Western Stampin' tiki

[tikistitch]

So, it being first of the month, this weekend was bill-payin' time at the ol' Rancho Tiki, wherein the residents thereof whip out checkbooks and render to Caesar what is Caesar's.

It being a typical day at the Rancho, there were, of course, no stamps to be had. So, tiki volunteered to stop by the U post office on the way to work.

Only to find: you can't buy stamps at the post office.

Admittedly, the university post office, though one of the largest in our vicinity, has fallen on hard times lately. Even during the peak periods, there are never more than two clerks available. Most recently, sad, handwritten signs have appeared, bewailing the lack of free sticky tape, which (so the signs attest) is the inevitable result of budget cuts.

But since this post office is also the residence of a large stamp vending machine, we had no intent of harrassing our mildly deranged postal workers this morning. That is, until we'd actually entered the building and noticed, to our surprise, the lack of said vending machine. We turned to the newer automated shipping center (the machine with the weighing scale, that will let you mail your own packages, as long as they are not too large, oddly shaped, or going to some suspicious foreign country). The monitor's default screen was up, and it apologized for it's current inability to dispense postage.

We looked at the area which still house live human postal workers, and noted the Soviet-era line (due to, as noted above, the limited availability of said postal clerks).

Did we miss something? Is this part of some new initiative to make government services even worse? Or perhaps it's the work of Homeland Security, convinced that if the terra-rists can't mail in their hot water bills, they will have to give up and slink home?

Comments

[avalonjones.livejournal.com]

When I lived in Columbus, the folks who worked at the post office I went to every day--all of whom were very nice, I must point out--spent a lot of time trying to convince me to use the automated shipping thingie. I never used it, however, because 1) I always shipped with Delivery Confirmation, which said machine can't handle, 2) I prefer talking to a real person, 3) almost every single day, said machine was "down" and had several techs hovering over it trying to get it to work.

But they did have stamp vending machines there too. How odd that you can't buy stamps at a post office. Maybe you should go to a grocery store...?

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I ended up getting a book o' stamps at a bank machine. Maybe now the post office is the place to go for a new checkbook?

Seems like they thought they were really clever, setting up the automated post office thingie, but then immediately freaked 'cause the terra-rists could possibly use it, because they've slowly started taking away things it can do.

[avalonjones.livejournal.com]

I always wondered about the HUUUGE banner slung above the front entrance to the above-mentioned post office: GET YOUR U.S. PASSPORT HERE!!! Maybe they should add an asterisk: "Unless you're a turrirrist!"

[sinderellah.livejournal.com]

What I find difficult when I'm in the States is those darn vending machines! I have no idea which ones I need to send postcards, etc. If there is no vending machine, you have to find the Official Post Office which can prove to be difficult as well.

I like going to 7-11 and having a post office in there. ;) That way I can get a slurpee when mailing stuff.

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

We used to have the greatest little private post office nearby when we lived near the U. But, it got bought out by UPS, and they fired all the nice people and replaced them with crankies.

[mmymoon.livejournal.com]

You know, our region must just ROCK... we have live postal workers all over the place? Of course, we also have those nifty one-man (or one-woman) "We sure live in the middle of nowhere, here's a post office stuck onto a gas station for every little town-let" style offices. And they love to chat about/sell you stamps, particularly the cutesy seasonal ones.

Cory says it's probably budget cuts; the carriers are a separate system, but intertwined.