The Robert blog

Yup, it's another post regarding my favourite customer. He's the only person amongst my entire customer base who's so happy to be in my Post Office that as soon as he comes through the door he'll shout:

"Hello everyone, hello whatevernamehe'sdecidedtousetodayforme."

Thanks for the enthusiastic greeting and that but it's really annoying. Especially is there are 10 people queued up already. Can't he act remotely like a normal person and wait until he gets to the front of the queue before he says hello? Guess not. It also presents a bit of a dilemma. Am I rude to Robert by ignoring him or am I rude to the customer in front of me by shouting hello to the sad idiot who's just walked in? I've racked my brains for ages and can't think of a way of being rude to both of them. As it is, I generally ignore Robert unless there's a more annoying customer in front of me.

Also, quick note to Robert in case he's reading this. Just because you're wearing an enormous hi-vis vest on your enormous fat belly does not make it safe for you to drive your invalid carriage on the road.

The wrong way on a one-way road.

At night.

Regulars - Robert again

In what's becomig a Christmas tradtion, we got another Christmas card from Robert this year. No doubt, next time I see him, he'll carry on with another tradtion of his and that's not-so-subtly whining that we didn't send him a card back. I'm tempted to send him one next year to stop the moaning but I think that might make him think we're even more friendly than we are and mean that he'd spend even more time talking to us -Shudder-. He'd obviously gone to some effort with this card. Not only had he written inside that card at length, he'd enclosed an 8 page note. I hope he doesn't ask me anout the contents of this letter though. I tried my best to read it but the handwriting is almost illegible and what little you can make out is totally nonsensicle. You know you're not in for a literary masterpiece when the letter begins with PS. and has PS. beginning most sentences as well. Some of the other words that you can make out were post office. However, approximately 5% of the letter consisted of the words post office. I shoudln't be too mocking about this becuase he'd gone to a great deal of effort but he annoys me, he smells and I'm very intolerant.

And to top it all off, he sent a card to his brother but forgot to put a stamp on it so his brother had to come and collect it from me and pay a £1.40 surcharge. Hehe!

The customer is always unrealistic.

The annual Christmas rush has finally died down. Thank fuck for that. Even though the last posting dates for various countries were weeks ago, we're still getting a steady trickle of mail for far-flung destinations. The annoying thing is that customers are still expecting a card to get to Australia in time for Christmas. The last posting date for first class was yesterday for fucks sake. What are the chance of something getting down under in time? Fuck all.


Most customers don't mind too much when we tell them. Some, on the other hand, expect the moon on a stick and get the right areshole when we let them down. A guy came in today and asked if he sent a parcel first class, it'd be garunteed there tomorrow. When we told him no but he could send it special delivery for £6.30 he threw his toys out of the pram and stomped off saying that the service was pathetic. Jesus man, think about it for a second. First class doesn't always get there next day at the best of times. At christmas you're pretty much looking at 2-3 days if you're lucky. Please don't get on my case cos you're too stupid, lazy and ugly to organise yourself and get your cards out at a reasonable time. It's not as if Christmas arriving has come as a surprise at all. It happens every fucking year pretty much without fail.

"OH MY GOD!!! Christmas is on the 25th of December this year!!! And there hasn't been loads of warning in the form of adverts all over the place, Christmas sepcials on telly, Christmas cards arriving addresses to me and all of the other myriad of signals that I'd have to have totally fuckwitted in order to miss."

"D'oh"

All scousers are cunts and crooks.

Obviously this is a bit of a sweeping statement and you might disagree. I'm sure that there are some scousers out there who are honest and pleasant people but hear me out and I'm sure I'll bring you round to my way of thinking.

Exhibit A.

The only person who has been cashing an unemployment giro at my Post Office while (and I knew this for an unequivical fact) he had a job was a scouser. He was also trying to get a disabled sticker for his work van. Pretty iffy considering his job is installing TV ariels.

Exhibit B.

Last summer I was inundated with phone calls from companies in Liverpool demanding money for adverts that I'd never placed. Had I paid all of these demands, it would have set me back a couple of grand. Needless to say, I didn't pony up any dough. I recieved another of these phone calls today (hence the rant on this subject) and ended up hanging up before getting too wound up and demanding to speak to someone in authority, shouting at them, calling them a cunt and then telling them to fuck off and die in a fire like the last time. There are few things that are going to get me from sane to fucking livid as quickly as these crooks.

Exhibit C.

Carla Lane and her shit-coms.

I hope you'll agree that my case is strong enough to tar all scousers with the cunty-crook brush regardless of what they're actually like. Dole scrounging thieving shell suited bushy permed cunts the lot of 'em.

