Work is an excuse to do things that people can say "yes, but that's technically theft" about. Whole days can be spent:
1. Emailing on company time
2. Looking at the internet on company time
3. Acquiring stationery for 'working from home' (inc. whole fax machines)
4. Sending faxes to your bank
5. Posting things
6. Sending things by courier
7. Stealing biscuits from meetings and putting them in your pocket
8. Photocopying things randomly and without real purpose
9. Scanning things and emailing them to people who don't really want them.
Not Working is desperately inconvenient in many ways. Not only do I have to do my own filing, answer my own telephone, organise my own 'meetings' and do my own work, but I am constantly thwarted by not having the correct size transparent plastic folder, large bulldog clips, parcel tape, envelopes, a scanner and a photocopier. My printer doesn't work, and if my computer breaks I am what is technically known as "fucked".
However, help is at hand in the tiny shape of my Local Postmaster. He is very small, and peeps over the counter from behind reinforced glass. Sometimes his Dad helps him (he has glasses), and his wife is very grumpy. ("Seeta! Come and help me please! We are busy!" "NO. I am eating." A door slams.)
The last three remaining Post Offices in Britain are often rather skanky affairs. You have your Big Post Office, which is run by the Post Office and is full of envelopes of various sizes (apart from the one you actually need), balls of string, glitter glue, commemorative stamps and impenetrable leaflets about Weird Things That I Will Never Need. There are Many Tills with flashing numbers, often occupied by people who are trying to renew their Road Tax Disc but have forgotten the right paperwork and are Shouting (i.e., me).
Apparently out of London there are little Post Offices that also sell jam and are owned by rosy-cheeked ladies who know everyone's name and read everyone's post. There are also Local London Post Offices, usually part of a dark and sinister Corner Shop, run by strange people with swivelling eyes. And then there is the Post Office on Elm Park.
It is tiny and clean. There is nothing in the shop apart from Christmas cards and some boxes on a very high shelf, too high for the Local Postmaster to reach (but I can). There is nothing in the shop because EVERYTHING is behind the glass with him, his Dad and his grumpy wife. I often think that if he opens the door, ten thousand envelopes will pour out, taking everyone in their wake. Passing a parcel to him is an exciting affair, for he opens his door Just Enough To Get The Parcel Through, then shuts it quickly and scurries back to his till shouting THANK YOU, THANK YOU, as if we cannot hear him. "No, Thank YOU!", I always say.
He is utterly charming, has very nice hair and has the patience of a saint. He is also a Comedy Genius. Or maybe he is not.
Episode One: In which I send a postcard to the Colonies
Me: Hello! How are you?
Him: Good, good! How can I help you today?
Me: I must send this postcard bearing a picture of the Queen's head to the Colonies.
Him: OK. On the scale now. OK. 50p.
Me: Bargain! Can I have an Air Mail sticker?
Him: There is no need!
Me: Why not?
Him: Well, it is not GOING BY BOAT! (Laughs at own joke for at least 10 seconds.)
Me: Oh! What a shame. I like Air Mail Stickers. They are Exciting.
Him: Oh, OK. Here you are. Have two.
Episode Two: In which I send a postcard to the Colonies (again)
Me: Hello!
He looks at the large and oddly-shaped postcard in my hand.
Him: Canada?
Me: Yes! You remembered!
Him: You have a friend there that likes postcards?
Me: Well, I hope he does.
Him: Me too! OK, 50p. Here is your special sticker!
He gives me an Air Mail Sticker.
Me: Hoorah! Thank you!
Him: Thank you!
Me: No. Thank YOU!
Episode Three: In which I attempt to send a parcel to the Colonies.
Much time passes. We discuss various methods of Postage, for the Parcel is too heavy to send in the post. It is over 2kg. I am given options.
Him: ... and then there is Express Special Parcel. Only £6, but no insurance.
Me: How long does it take to get there?
Him: Maybe within a month. Maybe not. Who can tell.
I choose a Sensible Option. The parcel is covered in three layers of customs declarations with made-up things and numbers on. They interfere with the animal stickers (with speech bubbles) that I have placed all over the parcel. He gives me the Actual Stamp Bit.
