Going Postal in Santa Monica

By Vince Basehart

February 15 -- The US Postal Service is regularly slandered as the epitome of government sloth and inefficiency.

The Lens is here to set the record straight. On a recent trip to the post office on Wilshire I discovered the truth: it’s the patrons who jam the whole thing up.

There we are, a dozen of us, standing in line waiting. Waiting for the line to move. We have a simple need: to have a parcel delivered from the United States Post Office in Santa Monica to another spot on the globe. It's done all the time.

A simple matter really. You present yourself to a trusted federal employee. You push a pre-addressed and wrapped parcel towards him across the Formica counter top, and pay the fee that he tells you to pay. You walk away. What does that take? Thirty seconds?

Instead, there is a tall young man and his tiny, dark-haired girlfriend at the counter, in front of a postal worker with the looks of a Bollywood star and the patience of Job. The young couple is agonizing over rates, shipment weights, packaging, to insure or not to insure. They grill the poor worker with desperate sounding questions, peer into each others' eyes upon hearing each answer, and ask another torrent of questions. Abraham agonized less over whether or not to sacrifice his son.

Of course, this is the Lens' and other patrons' precious lunch hour.

I stand behind a woman who could be a Kennedy on Martha’s Vineyard, with her big cheekbones, cable knit sweater and square jaw. She is reading from a paperback novel with clenched teeth, her right foot tapping out a rhythm of contempt. Between paragraphs she glares at the time-guzzling couple at the counter.

Luckily for all of us, there are two other postal officials beside the one dealing with the couple. One is a shaved-headed black man about my age, whose nametag reads “Marx,” another is an Asian man with no i.d.

Marx hands a sheet of stamps to a customer, a lady bent by age. The woman draws him into a “nice day, isn’t it?” kind of conversation which requires short but polite answers and nods of his head. He clearly wants to move her along. He can feel the heat of the other customers’ stares.

The old lady is done, and another woman takes her place, who quickly finishes her transaction.

And the Asian guy's customer, a young businesswoman, is also done. The line has suddenly moved up a couple of notches.

But now the Asian postal worker is weighing something on a scale as his customer, a scruffy guy in a down ski jacket, painstakingly fills out a small stack of forms of some sort, examining each one like a diamond merchant. This looks bad. Mortgage forms bad.

The line seems to go nowhere again, for about five minutes. Marx is tied up with someone pulling out credit cards and looking things up in an address book, and asking the difference between registered or certified mail. The young couple is still asking questions of the mail lady, this time with the man conferring with someone on the cell phone. His girlfriend is now choosing between different types of envelopes on a rack.

The Kennedy lady mutters, "Dear God," and I sigh along with her.

The building is from about the '30s, the interior façade updated in the late '70s, the floor blue linoleum. They have a sign declaring they are "Sorry, out of $41.00 rolls of stamps." The wood paneled front of the counter sports dashes of old yellowed tape, remnants of the many flyers that have once been posted and torn down over the years. You notice these things standing in line for twenty minutes.

Behind me are two college-aged guys, we will call them “Man” and “Dude,” as this is what they call each other. Man carries a lap top computer with him. They are giggling.

“Dude. I think we should wrap it up in that kind of tape, you know, that super tough tape?”

“Like, duct tape? Man.”

“No. You know. That kind of space shuttle tape that they repair the Space Shuttle with? Like totally cocoon the whole thing about four inches thick with it. Dude, that'd be awesome!”

“Yeah Man. And label it ‘Do not use sharp objects to open.’”

They giggle themselves silly. I giggle too, and thank God they are not in front of me.

Finally, mercifully, the young couple are sent away to fill out forms and stuff envelopes elsewhere, and another person moves up. Then another as the Asian postal worker’s customer finishes with his forms. Then the Kennedy lady moves up.

I get Marx, whose work ethic is courteous and built for speed. I hand him the parcel, and request next day delivery. In a short moment I have a receipt in my hand, a verbal guarantee from Marx that the parcel will be delivered by noon the next day and a wish for a grand afternoon. All this in twenty four seconds.