Christwe'rebusymas

It's probably no great revelation to say that Post Offices get a little busy in the run up to Christmas. Not wanting to sound ungrateful for the trade and therefore the money and stuff but fuck me I'm tired. And it's only day two of crazy week. Today it was stupidly busy but yesterday was certifiably bat-shit cover-yourself-in-your-own-poo-while-masturbating crazy. From 9:00 til 5:30 there wasn't a moment when there wasn't a queue in front on me (And that's not cos my name's Quentin or anything. Boom-boom). After yesterday, my patience and tolerance were already running very low. This wasn't helped by the emergency stamp order I'd put in as my scheduled orders had been either missed or delayed two weeks in a row being wrong. It's a good job this isn't the busiest time of the year and I'm not in danger of running out of anything. Oh shit.

Fortunately I managed not to lose it at anyone. Despite quite a few people winding me up. There are certain things that really get on my tits. Normally it doesn't bother me too much but you can imagine that given how busy we are, I'm gonna experience these things about a million times a day. Amongst them are:

People asking me how much things are going to cost to post and then saying "Are you sure?" When I tell them. YES OF COURSE I'M FUCKING SURE YOU COCKMONKEY. WHY DID YOU BOTHER ASKING IF YOU WEREN'T GOING TO TRUST THE REPLY. FUCK OFF.

When asking people to put a return address on the top left of all international mail (if you don't some countries return it. Hey, I don't make the rules) and then have someone say "It's on the back, is that OK?" Yes, I can see how you got "the back" confused with the top left on the front like I told you while pointing at that bit. Morons.

People moaning that their postman didn't ring their doorbell while trying to deliver a parcel and so they had to come and collect it therefore the postie must be lazy. Seriously people, think about it for a second. What's less work, waiting around for a minute and then handing over a parcel OR writing out a card and then cycling back to the sorting office still with the parcel. Twats.

A combination of being annoyed and tired means that my brain has stopped working properly as well. Something happened in the Post Office today. It was an old saying literally happening. It reminded me of the time that I saw a blind fellow being led into the Post Office by another blind guy. Yep, I have literally seen the blind leading the blind. Sadly, whatever it was that happened today has completely vanished out of my mind. Dribble, drool etc.

Regulars - update

A quick update on a couple of the regualrs I've mentioned before.

Robert.
Robert's been getting my name right pretty consistently this week. It started off with him using my real name for a change. After that he used the right name and then said

"Oh, I'm sorry Wrongname. I've been calling you Rightname when you're name's actually Wrongname isn't it."

Disheartened with this quick changearound I was just about to correct him when he went back to using my real name again. My head was spinning with the speed which he changed the way he addressed me. I can't even remember what my real name is now. Thanks Robert, you addled old twat.

Scott.
In the last two weeks, Scott's mental condidtion has clearly deteriorated. He came in to collect his mail the other day as normal. Due to staffing shortages though, it wasn't ready and wasn't likely to be ready until the afternoon. We told him this and sent him on his way. Not ten minutes passed and he returned and aksed for his mail. we told him that it wouldn't be ready until the afternoon and sent him on his way again. Another half an hour passed and he returned and asked whether he's collected his mail yet as he couldn't find it. Nope. It's still out back, unsorted like we told you twice already.
This morning he came in for another bus timetable (surprisingly, the first one of the week). As we're so accomodating and helpful, we passed one to him. Five minutes later he returned, looking a bit confused. I was just about to reach down to get him another timetable (see, I'm so considerate of my customer's needs, I can even anticipate them and get in there first. Just call me superpostmaster) when he produced the one he'd been given earlier. Shocked as I was that he'd actually managed to keep a timetable for longer than the customary minute that they usually seem to last, I composed myself and awaited his request.

"You'll probably think me really silly for asking this."

No more than I already do.

"I just can't work out this timetable, I need to get to the local metropolis by 11 o'clock and I can't work out which bus to take"

Actually, I do think slightly less of you now. Who'd have thunk it?

I put him straight and circled the time he needed to catch his bus. Tempting as it was to either make him late or send him off on the wrong bus for shits and giggles, I'm just far too nice for that.

You gotta laugh.

A customer made us all laugh today (when he'd gone of course). A smelly gypsy came in to cash his giro cheque.

"I'm sorry about the shaky signature, too much medication."

Too much no booze more like. Also, why the need to apologise for a shitty signature? Some of the other gypsies don't seem embarressed by not being able to write very well on their cheques. One of them can't even manage a tick. Too much information from a customer usually means one of two things.

1. They're old and feel the need to tell you their life story.

2. They're up to something iffy.

In this case, he must have not wanted to give away the fact that he's off to spend his benefit money on sweet, sweet booze.

The customer is always patronising.

