seem to be in a different time dimension to everyone else. A blissful almost utopia like place whereby some magical wonder all images of frustrated people and indeed, the necessity to work have been removed and replaced by fluffy clouds and pina coladas.

So I wait and wait and wait, in fact about 20 minutes of waiting of later and finally the queue starts to move after a seemingly endless conversation about the weather, the council and the general meaningless existence that one particular old lady decided she needed to share with one of the only two counter staff working. Ok, so she may well be old and lonely, but really, surely if the staff member had a modicum of professional conduct she could have handled the situation with a bit of courtesy, got the job done and thus ending the conversation and the dull ache in my feet which was now occurring due to standing in the same spot for 20 minutes and thereby risking a thrombosis of the leg.

I finally get back to work, though I don't know why I went back. I don't think I'm happy working there, it doesn't seem to matter what I do its never good enough. And ultimately I'm being paid a pittance to endure something I don't enjoy. I'd much rather be paid in peanuts and actually get some kind of job satisfaction. The New Year is always a good time to start afresh, and consequently I may well just do that.

We have fish and chips for tea which was very nice - but I was slightly marred by the fact that our favourite chippy didn't have any curry sauce to go with my chicken and chips. So we stopped at a different one to get some, ate tea and went to bed (after breaking our new keyboard slightly more than it was broken before).

And so endeth today.

Posted by Abi on the November 30, 2005 9:04 PM

DanS at December 2, 2005 5:51 PM