Post Office Adventures II

I previously wrote about The Coming Inevitable Death of the United States Postal Service.  Today, just for grins, I went back began during business hours to the post office where this adventure, to try to get my refund.

The guy at the counter looked at my receipt and said "You can't get a cash refund."  No problem, I said, a credit card refund is fine.  "No, we can only give you stamps."  But I don't need stamps, I explained.  The guy didn't seem to understand or care what I wanted, he had been trained "We Only Give Stamps," and there was no shaking his determined belief that this was his mission in life.  He said that I wasn't listening to him or that I didn't understand.  I pointed out that I understood the words he was saying, but that it made no sense.  He was amazingly arrogant about it, and treated me like I was profoundly stupid.  He also said, "How long ago was this anyway?  This was back in OCTOBER?"  (I refrained from screaming "DUDE!  IT IS ONLY  NOVEMBER SECOND!")  I asked to talk with a manager.

The manager arrived a few minutes later and said, "Well, he knows this better than I do," in reference to the original counter worker.  The manager suggested I could talk to the Customer Service line if I wanted, and I pointed out that I had talked with them, and they had said I MUST return to the original post office for a refund.  He said "Well, the money is gone.  When you pay into the APC it goes into their account.  It doesn't go into my account."  Again, he just didn't seem clear on the idea that I, as a customer, view the USPS as a monolithic organization, and furthermore, I don't care about their internal accounting procedures.

The manager said he would "talk to somebody," and disappeared into the back, while I was asked to move out of the way at the counter so they could serve other customers.  About 8 minutes later he came back, shaking his head, and saying "product only.  We can't give you a refund."

At this point, I didn't want to waste any more time on the experiment, so I said, "Fine.  I'll take stamps."  The manager directed me back to the original guy who had been so helpful.  "You'll have to fill out the refund form," he said.  Wow...  I proceeded to do the worst job on any piece of government paperwork I have ever done, and he gave me $4.95 worth of stamps.  I just hope I can use them before the post office goes out of business.

I now firmly believe that the USPS should be abolished.  Better yet, everyone that works there should be fired, and the entire organization should be re-staffed starting with hiring managers from FedEx.  Given the current unemployment levels, I'm sure there are plenty of people who would do an excellent job, after a few days of training about the value of (and need for) customers.