Now that the Christmas rush has begun we're getting a lot of overseas cards. For some reason, customers can't hand me a batch of cards and let me get on with stamping them up. Naah, that would be easy, quick and not nearly insulting enough. It's especially true with old people that they can only hand foreign cards to me one at a time while telling me where they're destined for. Even after I ask them to hand them all over in one go, they just can't resist passing them singly, "this one's for France. So's this one. And this one. And this one."

I CAN FUCKING WELL READ YOU KNOW!!!!!!!! IT'S KIND OF NECESSARY IN THIS FUCKING JOB!!!!!!!!!

MORON!!!!!

Why they expect me to take a card from them, turn around, weigh it, stamp it, turn back, take another one, turn around, weigh it etc etc for each card I really don't know. It's a little bit quicker to do the lot in one go. It's really starting to get right on my tits. Especially when there's a big fucking queue and they've got a big fucking pile of mail. Hrrrmmmggghh!! Tossers.

Pants on Fire

I told an inadvertent fib in my last post. I have lost my temper at one other customer. During another busy morning filled with rude customers and hassle and annoyances I encountered the rudest customer ever. It wasn't actually her that I lost it towards but she nearly tipped me over the edge. One more rude customer without a suitable cooling off period (and ideally a scotch) would be all it takes to send me off on one. Predictably enough, two minutes later a rude customer came in.

Her car was parked out front in such a way that it was blocking the entire road out there. It was the first time I'd seen someone manage to park on the double yellow lines on both sides of the road. It was quite spectacularly selfish, lazy, illegal and potentially dangerous. When I asked her if she could move her car she told me that her husband was still parked in it. I told her that was irrelevant because it was still causing a major obstruction and there was a perfectly good car park literally 50 yards down the road that also happened to be totally free and very rarely full. She told me that as she was only popping in to post one letter she didn't see the point of parking properly. I responded with a bit of a lecture (no shouting or obvious stroppiness) about how she was blocking access to my business, that the car was parked next to a lowered piece of kerb that wheelchair users and pram pushers need in order to cross the road safely, that my neighbours are being prevented from getting to their houses and how difficult was it to park out of the way? At this point she got a little upset and said that she was returning from hospital and her treatments made her weak and she's got a disabled badge and aaahh, poor her.

I could have pointed out that disabled badges don't allow you to park on double yellows. I could have told her that if she was so ill, she could have got her husband to park in the car park and come in himself. I could have carried on with several other things I wanted to say. I didn't. I'd already figured out that I wasn't going to win this one and perhaps the best thing to do would be serve her and get her out of the door as soon as possible. I gave her a half-arsed "sorry" and then sold her a stamp.

Three weeks later, I received a letter from her moaning about my attitude, how if Post Offices are doing so badly then I should be grateful and polite to everyone that comes in, complaining that her treatment for cancer makes her feel really ill and just two pages of whinging and whining and could I write her an apology please? I mentally filed it under "Can't be bothered to do anything about" and carried on. Another few weeks pass and I get a phone call from customer services about this woman. She'd sent them a copy of this letter and then chased it up with them when she didn't get a reply from me. I fobbed off customer services, "yes, I'll send her an apology honest." I promptly didn't bother. A month or so passes and I get another phone call from customer services. This time I told them I had no intention of apologising because although she had a bit of a lecture I wasn't rude or angry (outwardly) and she was dangerously and illegally parked. This seemed to get customer services off my back. Two years later, I've not heard anything else so I reckon I've got away with it. She's probably dead. Result for me!

How restrained am I?

Very fucking restrained as it happens. Not that you're believing it though. I put it to you that I am extremely restrained in what I actually say to my customers (compared to what's going round the fetid sewer that I call my brain). Still not convinced?

Exhibit A

One of my regulars came in this afternoon and started prattling on about his granddaughter. First of all, I didn't point out that being as he appears to be gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide, I'm amazed that he has a granddaughter. Secondly, I didn't tell him that I don't really care that much. Just because I'm friendly, it doesn't mean I'm your friend. I'm only being friendly so you'll come back and spend more money. Finally, and this is the part that took real restraint on my part, he mentioned that his granddaughter is studying civil engineering. Although I thought it immediately and grinned to myself I didn't then say,


"I bet she'll be responsible for a lot of erections."

Boom-Boom.

This did actually happen by the way and isn't just an excuse to recycle an old joke.

If you're still not convinced that I can actually keep my trap shut here's some supporting evidence:

I've never said to my female colleagues when they've been bending over with their heads near my nadgers "While you're down there love."

I've never told the dirty smelly gypsies to have a fucking wash.*

I didn't take the piss out of one of my colleagues who tried to pay a cheque into his account but forgot to put a paying in slip in his sealed envelope. What a twat!

