Unhelpline

I've just had to phone our helpline for guidance on an issue that I have had no experience with. Frankly, it's a bit of a doozy but I won't relate it here as it's probably frightfully dull for non post office staff.

Suffice to say, the "help" offered by this line is less than useful.

I was told to do one thing the first time I rang up which I duly did.

A few days later, I had a phone call from another department asking for a reference number pertaining to this transaction. This came as news to me as I hadn't been given any reference number. I was told to phone the helpline again and get said reference number.

One thing to mention about the helpline here, if our queries aren't on a very strictly defined list of queries, then we've got to leave a message on the answerphone and they'll get back to us, usually the next day. In most cases this is just bloody annoying and a waste of my time. On other occasions, it's a real pain in the arse as it means that any disputes (like, for example, this one) drag on over days or weeks instead of being sorted out in half an hour and a few phone calls. Needless to say, all of this is apparently "for our convenience".

Anyhoo, the helpline monkey rings back and I ask him for a reference number. I explain the situation in great detail for the third time and what he said back to me can be summed up as "Computer says no." It just happened to be my poor luck that the twat I spoke to was the worst kind of lazy, disinterested kind of call centre monkey. When I explained the situation to him again and told him of the consequences should this not be sorted out (incidentally, that wasn't a threat. It would create loads of annoyance for the customer involved and a big headache for me and possibly poor publicity for the post office). "Computer says no." It was clear that this twunt wasn't going to lift a fat finger to do anything other than read what it said on his screen. He wasn't going to ask anyone else, he wasn't going to press any other buttons, in short, he was going to repeatedly read what he read the first time and nothing more.

So, despite having explained the situation very carefully to three difference people, I'm no further towards a resolution. I've left one further message on the answerphone and should it not be sorted this time, I'm washing my hands of it.

Useless fucks.

Just Leave Me the Fuck Alone Please.

As much as living where you work cuts down on the commute somewhat, it's also a major drawback in some regards. The fact that I never feel like I never leave work is one of them. The other is that idiots who aren't organised enough to come in when we're open think that I live next to the Post Office purely for their convenience.

Wrong!!!

We're not here for any one's convenience when we're open thank you very much so you can just fuck right off now if you think I'm gonna lift a finger outside of my contracted hours.

Usually it's just people knocking on the Post Office door, utterly failing to add up the clues that we're no longer open (closed sign displayed, lights switched off, no-one in there and the door being locked being the main ones) yet still they have to try to open the door.

"Hmm, this door appears stiff. Perhaps I should get the attention of someone in the shop to inform them of this fact. Hmm, I can't see anyone in there. Could that be because it is dark in there or have they just popped out en masse? I'll try the door again, maybe it'll have become unlocked in the last five seconds or so. Hmm, still not working. I'll peer intently and hope that some kind soul will come to the door. Nope. Bugger."

I've seen plenty of people doing this on the CCTV footage. The above is an approximate transcript of what's going through their minds when doing so.

Anyhoo, those out of hours twats I can easily ignore and so they don't really bother me (Well, no more than the rest of humanity bugs me) but there are some that make it impossible for me to ignore them so I've actually got to go to the effort of being rude to them before they naff off.

Some people think that it is perfectly acceptable to come to my house to get undelivered parcels. If a postie has tried to deliver a parcel but failed they have to bring it back to the sorting office which is attached to the Post Office. The customer has a little card put through their door informing them that they're welcome to collect the parcel from the Post Office and then gives, quite clearly, the opening hours.

Well, that's not good enough for some people. Their parcels are soooo important that the have to have them as soon as possible even if that means bugging me at home. Some customers have tried various excuses ("I need it to go on holiday with" well, you should have organised yourself a bit better then shouldn't you. "The previous postmaster never used to mind" Oh yes he damn well did, he was less customer focused than I am. "It's really important that I get that parcel today," If it is that important, you should have taken some time off work so you'd have been in to receive it.)

One customer is especially bad at this. Despite being told point black on several occasions that you're not welcome to come to my house to collect your parcel, she still persists in asking. It's probably no coincidence that she's Australian or maybe New Zealandish (not that there's really any difference between them despite what the Antipodean colonials may tell you). No doubt her family was deported for being lazy and feckless two hundred years ago.

