I used to run a small team, and one of them was a notorious f***-up.

Me: “[Employee], I need you to go to the post office and send off some important documents, tracking and classified post, next-day delivery.”

He came back after a while and reported that all was good.

There was a frantic phone call the next day asking where the documents were, so I went to see the employee.

Employee: “It’s all good. I posted them fine. It must be a post issue.”

Me: “Explain to me every step of what you did.”

Employee: “I bought a stamp, licked my thumb, touched the stamp with my thumb, and then posted the letter.”

The employee, thinking he was done, put his hands in his pockets (one of his habits) and started to walk away. Then, he felt something in his pocket and pulled it out. It was the stamp.

Me: “Why is that there?”

Employee: “Uh… hmm. I suppose stamps are sticky, so it must have gotten stuck to my thumb when I put my hands in my pocket.”

Me: “Did you just… hallucinate the stamp actually being on the envelope?!”

Employee: “I… didn’t realise.”

Me: “Hold on, why did you buy a stamp? You shouldn’t have even bought a stamp; classified post is handled by the cashier.”

Employee: “Oh, yeah, what is classified post?”

Me: “So, now these time-sensitive and important documents are just sitting at the post office, no stamp and no tracking?”

Employee: “Uh… maybe?”

After several incidents like this, he was eventually let go. It became a running joke in the office after that, that when someone did something stupid, we’d say, “You’re so dumb you couldn’t lick a stamp.”

I was working at the postal station from Hell, and I had a piece of rolling equipment get caught on a piece of broken tile and pop up onto my toe, shattering the toenail. I was lucky not to have a broken toe from it, too. So, I’m on “light duty” now, which means I have to work the service window where people come to pick up packages and signature-required mail, fill out change of address/hold mail forms, and stuff like that.

Remember: I have a foot injury. This means that getting around is NOT easy for me.

A customer comes in about an hour before closing and hands over two “Pick up your mail” forms for certified letters. Y’all probably don’t realize this, but in big-city facilities, we don’t have your certified mail sitting in a gold case all by itself, with postal workers staring wistfully at it wondering when we’ll see you. No, we have your mail sorted out by the last number of your street address in trays with HUNDREDS of other certified letters just like yours. This means it can take quite a while to find your mail when you finally drag your butt in to pick it up.

So, I go looking for these two letters. It is a recent enough thing that I check the stand-up cubby we have for the “latest” pickups. Ugh. Not there. So, I hobble to the longer-term storage area, about ten feet from the door. I finally find both letters and go back to the window.

Customer: “I want to talk to the postmaster! You took three minutes to get my mail. That’s unacceptable!”

I try to convince him to let me get the party more likely to be on the premises to handle his complaint (a supervisor), but nope, he’s adamant about speaking to the postmaster. Hint, people: the later in the day it is, the LESS likely it is that the postmaster will be there.

But okay. You want the postmaster? You get the postmaster.

Me: *Smiling* “Sure. I’ll go get him now.”

And I shut the Dutch door.

With his mail still in my hand.

You thought three minutes was a long wait? Ha! You just activated a union worker trap card, bub!

Now, I do go to the postmaster’s office first, but as usual, he isn’t in there. Still, I make a good-faith effort to look there. I don’t see him on the floor, either, so I check the dock — conveniently getting in a smoke while I am out there — nasty former habit. I checked the breakroom (and drink a soda while I am there). I knock on the men’s room door. No answer. Oops. That soda just worked its way through me — need to use the ladies’ now.

I am about to check the parking lot to see if the postmaster’s car is even here… Oh, look. There’s the postmaster, coming back from an offsite meeting. I take the time to bring him up to speed on the customer’s complaint. This guy knows me, and he smiles.

Postmaster: “How long have you kept him waiting now?”

Me: “I think it’s been twenty, twenty-five minutes. You can deal with him while I handle the paperwork.”

Postmaster: “This will be fun. You’re lucky I like you because you’re a hard worker, though.”

The customer was absolutely livid when the door finally opened again. He demanded that I be fired, right then and there — as if that’s how it works in a union job. My boss, to his credit, chewed out the customer for being such a jerk to an injured employee who had actually done a great job in taking only three minutes to find two letters amongst hundreds, in two separate locations. He even took one of the trays over to the ledge, slammed it down, and said, “See how long it would take YOU to go through this to find not one but two letters, and then tell me three minutes is too long!”