I've never told any of the dole scroungers to get a fucking job.

I've never said "well that was fucking stupid wasn't it?" when confronted with stupidity from customers.

I've never told a customer that I don't want to hear about their inane bloody life in excruciating detail on and on and on while the queue builds up and up and up and could they please shut up and fuck off?

Nearly all of the above examples I've wanted to do a few times every fucking day. And yet, after years of working behind the Post Office counter I've so far succeeded in keeping schtum. Only once have I given in to an urge to be a bit rude and that was pretty tame. A smelly pensioner needed to fill in a form. I coached him through all of it and asked him to sign the bit at the bottom. My patience was wearing thin due to the smell, the sheer time it had taken and the number of times I'd had to repeat myself when he asked me,

"What, my signature?"

I flipped.

"Well of course your bloody signature. You can't put someone else's signature there can you?"

*In case anyone thinks that this terminology is discriminatory, then you should come here and smell them. They are dirty and they do smell. I've never felt the urge to shout at the non-smelly, clean gypsies. So there.

Regulars - Neckbeard the Pirate

So called to the astonishing amount of hair on his neck (obviously) despite being clean shaven everywhere else (well, on his face anyway, I can't comment on the rest of his body. I don't want to think about it either given that like most of my customers he's a coffin dodger. Hmm, naked and shaved old men. Wow, they give me the right raging horn). The pirate part of the nickname is partly cos he's missing a finger (OK, it's not quite a peg-leg but it's close) but mostly cos Neckbeard the Pirate sounds cool.

Also, he's got a parrot, says "Arrrr" frequently and immediately buries his pension on a desert island once he's got it *.

*this sentence may contain lies.

My new till sucks arse

As you may have guessed already, I'm less than pleased with my new till. After only a few weeks of having it, it came up with an error message saying that it's transaction record memory was full. Naturally, this was just before the school rush was just about to start. My colleague, who normally mans the till, and I pored through the instruction manual (which I may have already mentioned before, is crap). We downloaded as much sales data as we could onto my laptop and the cleared the sales data on the till. Crisis averted. Or was it?

After the rush had died down, my colleague decided to show some initiative. Oh dear. He noticed in the manual that you can re-allocate the memory between the products, the sales journal and a few other things. He decides that this would be a terribly clever idea to do and then goes ahead and does it.

Sadly, nowhere in the manual does it mention that by doing this, you will blank ALL of the memory. All of it. The lot. Everything. Not just the sales data but the product and price list, the receipt layout and, most embuggering of all, the keyboard set-up. Some of these were backed up on my PC but the keyboard was not. Therefore the rest of Friday and Saturday morning was spent with the buttons on the till not necessarily doing what they were labelled to do.

It's a good job that I love nothing more* than wasting, I mean spending my weekends (far too short at only Saturday afternoon and Sunday) dicking around with technology that was set up nearly perfectly already but has just been buggered up by a combination of a shit manual and an overenthusiastic colleague. This task was made all the more fun by the manual. It might be labouring an already well made point but I feel the need to point out again that the manual is fucking shit. Awful. Irredeemably cunting terrible. I reckon it was probably written deliberately to annoy and confuse new owners of the till. There's no other explanation for such a God-awful abortion. As I've already pointed out, it can't be me being stupid. I am unfeasibly clever after all. I've also managed to write instructions for items of kit much more complicated that a till and managed to have complete novices follow said instructions without problems. It really does get on my tits.

*warning, this bit is a lie.

Regulars - Scatty Scott

Scott's a funny one and no mistake. He's not even got the excuse of being particularly old (mid 50's or so). He's managed to get himself on practically every sucker list in the UK and the USA and Canada. As a result, he gets so much mail that he likes to come and collect it from us every morning rather than wait for it to be delivered. He claims that it's cos it takes him all day to sort through his mail sometimes. Whenever he receives a package (about once a fortnight on average) he acts all surprised. "Ooh, I wonder what this can be?!? I don't remember ordering anything!" He'll then open the package then and there as it's usually too large to get in his trolley (Yup, despite being relatively young, he's got a trolley. He's certainly off it. Boom Boom!). He'll then act surprised again at the contents of the package, "I didn't order that!" Yes you did you twat. Don't act all surprised at this rubbish you've bought please, it's embarrassing. It's usually vitamins or tat from betterware style places though. Nothing like some of the more interesting stuff that people have bought by mail order (Definitely a future post or two there).

Scott is also amazed that the companies won't stop mailing him with rubbish because he has written to most of them to ask them to stop. He doesn't realise that as far as they're concerned, he's just proved that he does live there and the mail is getting read. He'll then make it worse by ordering stuff from them occasionally.

