Post Office Rudeness

June 27, 2022 by Naomi Jeremiah 2 Comments

Never thought I would experience it, but there’s always a first time. I’ve heard the expression that someone “went postal or going postal.” For some reasons, in our community of post office services, we got the worst delivery systems. Undeniably many employees serving the public at the post office have attitude problems. Most are very unfriendly. I usually put up with their very poor customer interactions as long as I’ve got what I need.

Two days ago was a different experience and sort of hostile. We made an appointment to get started with our passport renewals. The appointment was for ID passport pictures; and we got confirmation for the time we should be at this post office, which is not our regular post office. However, it was the only available customer service to take ID pictures.

We gave ourselves enough time to make it to our appointment to this post office about 25 minutes from our residence. Thank goodness, not a lot of customers were there. When we got inside and waited to be called, one of the post office sales associates asked us why we were there. When we said we have an appointment for ID pictures, she started yelling and told us that we should just have our pictures taken at Walgreen. She was rude that my hubby reacted to her bad attitude. First of all, she should have gotten out of her glass window office and talk to us and explain the whole thing. It was a very tenseful situations. My husband was getting angry already as he started feeling intimidated by this post office employee. I tried to keep calm so we can have things done and leave.

Bad Customer Service at the post office

Then we realized it was this sale associate with a bad attitude that would be taking our ID photos. She came out and took pictures. She was rude all throughout. She had it especially bad with my husband who was already irate and the picture taken of him showed it, when I saw them at the counter as the other employee was helping us to mail our passport applications. I checked mine and it was the most ugly ID photos. I was tempted to stop the process and get our ID photos somewhere else, but the process went so fast that the next thing I know, we paid for the ID pictures and whatever other charges we had to pay.

I was just glad to get out of there! But the more I thought about the bad experience, it started bothering me and eating me up. We were treated like we were stupid. She bullied us and got away with it. It was on my mind until I woke up this morning. I then remember on the post office sales receipt, there was a request for a survey on what we have experienced doing business with the post office. I did not waste my time to get to the feedback website. It asked for the zip code of the post office and the date we got the service. I gave it the worst unsatisfactory feedback. There was a comment section and I expressed the bad experience we had with the post office sales representative.

These sales associates at the counters of the post office have a high and mighty attitude all the time. But they seem to get worse during these pandemic periods of our lifetime. They might be short handed, but at the time they were trying to serve us, there was no line. So there’s no excuse. But even then, we should not be treated like stepchildren undeserving of respect.

What I’ve learned from this experience is, never get our passport ID pictures taken by the post office employees again! Next time, do it online for renewals. Stay away from the post office as much as possible. If we choose to mail our passport applications, we will do them ourselves. Obtain the priority mail envelope and the address label at the post office and put them all together at home. Stay away as much as possible from these disgruntled post office employees!

RUDE and all CAPS!

‘Rude’ Postal Employees Could Cost USPS $300 million this year

https://www.govexec.com/management/2015/02/rude-postal-employees-could-cost-usps-300-million-year/105045/

“The USPS inspector general said in an audit released last week that negative customer feedback increased 9 percent from fiscal years 2012 to 2013. Overall, 20 percent of customers said they were treated “worse than other retailers” by postal employees.”

Why are USPS workers, for the most part, so mean and rude?

“I agree that the answer is – because they’re government employees and they feel they have a monopoly and power over you, and power corrupts. I went for a passport application. That’s one area where they still have monopoly, because the mail is so much better with UPS and FedEx of course. So the person there was being abusive to me from the beginning, yelling at my and my child for no reason, saying the kid was touching something in the store and I had to pay for it before they start my application. I offered to pay but the employee kept yelling at me and I had to leave. Would never happen if it was a private organization and iif t did, they would compensate me.This doesn’t mean there aren’t nice employees too but as a general rule, more crazy/insane/evil people like that would be working in government places.”

“I wonder this exact same thing. Not with mail carriers, but anytime I need to go into the actual post office I’m barked at, copped attitude with, demeaned, rolled eyes at and given general stank face. I google this question wondering if it had something to do with what their day to day or payrate was like and instead was met with a bunch of grown adults whining that they’d behave better if only YOU did.”

Why are the USPS front desk staff so rude?

“Some reasons:

1. The sheer numbers of people who they have to deal with daily – In a medium-sized city, postal clerks likely handle several hundred customers per day. That volume of people can be difficult for some people and occasional lapses in courtesy are the result. The clerks in larger cities probably handle far higher numbers, especially during the holidays.
2. People are often unprepared to be helped when they get to the post office – They haven’t filled out address labels, they don’t know the zip codes, they didn’t bring enough money to ship their letter, they complain about the costs and they try to ship items which cannot be shipped. The customers often task the patience of the postal employees tasked to help them.
3. They can’t be fired – One of the open secrets of the USPS is that you really have to screw badly to be terminated. Being snide or rude to customers doesn’t qualify for this, so many postal employees can act in any number of manners.
4. They aren’t well-trained – Having used the post office many times for personal and business shipping, I can’t count the numerous times that a counter clerk had to go ask someone a question. Even things that they should have known, they would walk into the back and ask a supervisor or one would come out to resolve the problem. If the postal employees were/are better trained they might provide better customer service.
5. They have been in the job too long – A relative of mine was caught in a downsizing of postal employee in a Northeastern state. She had 20 years in, but was one of least senior people on the job. In one of the offices near her station, there was an employee who worked at the post office for 44 years, all of it as a counter clerk. This person apparently complained quite a bit and many customers preferred not use her “assistance.” This person had no intentions of retiring even though she apparently made it clear that she disliked her job.
6. Many see the “writing on the wall” – The postal employees know better than the customers that the USPS’s best days are long in its past. They know that even with boost of Amazon.com‘s shipping business, the Post Office will continue to contract. Since many of those people have made no provisions for a life after the USPS, they know that if they are downsized or terminated, they face a bleak future. That does little to boost morale or engender quality customer service.”