Lesson to be learned: union workers don’t have to take crap off of dirtbags, and we won’t, so spare yourself a whole lotta grief and chill the eff out. It’s only mail, for crying out loud!

I work in a post office in Italy. An old American lady came in at the last minute today and was… very odd. Some things about the interaction made me very puzzled.

She came in carrying an enormous bag that severely limited her movements. When she tried to reach for a document she had on her person, she spent something like two minutes trying to retrieve it, and I honestly have no idea where she pulled it from.

She had to send this document, a birth certificate. She was extremely protective of it and basically was wary of everything I did regarding this document. She had an envelope with her, for instance, and she wanted to protect it at any cost — despite the envelope being put in our own [Company] envelope. She wanted to write the address on the envelope, even though that was useless, since the envelope was inside ours.

Also, the envelope had one of those weird sides that you have to wet to make sticky, and she asked us if we had a sponge to do that, as if we were in a 1960s post office. When I denied that, she licked her finger, smeared her spit on the side of the envelope, and sealed it. She then asked us to seal the envelope even further with scotch tape. When I pulled out the normal tape, she insisted that I use the wide one — the one we use for cardboard. Again, this was all useless.

Me: “Okay, that should take three business days to ship.”

Customer: *Puzzled* “What? It was possible to send documents in one day twenty years ago!’

I suggested that maybe 9/11 had changed the protocols, and she grudgingly agreed.

She became alarmed when she saw that I had labeled the contents of the shipment, “Documents – general business”.

Customer: “No! No one must know that these are business documents!”

That label simply means that the documents are generic; even birthday cards would be labelled this way.

At the end of the shipment, we usually send the receipt with the tracking number to the email address and phone number provided by the shipper. I did this and told her I had done so. She grew pale.

Customer: “I wish you hadn’t done that yet. My phone has been stolen, and whoever has stolen it will be able to look at my data. I shall have to go to the Carabinieri [Italian army] and have the phone card locked.”

Me: “Don’t worry, there is just a notice of the shipment. The receipt proper is via email. The phone message only has a tracking number.”

Customer: “A tracking number?! Are you f****** stupid?! Now criminals will be able to steal my shipment!”

Now, that makes no sense. A tracking number only tells you what happened to a shipment. You cannot modify the shipment nor even know what is being shipped. Still, she said:

Customer: “How could you be so f****** stupid?! Now I have thrown away all the money I spent to get this birth certificate. I wish I had never come here!”

Me: “Next time, I advise you to exert some politeness.”

Customer: “It’s okay. It is not your fault.”

Me: “I guess it’s my bad genes.”

I was invited to a baby shower for a very good friend of mine, we’ve known each other since kindergarten, and she and her husband had been trying to have a baby for years. I was ecstatic to celebrate with her. 

And I forgot to bring the present with me. 

And I also forgot to bring the baby blanket I’d made to give her sister, who was hosting the party and pregnant too. 

The party was held two hours from my house, so I couldn’t exactly pop home and back. I had my husband send me a picture of the gift and showed it to my friend while she was opening the others. She was gracious and understanding and even joked that, as she was visiting for the baby shower from out of state, part of the present was that she didn’t have to pack it in her suitcase.

Shortly after I got home, I mailed the baby blanket to her sister, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope because I’d ALSO forgotten to fill out one of the cute little “advice for new parents” cards supplied at the party (I have no explanation for why I was so forgetful; it was just one of those days). The sister sent me some cards; my husband, kids, and I filled them out; I packed them up with the present and went back to the post office. 

I passed the package to the clerk, sighing that I needed to mail it because I’d forgotten to bring the baby shower gift to the baby shower.

The clerk gave me a sympathetic look and said:

Clerk: “Don’t feel bad! Just last week, we had a customer who’d done the same thing.”

I couldn’t do anything but laugh ruefully and admit:

Me: “That was me, too.”

I work customer service at a store where we ship off our products via FedEx.

Caller: “Where is my item?! I ordered it from you but all I got was a card from FedEx!”

Me: “What does the card say, ma’am?”

Caller: “That I need to call FedEx.”

Me: “Then I think maybe you should call FedEx.”

Caller: “Ugh! That’s not a solution!” *Click.*