When collecting his mail he'll say something along the lines of "Ooh, aren't I lucky. A small amount of mail today." But you just know that he's secretly really disappointed that he's not had enough mail to overload a pack donkey. Conversely, when he does get a truckload, he'll half-arsedly moan about it but you can see the twinkle in his eye as he ponders a whole morning of going through junkmail. Obviously, Bargain Hunt and Cash in the Attic aren't stimulating enough for him.

We have done our best to help him by pointing him in the direction of the mail preference service and telling him to just throw away anything that looks like junkmail and NEVER EVER reply to it. The mail preference service advice was a sort of hit. He signed up and then was flabbergasted that the junkmail didn't stop immediately. We did try to explain that it takes a few months to be really effective and doesn't work for foreign mail. Regrettably, he just can't bring himself to bin mail unopened and once he's opened it, he can't not reply to it or order rubbish.

Scott has something else which bugs the fuck out of me. He's perfectly healthy, he seems fairly fit, he's not old,he can walk perfectly well (he goes on the weekly walks around the village) but he has an invalid carriage. WHY?!?!?! I bloody well hate the things. It's my opinion that about 90% of the people that have them are either too lazy or too fat. Of the remaining 10%, most of them are too blind/stupid/deaf/mad or otherwise dangerous to use them. Bring back wheelchairs that have to be pushed by a competent person or, failing that, euthanasia. You know it makes sense.

Scotts' final foible is the speed that he seems to go through bus timetables. We have a small stock in the Post Office to give out. It's no exaggeration to say that he's had about 25% of all the ones we've given out. He goes through at least one a week. One morning (just the morning, not the whole day mind) he went through three. What does he do? Eat them? Why he can't just keep one in his wallet all the time, I don't know. They're not supposed to be disposable you know. Twat.

The customer is always confuesd.

Yesterday we had an old fella (naturally) come in to see us. He came up to my colleague and asked for probably the weirdest thing that anyone has ever done in a Post Office.

"Could I cancel my appointment with the doctor tomorrow please?"

We were both a little thrown by this request so my colleague said pardon. He replied,

"Can I cancel my appointment with Dr Madeupname tomorrow please?"

"I think you're in the wrong place. This is the Post Office."

"The Post Office?!? OK."

"Yes, you're a little confused. What can we help you with?"

"I'd like to cancel my appointment with Dr Madeupname please. It's tomorrow."

"I'm sorry, This is the Post Office. You need to go to the doctor to do that."

After a little while we eventually got him to understand that although we can do a lot more than just stamps in the Post Office these days, accessing the doctor's appointment list wasn't one of them. Also, I'm no medical expert but in my opinion this guy should have been making more appointments to see the quack, not less. His head is obviously broken.

Stuff that should be fairly easy but isn't.

I've spent much of the last two weeks doing two things that should be pretty easy (especially for someone as clever as I am. Modesty aside, I am really fucking clever. You'd best hope I never have any plans for world domination cos it'd be a piece of piss for someone as amazingly bright as I am. I just can't be arsed with all the work it would involve. You'd best cower in front of me just on the off chance I change my mind though).

Now that my gargantuan intelligence has been established beyond a shadow of a doubt, the things I've been trying to do are setting up a new swanky till and getting my head round some accounting software. Oh yes, I have decided to modernise. The old till was practically a relic from Arkwrights' shop. A replacement has been mooted for a while but became a priority when the motor for the receipt winder thingy died. Having to take the top off to manually crank round the spool before it started spewing paper all over the place was less than ideal. Some web-surfing and a few days later my posh new till complete with scanner and PC software turns up. The software boasted of having nearly 5,000 product codes already installed. "Excellent!" Thinks I, "That'll save me some time." Fat fucking chance. Only about 300 of these products are ones that I actually stock. Having 40 different varieties of Heinz soup must be great for some retailers but useless to me. Cue several hours of removing the pointless products and pricing up the things we do actually stock. DULL DULL DULL DULL FUCKING DULL. Trying to send this info from my laptop to the till proved to be even less fun. I'll spare you the details but suffice to say, a whole valuable Saturday afternoon was totally wasted. Fucknuts!!! Even fairly basic stuff proved to be nigh-on impossible due to a combination of a piss-poor instruction manual (I may be astonishingly clever and able to pick up new skills really quickly with minimal help but that also means I'm clever enough to RTFM*. As Buddha said "The first step to wisdom is realising how little you know" At least I think it was Buddha. It might have been Fat Mike in the pub.) and deliberately obscure procedures made this a nightmare. Example, to tell it to keep a printed journal of all the transactions instead of printing out receipts, you have to:

turn the key to pgm
press "SBTL"
Look up the journal entry in the manual (made even more tricky due to lack of index)
type in the number pertaining to the journal
press "X/time"
decide how you'd like the journal (small/regular font size, journal on or off etc)
add up the numbers assigned to each option.
input that number
press "CASH"

On the old till, it was a case of flicking a switch from receipt to journal. Progress eh?