Me: It says £51!
Him: But is not £51. This is strange.
Me: Isn't it.
Him: No matter. The gorilla is good!
Me: Thank you!
Him: No. Thank YOU.
Episode 4 is yet to come. For I must visit the Tiny Local Postmaster and do some complicated photocopying, place the photocopies in an envelope and send them Recorded Delivery to some imbeciles in Scotland. I Very Much Fear he will think I Am In Love With Him, for I have been to the post office every day this week and, Royal Scottish Assurance willing, I will be there again tomorrow. Still, it passes the time. And he's awfully nice.
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15 comments:
Dear Monkey Lady you are good and funny and your post office adventures should be an on going thing and also I have met you so I know for a fact that you are also a dead nice person .. I would say more but people [mostly girls] tell me my flattery is futile so I shall stop.
Ace post.
Where is my thing you said you'd send me to read!!!
Is your post office near a betting shop?
I have this theory (based, admittedly, on the scant evidence of the post office over the road and along a bit and the one down the road from where I lived before) that betting shops deliberately place themselves in close proximity to post offices, in parasitic fashion, the better to immediately relieve the poor of their benefit money. Keep an eye out.
laughmare on Elm st. muy muy droll!
we had one of those. they shut down his post office. now he sells funny stationery and cheap ladies tights
Darling Andre, how very nice to hear from you. I may need to Send More Biscuits. I am a bit Horrified the Things of which I Spoke as they seem a bit gauche now and I seem to have lost half of them. Anyway, I shall brace myself.
POST OFFICE UPDATE:
Put me coat on, got all my bits of paper, went to the Post Office. The Man Was At Lunch, but waved before he went and said "how are YOU today?" like I am his best friend. I did my photocopying (excellent clear instructions, including drawings of all the buttons with "this one" and an arrow to show what he meant), and put it all in an envelope, and counted things and checked and that, and then gave it to Grumpy Wife who, may I say, was Utterly Charming and shouted "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!" when I tried to put my own stickers on. She did it for me and talked a little of Post Office Employess and their Bar Code Fascism. It was excellent.
Dave - no it's not, but it is next to a fish and chip shop and a launderette.
Mikey - you can go there too. You live near dontcha? It's Grate.
Buttons - are they "Honeymoon" brand, and slightly dusty? The tights, I mean.
I mean employees.
them's the ones!!
i was most upset when they were raided at gunpoint. poor little post office folk
Elm Park! - I knew you were going to say Elm Park Post Office, I guessed it from the grumpy wife bit. I used to go there too, back in my living in Leander Road/living in Brading Road days.
Ahhh. The memories.
The joy.
The queueing up.
The quality selection of cards...
Thank fuck I moved to Brighton
Are those tights for cheap ladies in American Tan?
That makes four.
MM-American Tan? I didn't notice that Americans tan differently from the English! Is it like tea where if they add the word English all of a sudden it is much better?
NWM-you absolutely do not post too much so please do not decrease the amount you add to the blog.
I wish I lived near you, for my Post Office is manned by Surly Automatons, whose existence depends on making the lives of customers more difficult.
Or maybe they just don't like me. Hard to tell.
Lucy - are there better cards in Brighton? Me, I make my own from old paper and string, for I Have Nothing Else To Do.
Jonny - arsebiscuits, don't you bloody start
Tracy - With that hair, no-one could fail to love you.
MM/Martina - Is American Tan the colour of the tan you get in Florida if you are 80, then transferred by the miracle of nylon to English ladies' legs?
NWM/Martina - that special Florida tan is less lurid. American Tan is as if you sat in a bath of English Tea until it dyed your legs orange.
There was also a colour called Sable, which was like dead mushroom juice spread on your legs.
I always thought Honeymoon should be re-branded as Divorce, or Imminent Separation, at least.
MM-I must disagree. The English tea tan you refer to is the one American women used to get using Coppertone QT. Sable-PERFECT description-shitaaki no doubt.
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