An old man is in the post office ahead of me in line.

Old Guy: “When is postage supposed to go up?”

Clerk: “There will be notices posted right before that happens.”

Old Guy: “Okay.” *Leaves*

Me: *Thinking* “Geez, why doesn’t he just use email like everyone else?”

Now, it’s my turn.

Me: “I need a form to track a lost package.”

Clerk: “We don’t have forms here. You have to go to our website and download one.”

Sometimes I can’t believe these people are real.

Me: “Hello, this is [My Name]. How can I help you?”

Customer: “You can tell me why my parcel isn’t at my front door! It was a Christmas present for my son that I ordered before Christmas, and [Discount Retailer] promised me that the parcel would be here today. And they’re very pissed at you guys and are going to press charges.”

Me: “Well, we’re not beholden to a delivery date that a third-party company gives you. Do you have a tracking number so I can check where the parcel is for you?”

Customer: “No, I haven’t gotten it from them yet.”

Me: “Okay, can I get your address?”

Customer: “Yeah, it’s [address].”

I go use another piece of software to find the tracking for the parcel.

Me: “Okay, I’ve got the tracking number here and I can see that we’ve only received the manifest from the sender today and haven’t actually physically received your parcel, so you’re looking at an estimated delivery date of three business days from now.”

Customer: “[Discount Retailer] is going to press charges against you guys because, in their terms, if the parcel doesn’t arrive on the day they say, then they have to give me a refund.”

Me: “Okay, well, you can go tell [Discount Retailer] to call us and they can certainly try to press charges against us.”

Customer: “Well, if you’re going to be like that, I’ll also press charges cause you’re f****** with my son’s Christmas present. I sued the state government because I got cancer working for them.”

He then goes on an expletive-laden rant.

Me: “If you continue to be abusive, I’ll hang up on you.”

Customer: “Hang up, then!”

Me: “Thank you, bye.”

He never called back, so I guess he must be speaking to a lawyer.

I’m waiting in line to mail out a package. There’s a family of five ahead of me with three boys aged between eight and sixteen getting passports made. After the pictures are taken and the postmaster is printing off the booklet, there’s a buzzing sound and I hear the following conversation.

Youngest Son: “Mom, what’s that noise?”

Mom: “That’s dial-up Internet — a sound none of you will appreciate.”

Oldest Son: “So that’s what that sounds like?!”

It’s two years after I arrived in the USA, and I am fourteen or fifteen years old — a sophomore in high school — so I’m still trying to adapt myself to the new country. One of the issues that I’m facing is understanding places and locations. There’s no such thing as navigation apps yet, only maps you have to print and carry with you everywhere, and I have no cellphone yet.

My high school has a program called Career Development Day, which is for students to go to the location designated by the school and to shadow employees there so the students can write a report of what they’ve learned about specific careers.

I didn’t go to this school for my freshman grade, so I don’t know what Career Development is. However, I am a very shy kid, being new in the USA and all, so I don’t ask too many questions and just go along with it. When I receive my roster for the year, I receive the address for my Career Development location for the year, as well. I enter the address into MapQuest and print it out, and I don’t realize I’ve transposed two of the numbers.

On the first day of my Career Development Day of the year, as expected, I go to the wrong address, which is a USPS warehouse. When I go into the facility, I am so confused and so are the rest of the staff there. I don’t see any other students and my teacher isn’t there, either. I try to explain with my sort of broken English that I’m here for Career Development Day and show the logo of my school on my uniform, and I’m extremely nervous. I think they understand what I’m trying to say because the next minute, I am put to work. It’s super easy, just sorting mail, very mundane work.

Career Development Day is supposed to last half a day, from 9:00 am to 12:30 pm, and then we go home. I start at 8:00 am and sheepishly tell the staff that my school dismissal time is 2:30 pm. They are really nice, buy me lunch and drinks, and tell me that I am a good helper. Also, they write a letter talking about what I have done the entire time I’ve been there and give it to me so I can show it to my teacher.

The next day, I am called to see the Career Development teacher. Turns out, I was marked absent for the first day since I didn’t show up, and nobody called the school to find out where I was. The funny thing is, the school didn’t contact my parents to find out where I was, either. I show the teacher the letter I received from the USPS staff and, after reading it, my teacher laughs until tears come out of her eyes. I am very embarrassed, but at least the teacher understands, forgives me, and removes my absence. She also points out that I was at the wrong address and prints me the real directions.

I work in a USPS CPU. This means we mainly only ship things out, but we also sell stamps. An elderly lady walks in and looks at the stamps we have on the door.

Me: “Looking to buy some stamps?”

Customer: “Yes, I want to get stamps I don’t already have.”

Me: “Okay, well, everything we have is up on the door.”

Customer: “How long have all of these been up?”

Me: “Most of them we have had for a month or two already.”

We have Chien Shiung Wu stamps. She was a Chinese nuclear physicist. We also have August Wilson stamps for Black Heritage. These two are normally not as popular, so I have a feeling she doesn’t have them.

Me: “We have stamps for a Chinese nuclear physicist if you—”

Customer: “No. Nothing Chinese! I don’t want anything to do with the Chinese!”

I didn’t know how to process this because this was the most racist thing anyone had done in front of me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was Chinese, as I don’t have the standard oriental look. She chose her other stamps. I just smiled under my mask. I almost told her once I finished her transaction, but I didn’t. I’m sure her face would have been priceless.