She even had the cheek to ask me whether I'd consider staying open longer for people who can't come in during normal working hours. When I replied that it wouldn't really be worth it as after 5 o'clock we have precious few customers already so after five thirty I'd be lucky to have anyone come in, she said that perhaps I should bear it in mind anyway.

Bear it in mind? Bear it up your fucking arse more like.

Cos I'm all modern and stuff now.

http://twitter.com/popurnoinplz

Oh yes indeed. I got me a twitter. Now you can tune in to the random thoughts that I commit to t'internet. Who knows, you may even get a better idea of what makes me tick (I'll save you the effort, it's beer, money and porn).

Enjoy my brain-spews.

Thanks Hamish.

My Scottish subordinate, Hamish McStereotype, has gone and done a bad thing.

We have a regular customer who posts a lot of items but happens to be Chinese.

So far, so good.

Unfortunately, Hamish said to me after serving him last week that he can't help getting the song "Kung-Fu Fighting" going round his head every time he serves him. Predictably enough, now I can't help but have the wretched song going through my brain whenever I see him.

This means that I've got to supress a guilty grin while serving. Thus far I've resisted the temptation to go "hurgh!" or comment that my service is as fast as lightening.

Revenge will be mine though.

I've dig out my Ian Dury best of CD and as soon as I get an oppurtunity I'm going to play "Spasticus Autisticus" at Hamish just before any of the local mongs come in.

Or I'll just sack the bastard.

Smack My Kids Up!

Just a quick one to broadcast the fantastic piece of parenting I just had the misfortune to witness.

A lady (and I use the term very loosely) came in with her roughly eight year old daughter. Clearly some disobedience had already occurred as the child was moaning that mum had a tight hold of her but mum was having none of it. After listening for a bit it was clear that the girl had tried to wander off or something equally serious so it was obvious to me that grabbing hold or her as tightly as the mum was doing was clearly a proportionate response to whatever misdemeanour had been committed.

As the youngster struggled more and more, mum gripped tighter and tighter. Eventually, this wasn't enough punishment for the girl or enough humiliation for the parent and the girl was roughly pushed onto her knees on the floor. Again, this wasn't enough for the mum so without any escalation of naughtiness from the girl (well, apart from a little yelp as she was thrust onto the floor) and so WALLOP!!! In an earth shatteringly unpredictable development, the girl started crying and the mum responded with the favourite cliche of children everywhere:

"I'll give you something to cry about if you don't shut up!"

Superb. Fortunately by this time I'd finished her transaction and she left.

It would be wrong of me, at this point, to mention that the transaction she was carrying out was getting out a large amount of benefit money. It would be even more wrong to hint that there may be a link between poor, lazy, stupid people who get money undeservedly chucked at them by our fantastic benefits agency and shit parenting.

Nope. No link at all.

And she was fucking fat too.

I'm actually gonna miss someone.

Yup, shock horror, end times must be upon us but one of my favourite customers is moving out of the area soon.

Oh yes, despite what you may believe, I do have some customers that I can not just tolerate but actually like.

The main reason for me liking this customer is the large volume of mail he brings in. Granted this is tempered somewhat as it means I've got a lot of extra work to do but a good amount of his packages are special delivery which is a nice little earner for me.

Another reason why I like this customer is that he's actually stayed loyal to the post office and I'm gonna stick my neck out here and say that that's due to the excellent service we provide him. If he's got a couple of sackfuls of mail and he's in a hurry then we'll take 'em in and get 'em done while he's off doing important/more interesting things than standing around in the queue.

Unusually, I actually appreciate his rudeness too. Now, I'll give you a moment for that to sink in. I'll have to qualify that as it's not just your common or garden rude rudeness. It's generally well humoured, friendly and amusing banter. Also, he's quite happy for us to give as good as we get. It's very refreshing to be able to be rude to a customers face instead of just slagging them off as soon as they're out of earshot or writing about them on this blog.

So, I'd just like to say thank-you to this customer (assuming that he reads this blog, hopefully most of my customers don't) and if you're reading this and it's still Wednesday them pop in to see me and there may be a small token of my appreciation waiting for you (and I'm not just referring to a tirade of swearing, although he deserves that too).

Normal service will be resumed in the next post.