Eventually, I got the things talking and sent over the products codes that were useful. Next came the task of programming all the bar codes of the things I do actually stock but weren't already pre-programmed. You'd have thought that the till designers would have made this procedure as easy as possible. Nope. It's initially complicated and time-consuming. Cue another whole weekend being swallowed up by this project. Even after that, only about 25% of my stock is programmed in. Fortunately one of my staff members is happy enough and competent enough to carry on with this task. Phew! With any luck it'll only be about three weeks from delivery to the point where I can state that the till is properly set up.

Modern technology eh? It allows you to do your job twice as quickly but generates twice as much fucking work. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Luddite. I love gadgets and gizmo's but fuck me ragged I swear most designers don't realise that the people who are going to use this kit aren't quite as familiar with it as they are.

Don't even get me started on the accounts software. I fear it may end up with a batshit crazy armed rampage.

* Read The Fucking Manual.

Regulars- Norris McSquirter

Norris was originally nick-named "Schlup". However, when I found out that his first name actually is Norris, I couldn't resist changing his nickname post-haste. The reason for either nickname is due to the noise he continuously made as he redistributed spittle around his gob. It can be decidedly off-putting while attending to him only to hear a loud "Schurrrrllpppp" noise every two minutes or so. This, coupled with his old person habit of repeating everything he says three times, makes him an irritating customer. More irritating than normal I mean.

To pay lip-service to being fair and balanced I have to point out that, in certain respects, he's quite a good customer. ie. he spends a lot. Also, he doesn't appear to smell. Yet. It does appear to be a race between the grim reaper and the pong goblin for old folk. Currently Norris is keeping ahead of the pair of 'em.

You'll have to speak up.

"You'll have to speak up, I'm a bit deaf and I've not got my hearing aid in".

WHY??? If you're deaf, you know you're deaf, you actually have got a hearing aid and you know you're going to be in a situation where conversation will occur, then why the fuck aren't you wearing it?!?!

It's sooooo common too.

I really don't know why so many old people do it. It's gotta be a toss-up between forgetfulness or denial of being old and useless. It really does drive me up the bloody wall sometimes. Fair enough, I do like shouting at customers but I'd rather it was abuse and orders to fuck off instead of the banal kinda crap I've gotta shout at these deafies. It's not restricted to hearing aids either. Probably more common (but admittedly less annoying) are the people who never have their reading glasses with them when they need to fill in a form or something. Hearing aids and glasses are not exactly completely critical items but they do kinda help people live their lives a bit. Personally I'm looking forward to the day when I hear someone say "You'll have to come and pick me up. I'm a paraplegic but I've not got my wheelchair." It's inevitable.

Licking Harry Potter's backside.

Every month or so, we get sent a special issue of stamps to sell (Queen's anniversary, Queen's birthday, Queen's done a poo etc.). Normally we get about a thousand or so of the 1st class ones. This'll pretty well last us til the next lot come out. I'm a big fan of this cos we get paid a tad more for selling the piccie stamps and if we run out just before the next lot come out, I won't have to fill in the paperwork to send back the unsold ones (Hey, I'm lazy and it's an annoying convoluted process).

Unfortunately, Post Office ltd grossly overestimated the demand for the Potter stamps. They sent us over 3,000. This was in addition to the usual monthly releases as well. As a result I've had fucking Harry Potter stamps coming out of my arse. The launch date was the date of release of the last book. I can't remember exactly when that was and really can't be arsed to look it up (I refer you to my previous comment about being lazy). Suffice to say that it was a while ago and we've only just sold our 2000th Potter stamp.

Methinks someone higher up thought it would be a great moneyspinner for Post Office ltd to lig off the popularity of all things Hogwarty and sell a few million extra stamps to kiddy collectors. Especially if (Hah! Unlikely) they caught the philatelic bug and became lifelong collectors.

Ooops. That one went tits-up.

As a result, I'm trying to put these bloody things on anything I can possibly get away with in order to get the extra pay. There's a slim chance I'll be shot of 'em this side of Christmas.

Wibble-wobble

Hideously obese people make me laugh sometimes. It's amazing that some of these fatties are so ignorant of what they're doing to themselves that they'll complain about being out of breath after the 50 yard waddle they've had from the car and then buy a metric shitload of chocolate/sweets/crisps. Then to pay lip service to "healthy" eating, they'll grab a bottle of diet coke too.

