Something's Come Between Us: the Bulletproof Fishtank of Customer Service

There are two places I go regularly where the customer service is protected by a plexiglass fishtank.

Now, you'd think one of these would be the bank, right? The one place where we all expect to see Edward G. Robinson with a big cigar sticking out of his mouth, carrying an instrument case coincidentally the exact size of a Tommy gun, saying, "Button your lip and hand over da dough, Toots."

(And, yes, I do live in a 1940s Bugs Bunny episode. What's it to ya, rabbit?)

But around my area, the bank tellers are completely unhindered by bulletproof glass. They're out there in the open, handing out free lollipops... and toasters... and, well, ATM surcharges roughly equivalent to a semester of college tuition.

We could shake their hands for a job well done or clock 'em with the toaster for all the user fees. Our choice, really.

But nope, in my area, the two places where you have to actually mime all your needs through inches of transparent wall is...

The doctor's office and the post office.

I get the doctor's office. I do. It's so we, the public, do not transfer our cooties to the people who take our copayments and confirm that we haven't actually moved homes in the last five seconds. Potential Cootie Intraperson Route Detouring, they call it.

But there's a certain amount of irony that in the place where human interaction is so important, all the people who work there are preserved in Tupperware. You've come in with a sore throat and you can't just talk to the person. You've got to shout into an empty soup can and use semaphore for what doesn't translate.

What I think would be really cool would be to have it like a drive-through fast food restaurant, with some kind of fiberglass clown in scrubs you have to shout into its neck.

I mean, think how much more fun it would be if, instead of coming into the office and whipping out your semaphore flags--

"I... have.... a... ten... thirty.... appointment.... And.... Continental... Flight.... 207... from... Albuquerque... is... coming... in.... for.... a.... landing...at... gate... B... 12"

--You could just feed your insurance card into Doctor McFeelgoode's upper GI tract and call out what you need into his clavicle?

"Hi, I have a ten thirty appointment and I'd like a McFeelgoode penicillin shake and some antibiotifries-- stat!"

Now, as for the post office, I find the bulletproof glass there a little strange. I mean, what exactly are they worried about?

To protect the post office workers in case there's a holdup for Forever Stamps and the annual Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes entries?--

"Ed McMahon says this one could already be a winner. And I just know a dead guy wouldn't lie to me!"

Or maybe it's because of really dumb criminals looking to have their Wanted posters taken down so no one can ever identify them...

"You, mailman, you rip down that poster back there that looks like me and.... Oh."

The guy with the gun smiles sheepishly.

"Heh. Heh. No, That's my, er, identical twin brother... Er... Cheese-it, boys, it's the coppers!"

But, y'know, the plexiglass doesn't exactly make things easy, when you have something you actually need to get from the teller. I mean, you get your package by sliding your package slip into this slot—

"Two adult ride-all-day passes, please?... No? Oh, well, how about my box from Amazon then."

--And then CA-CHUNK! The tray shoots out and they take your slip and disappear into a backroom for a few days.

In that back room is where everything that ever went missing is stored. Like that sock that disappeared from your dryer last week, that's there.

And your cell phone which you thought your dog had hidden under the couch two years ago but which you still couldn't find when you actually moved the sofa, even though you found your sunglasses, 14 dollars in pennies, and a small box of Cheerios, that's there, too.

So they take your slip and compare it to all the missing socks of everyone in your neighborhood, and the cell phones, too, and they walk about 30 miles round trip until they eventually find the serial number that matches your package.

So I think the last reason that plexiglass is between you and post office personnel is so you aren't tempted to leap over the counter, rush into the backroom to the employees' aid, only to be never seen again.

"I'm going in. If you don't hear from me in two hours, send out the troops."

It's tricky back there, unless you have GPS or breadcrumbs. And the Post Office, as a government agency, doesn't want any liability for your safety.

And I can see where that might be of issue. So if you do decide to try it, just make sure you're catalogued with a serial number first.

Oh, while you're back there, if you happen to see one black and white stripey sock? That's mine. Write me up a package slip and I'll come get it.

I'll just need to remember my semaphore flags.

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P.O. also Stands for Post Office

In the play "Waiting for Godot," two characters wait for a third dude, named Godot, who's still a no-show by the end of the play. In college, they told us this was an existentialist metaphor for God... But I now think it was a reference to dealing with my local Post Office.

You see, Saturday, I had a package to pick up. A little pink slip tacked to my door indicating I had to sign for the thing in person. So, okay-- I'd pick it up after work right?

Nope! That branch of the Post Office closes at 4 pm. And I leave work at 5.