Regulars - Daisy again

There's just no hope for some folk. Seriously, they haven't got a clue. Sorry to get all right wing and nostalgic for a (likely untrue) glimpse at the past but in practically any era but our own a vast cross section of the populace wouldn't have survived into child bearing age. And a good thing too for a lot of these imbecilic mouth breathers. When I rule the world (it will happen, running a post office is just step number 417 in my 53,890 step plan for world domination. It's progressing according to plan thanks for asking. And you needn't worry too much, the very fact that you're reading this shows that you're withing the demographic that will be amongst the ruling elite due to your obvious taste, intelligence and sense of humour) such oxygen thieves will be wiped out.

Frankly, I've kinda lost my thread here with the thoughts of my military junta and exactly what's gonna happen when I'm in charge. Suffice to say it will rule. As will I.

Oh yeah, Daisy.

For the past few weeks she's been bothering us more than normal. She applied for a loan from the DWP for £1,000. We know all this because she can't read and we happen to be the local muggins reading centre for illiterate morons. We've been reading all her correspondence for her. Although a loan for a grand was denied, she was granted a loan of £800 and for the repayments to come straight out of her benefits every week.

Sadly, we weren't able to find out on why she "needed" the loan as that might have been interesting. As previously mentioned, she gets practically everything paid for her anyway so what does she need a grand for?

Ever since she heard that she was going to get the £800, she's been coming in every day at opening time to check to see if the money had been paid in. She was expecting it to be in the account the day after she sent off the application. She was a bit hopeful really. Surely years of being at the mercy of the DWP for all of her adult life she'd know how crap they are. (And probably a few other government agencies too due to her being a dodgy, pikey retard.)

Anyway, after only two and a half weeks the money is put in her account. This is surprisingly quick for the DWP. Daisy is delighted and says hat it's like winning the lottery.

Really?

Getting a loan for £800 is the same feeling as winning big on the lottery?

It's good to see her aim high in life.

Anyway, the money was transferred into her savings account where, according to Daisy, it was going to stay.

A week later and the savings account and the card account are completely empty. We were curious to find out where all this money had gone and have managed to piece together a few details translated from what Daisy told us when she was taking the money out and some assumptions.

At least two hundred quid went on one of her kids birthdays. Exactly what she bought is unknown but I'm guessing that most of it was frittered away.

Another hundred quid was taken out so she and family could go to the local carnival. Frankly, I'd find it difficult to spend £20 at this event so £100 must have taken some doing. Needless to say she did it though as she came in the Monday afterwards to get her weekly benefits fix. I'm guessing that a lot of it was spent in the beer tent.

The remainder was probably frittered away on shite and booze. We weren't too sure about the booze until we saw her fella walking past with a bottle of Stella on the go. Pretty pikey behaviour already and then we noticed that it was not even 10:30 in the morning. No wonder they're spunking the money away at a rate of knots. It also explains why Daisy has the occasional black eye. It just goes to show how poor a grasp on money these people have. If you're going to be a pikey alcoholic existing on benefits then at least drink cheaper booze. What's wrong with Special Brew or tramp strength cider? Nope, these cretins clearly have ideas above their stations.

From the behaviour of this family, I've managed to work out why some people are poor.

It's because they are too lazy to work and too stupid to hold on to any money that does come their way.

FACT!!!!

How To Make Old People Panic

It's simple really, just send them a letter about their card accounts that mentions closure of the account. It doesn't matter if, purely hypothetically you understand, the letter says that if they don't use the account for a whole year, they'll be sent a letter and if they don't respond, the account will be closed but the money will still be available if they want it.

If such a letter were to be sent out to the coffin dodgers, I'd put cash money on them reading the letter and concluding that their account is due to be closed TOMORROW even though they use it regularly every week and someone will come round and sodomise all of their pets. Then they'll run up here brandishing the letter and ask me whether their account is going to close like the letter says it will.

Y'know, it's a bloody good job that such a letter hasn't been sent out 'cos I really can't be arsed to deal with loads of worried, stupid, smelly old people who can't be bothered or are far too dim to work out a simple message on a letter.

What's that you say? They have sent exactly a letter like that out to card account holders?

Fucknuts!!!

PS. I'm also well aware of what the weather is like. Firstly, I can see and feel the effects of it, secondly every other fucker in here has said something about the weather too. The next person who says "Hot enough for you?" is going to get punched in the face, OK?

PPS. not 10 minutes after I posted this, Robert came in and the first thing he said was "Hot enough for you?" Irritating, smelly bastard.