First of all tubby, perhaps if you walked the few hundred yards (I know where you live you lazy bastard) from your house instead of driving you'd be less wheezy.

Secondly, drinking diet drinks does not magically remove all of the calories from the family size choccy bar and large tube of pringles you're no doubt going to shove into your gob as soon as you get home.

Thirdly, saying something along the lines of "Oooh, I know I shouldn't but...." doesn't excuse you. If you know you shouldn't eat for three people then why are you?

Finally, the worst offender of the lot is the blubberguts who does all the above and the adds "I know I shouldn't eat this stuff, I'm diabetic." It's surprisingly common sadly.

Obviously, this is a bit on the hypocritical side as I'm not waif-like myself and I'm selling this stuff. If it's any consolation, I have put up the prices of junk food in order to reduce the amount that these fatties can afford*. My own fat-tax if you like. This works especially well with the kiddies. Children invariably have a limited amount of cash to spend each day. Needless to say, saving this cash isn't on the agenda so they do their best to spend the lot. To the penny. It can takes ages for some kids to work out how to spend their one pound exactly. This is why having a few penny sweets is a great money spinner. They wouldn't normally look twice at this sort of thing but if they've got 3p left over, then by god they're going to spend it on something. I'd hate to have to deal with these kids while in the middle of a full blown sugar-rush. Hyperactive bastards. Even worse must be the aftermath of energy drink consumption. Yup, I'll sell Red Bull to kids. If they can afford it. I charge a shitload.

*Prices of non-junk food put up too. And everything else in the shop actually. Hey, I gotta make a living.

Regulars- Miserable Old Bastard

Possibly not the most imaginative nickname it's all you need to know about him. He's old, he's a bastard and by God is he miserable. So far in the few years I've been here, I've not yet seen him looking anything other than as he's just heard that his entire extended family is dying slowly and horribly of The Aids and some one's just raped and murdered his beloved family pet.

He's not the most talkative fella either. It's probably just as well cos I suspect that if he did engage me in conversation, it'd be a monologue of whining and moaning about the usual old people topics. 99% of the time all he'll say to me is "All of it please" referring to how much of his pension he'd like. This is accompanied by him thrusting a piece of paper in my direction with the amount written on it. I can't be bothered to tell him that I don't need this information cos all I do is press the "all of it" button on my screen. Sadly his usual pension is nearly 300 notes which he wants entirely in fivers. When I first started here, he's get pretty arsey on the few occasions that we were low on fives and I had the bare-faced cheek to try to give him anything else. Through patience and bloody-mindedness on my part however, I've weened him down to about 40% fives and the rest tens. I'm looking forward to his next visit though. We're really short of fives so he's only getting the one.

OMB is one of the die hard queue-ers we have. Not surprisingly this group is made up exclusively of coffin dodgers. Every Monday morning, there they are, patiently waiting for 1 second past nine o'clock so they can look at their watches and tut if we're not open by then. These queue-ers have obviously got so ingrained in their habit that they haven't realised that they don't need to queue at all. Due to attrition and the fact that the elderly have a nasty habit of snuffing it occasionally, the group of people who will wait outside my Post Office for up to a whole hour is down to a rather pathetic three. I don't think that they've considered that it's a bit of a waste of time to spend an hour queuing when most Mondays, the maximum they'd have to wait is about five minuted if they turned up at 9 o'clock instead. Don't these people have anything better to do? They're old and going to die soon, surely they'd be better off filling what's left of their existence with rich and fulfilling experiences rather than hanging around catching fatal flu bugs. Idiots.

What's 30 foot long and stinks of piss?

The Post Office queue on Monday morning. Boom Boom!!

You'd be amazed at just how stinky the general public are. It's not just the stereotypical stench of piss that certain old people reek of though. To be fair, most old people are niff-free but there are some who really could do with a good hosing down, a change into clean clothes and ideally a hermetically sealed nappy. A fad for garlic capsules has also spread throughout some of our coffin dodgers. Although we're too polite, we'd love to point out to them that odour free they are not. It's a sad state of affairs when I try to do a whole transaction on one lungful. At least they're not gonna have a problem with vampires. Or anyone with a sense of smell for that matter. Certain members of our local travelling community have managed to dodge soap for quite a while. Generally, when we spot 'em coming in we do a pre-emptive air freshener spray followed by another as soon as they're out again. Often this is not enough. Smelly buggers.

The worst stink offender was an old fella who also happened to be a chicken farmer. I don't know a great deal about chicken farming but I'd guess that he perhaps had slightly too close contact with his birds. He used to come in covered in chicken shite. Not just his clothes but his hat (I thought that chickens couldn't fly. The mind boggles as to how it all got there), face and hands. He only appeared to have one set of clothes and predictably enough was the type of customer who faffed and got confused thus making any transaction with him about 5 times as long as it needed to be. Literally he would make your eyes water.However, there is a happy ending to this tale. He died. Although he's probably a little bit more smelly now (probably not much though), at least I don't have to put up with it.