Well, that's all right, I figured. I'm flexible. Before work then?

In print so small dust-mites would need high-powered reading glasses just to see it, the slip said packages could only be picked up after 10am.

Righty, then! So Saturdays.... How 'bout Saturdays?

Well, on Saturdays, it told me, I could pick up the package between the convenient hours of 10:00 am and 10:07 am...

Oops, I'm sorry-- "10am to noon."

But honestly-- as far as windows of opportunity go, that window is about equivalent to the side vent on a MicroMachines Mini Cooper. Driven by the dust mite with the high-powered reading glasses.

Now, this past Saturday, I had a hair appointment at... 10:30am. Yeppers, smack dab in the middle of the Lilliputian Window of Opportunity!

So with no other recourse, I went to the Post Office at 9:30am with my package slip in hand and hope in my heart.

There was one teller open, and I was the fifth person in line. There was:

• A tall thin man with a goatee in front of me....
  
• A woman with dreds in front of him...
  
• A large, hairy spectacled man with a South Park t-shirt and carrying a tower of packages, who was in front of her...
  
• And an elderly woman who was first in line.

The elderly woman, she wanted a Money Order. She'd never purchased one before and wasn't quite sure what it entailed, or really, if this was even what she wanted. She might have wanted a wire transfer. Or a Siberian husky. Or a cafe latte no milk.

She and the teller discussed this with the sort of detailed analysis you'd find in a university coffeehouse after a poetic reading. The nuances, the details... rehashed and reexamined. I was reminding myself how I once didn't know how to fill out a Money Order, either, and that this woman was probably someone's beloved grandma, and that patience is a virtue.

"Oh, dear," she exclaimed, rummaging through her purse. "You know, I don't have any cash on me. Do you take checks?"

Grandma... beloved grandma... I chanted to myself.

So she started rooting around for her checkbook. "Who do I make this out to?" She had to find a pen now.

The guy with the goatee-- seeing some time to kill-- started talking to the lady with the dreds. He indicated he was there because he was a victim of identity theft and somebody had been forwarding his mail to an unknown, unauthorized place.

The woman in the dreds, in turn, said she was there because she'd sent a package which never arrived which she needed to trace.

Both of these issues didn't sound exactly easily resolved.

Grandma, meanwhile, was making out the check, when the teller said they'd need her ID. Which, of course, required more rooting in her purse. I zoned out for five minutes and looked back and she was still writing that check.

Grandma... beloved, dear old grandma.... I kept telling myself.

Finally, finally Grandma was on her way, and the hairy South Park guy was up.

Package after package was being processed with the kind of individualized attention airport cavity searches receive. I looked at my watch and saw ten minutes had passed. The line was now out the door.

Meanwhile, the woman in the dreds had gotten in and out of line about three times so far. She was filling out forms and getting back to the head of the line. Filling out other forms and getting back in line. Talking to someone in the back mailroom who was afraid to come face us, and then getting back to the front of the line.

I was wondering if I died whether anybody would notice, or they'd just dust off the cobwebs.

Once the South Park guy had officially mailed a package to everyone on Ebay-- and gotten cash back via a Debit transaction-- the lady in the dreds was finally up. She needed to trace her package. And no, she didn't have her receipt.

"Well, I'd left it in the car and my husband ripped it up and threw it out," she said.

"So you don't have a tracking number?"

"No."

"But you want to trace your package?"

"Yes."

And the clerk sent her to go fill out some more forms. I looked at my watch. I had ten minutes.

The goatteed man was trying to figure out where his mail had gone. "I was in Florida, and while I was away someone else came in and got my mail sent to another address. I want to know how that happened."

"It was you," the teller said.

"It wasn't me, I was in Florida. Wouldn't I know if I had changed the address on my mail?"

"Well, then you have a twin! Because it was you who changed the address."

This conversation made the lady cowering in back actually decide to join us. Waiting on customers who were now lined up around the block wasn't apparently as much of a priority as giving witness testimony. "Oh, it was definitely you!" she proclaimed. "If it wasn't, well, he looked just like you."

"I was on a trip!" the man reiterated.

"But, see, I remember you saying something about going on a trip soon," insisted the woman from the back.

This was about the time Rod Serling came in.

Now, you're probably wondering whether I ever made it out of there in time. And the answer is, yes, in fact, I did-- by sheer luck alone.

But the fact remains:

Somewhere out there, a package is being traced with no tracking number... Dopplegangers are out there changing forwarding addresses willy-nilly... And how much do you want to bet, there are people from Saturday still waiting in that line?

Godot has nothing on the US Postal Service.

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