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by Peggy Robin
My complaint of the week is about the Postal Service. I know, I know -- too
easy a target. But this complaint is about something that could easily be
fixed, and at practically no cost. Just putting up a paper sign would do
it. Let me explain:
Last Saturday I needed to send a small parcel to someone in
France. The object I was mailing was small, light, and fairly flat, but still too large
to fit into a standard size number 10 envelope. First I went to the USPS web
site and (after much rambling around from page to page) learned that anything over a quarter-inch in thickness is considered a
parcel and so cannot just be stamped and dropped into a mailbox; it has to be
mailed from a post office. The Cleveland Park Post Office closes at 1pm on
Saturdays, but the Friendship Post Office is open until 4pm. I arrived around
2pm to find the line for a clerk snaking around the mailing supplies island and
then curving out toward the door. So I took my place at the end, figuring I was
in for at least a twenty minute wait.
Off to the side, there was a second line, with just five customer in it,
waiting to use the self-service mailing center. I turned to the woman behind me
in line and wondered aloud, “Do you suppose I can mail this package to France
using the self-serve center?” She replied, “If you can’t, I can hold your place
for you, and you can get back in this line.” With the risk removed from a line
switch, I thanked her and took my chances at the end of the much shorter line.
For the first five or ten minutes, I worried that I’d made
the wrong bet, just on the observable progress of each line -- combined with my innate sense that the very act of switching lines somehow causes the chosen line to develop a bottleneck. The longer line sent
customers to any of four different postal clerks, and each seemed to be taking
care of customers at an efficient pace, and so the long line was advancing at a steady clip. The self-serve line, on the other hand, was going nowhere fast,
and I could see why. As each new customer came to the self-service station, he
or she had to use the computer touch screen to input the answers to a long
series of questions: How much does your package weigh? (There was a scale next
to the touchscreen to provide the answer.) What are its dimensions? (There was
a measuring stick to allow you to take measurements.) Does your package contain
any of a long list of problematic substances? Do you want insurance? For each
question the customer had to figure out, first, how to calculate the answer and
second, how to use the screen to enter the needed information. Making matters
worse, the touch screen was very slow to respond and move on to the next
question. It was taking about four or five minutes per customer, as I clocked
it, and so it took almost fifteen minutes for me to be one away from being
served.
At that point I could read the touch screen questions over
the shoulder of the woman who was currently using it. After she had weighed and
measured her package, she was asked about the destination of the package.
Domestic or international? Seeing that question reassured me that I would be
able to get my package stamped and complete the shipping in the self service line.
Clearly, the machine would not be programmed to ask if you wanted international
shipping if that wasn’t one of the services available…right? The woman ahead of
me chose domestic, and went on to select her shipping method. Three minutes
later she had dropped her stamped and insured parcel into the bin, and I was up
at bat.
First I entered the weight, 0 pounds, 2.7 ounces. Next I
confirmed that the dimensions of the box were within the maximums listed
on-screen . Now I came to the “Domestic or International” question. I touched the box marked “International” and
got the disheartening response that I must take my parcel to the postal clerk.
Now they tell me?!
At least I had the person behind me in the original line saving my
place…and as soon as she saw me heading back, she not only let me back in but
let the newcomers behind us know that I wasn’t a line-cutter . But immediately
upon rejoining the main line, I had an epiphany about my rejection from use of
the self-service mailing center: There must be a customs form required in this
case. I excused myself again from the line and went hunting for the form among
the mailing supplies and documents stored in the island in the center of room. Bingo!
I had just enough time left in line to fill in the name and address of the
recipient in France and describe the object inside the package. Then I was
ready to meet the clerk with everything in hand. In just a few seconds she
weighed it (0 pounds, 2.7 ounces, but I already knew that!) and told me the
maling options. First class mail cost me all of three dollars and fifteen
cents. I paid and left the Friendship
Post Office approximately half an hour after I had entered.
So here’s my question/complaint: Why not just stick up a
paper sign on the wall right next to the self-service mailing center that says,
“Domestic Mail Only”? That’s all it would take to keep the international
senders out of the wrong line.
While we’re on the subject of ways to improve the Postal
Service, why stop there? The self-service touch screens could be reprogrammed
to handle international parcels. There’s no reason that it should take a postal
clerk to process a customs form when the form could be filled out by touchscreen,
signed electronically, and printed out for the parcel. And why only one
self-service station? Why not four or five, served by a single line? Or better
still, why couldn’t I do the whole shebang from my home computer, printing out
a customs form, a mailing label, and postage, charged to my credit card? These
are just a few ideas that came to me while standing in that twenty-minute line.
I’m not sure there’s anyway to get any
of these ideas to come to pass, but at least coming up with them passed the
time that otherwise was completely wasted.
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Still Life With Robin is published on All Life Is Local and on the Cleveland Park Listserv on Fridays. Have any ideas about how to improve the US Postal Service? I welcome them below.
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