As much as I dislike the smell of stale piss, sweat or chicken poo I'd also like to point out that it's possible to go too far in the other direction.This particular sin seems to be committed most often by old ladies. Perhaps is because they get bought gallons of smellies for Christmas every year and feel the need t use it all up. More likely it's to mask the smell of stale piss and/or slowly decomposing flesh. I'm sure half of our clientele are undead. They just seem to be fixated on pensions instead of braaaaains. If there is a zombie apocalypse and it happens on a Monday morning I don't think I'm going to notice for a while.

The Customer is always stupid

It's a real shame that most customers have come to believe that they are always right. They're not. Not by a long shot.

Being behind the counter of a Post Office I get to hear some really stupid things. Fairly often too. My favourite quote of all time from a customer is:

"Do you know where I can buy some stamps?"

Well, duh! Here perhaps. I know that the Post Office has kind of branched out a bit into new products and some old ones have fallen by the wayside but stamps?!?! Either the guy didn't realise that he was in a Post Office or he didn't realose that we sell stamps. Either way it's difficult to argue he's anything less than a fuckwit.

The customer is always rude. And stupid

Recently a customer came in to get his motorbike taxed. Sadly his reminder was out of date because he was a bit late (6 weeks) cos he was waiting for his MOT. I asked him if he had his log book as we could use that to tax it instead. At this point he got the right arsehole and asked (in a pretty stroppy way) where it said on the reminder form that he needed his log book. I politley informed him that because he was so late, his reminder was out of date and the computer we use wouldn't let us issue a tax disc using it. He repeated his request for me to show him where it said he needed his log book on the reminder form. At this point I realised that I was fighting a losing battle and he'd stopped listening to me. Nethertheless, I carried on trying to help him tax his bike despite the increasing amount of rudeness and attitude that was headed in my direction. I asked him if he'd declared the bike as being off road. Nope. It was sitting on his driveway and if that's not good enough for the DVLA then tough. I then told him that he should have declared his bike off road otherwise the DVLA are going to catch up with him and fine him. "But my bike's been on my driveway, I didn't need to declare it off road as you only need to do that if you're not going to use it for six months or more". Where he plucked that load of bollocks from I have no idea. I told him that this was not the case. At this point he flipped, pulled his documents back and stormed off shouting, "You're always coming up with objections to me taxing my bike."
Boo-hoo twat. If you could pick your toys up on the way out I'd appreciate it. If he thought about that last statement for a second, he'd have realised that he was talking out of his arse. It's not in my interest to turn business away. I get paid for doing tax discs therefore I should be trying to do as many as I can (within the law of course).
Taxing vehicles is probably the cause of the most aggro out of all of the transaction we do. If someone hasn't got the right things with them then it's our fault. Not theirs for not reading the form or picking up the wrong bit of paper or not having enough money or being late. I've managed so far not to lose my temper at anyone when they've pulled this sort of thing. It's only a matter of time though. Twats.

Regulars - Robert

Every Post Office has their regulars. I'd imagine that every Post Office has their own "Robert" too. Like so many of my customers, he's an old fella and he's a bit pongy (the two go together more often than you'd think). We all do our level best to avoid serving him as we don't really want to hear (in unnecessary detail) about the dull events going on in his life (medical complaints, family troubles, steam rallies he's just been to, more medical complaints etc.) for the next ten minutes.
He's friendly and polite enough but the smell combined with the boredom is something that it's funny to watch a colleague deal with but as annoying as hell to put up with yourself. Being as I'm the boss, I can excuse myself whenever I spot him and hide until it's safe to emerge. Unfortunately sometimes I get lumbered with him however. This does provide plenty of amusement for the staff. Especially the mental block he has with my name. When we first came here, he managed to get it right. Over the years however, it's kind of slipped a bit. Nowadays it's a rare occurrence for him to get my name right (despite the name badge I wear). The biggest laugh comes when he starts using the wrong name, slips in a few correct ones and then veers back off into the land of wrongness. Extra bonus points for each alternation between names.
Not only is he dull and a bit too friendly to myself and the staff, he's like that to total strangers. When it's been busy in here I've seen him work through the whole queue trying to have a chat. As the customers don't have to be polite to him they can tell him to bugger off. I wish we could.
For some reason he feels the need to buy at least one of our £5 watches every week. I know they're not going to last a lifetime at that price but they can't be breaking that often. My mind boggles with what he does with the things.
Harmless but really annoying.