I went to the post office today.
No, this isn’t the beginning of some Bukowski book, it’s just a thing I did. I had the day off, so I could actually get to the post office to send out some things that needed to be sent when one isn’t actually at work during the Postal Service business hours.
I love the Postal Service, but as much as I hate to say it, damn is the post office a goddamned depressing place. Like, what if you took the classic stereotypical 1980s DMV and made it worse. It’s counterfactual: the Postal Service provides one of the best services for moving mail and packages around, but the experience of being in an actual post office is horrible. There might be one person working that day. The paint is peeling off the walls. Faded posters adorn the walls that don’t have paint peeling. The folks working are behind plexiglass as if they work at a liquor store in a bad neighborhood.
The wait takes forever. You’re only behind two people, but for some reason, they have such specialized needs that they each require 10-20 minutes of specialized care.
So, in that 20-40 minutes of wait time, you look around, canvassing the entire area, determining what specially makes it feel like a terrible place. There’s a weird smell. You remember that outside, it looks like a nice place. An old building, with historic architecture. Ample windows. A sign with the great USPS logo, with clear indication of how they are not open when you need them. You think it’s only going to be a couple of minutes so you paused your podcast and took your earbuds out. You hate that made that poor decision because now all you hear is some vague comfortable noise.
Why is the post office so fucking awful?
Well, you know, of course it’s a story of lack of investment. For years—decades—the Postal Service wasn’t allowed to invest its own money in its operations. Despite it being basically the only thing the federal government does that is not just protected but required by the hallowed constitution, it has been underfunded, maliciously ignored, and told to just die already by a government that wants more than anything for it to just not be a bother anymore. Of course, those campaign contributions from FedEx and UPS don’t hurt. Sure, FedEx is great if you absolutely need to get it overnight (for a fee), and UPS is sometimes pretty okay, but neither will get you a letter across the country for less than a dollar American.
We need to rethink the post office. Actually, we don’t. What we need to do is make them nicer and hire a bunch of people to staff them. Look, I walk into a FedEx business office place and there is no line and the place looks like any other retail store. Same with the UPS Store. Why doesn’t the post office look that way? You know why. Because Republicans want to drain it of any energy that would make you think that the federal government is actually good at anything. The Postal Service already has the best service for the best money: it’s time to back that up with making the post offices greater places to be in.
Did you know that post offices are closed on Sundays because people used to hang out and drink at them? They used to serve as many towns’ meeting place. You’d stop in, check to see if you have any mail, sit down and hang out with a few other folks and catch up. We all talk and talk lately about so-called third places, and the post office used to be that place, at least in thousands of old rural towns across the country that lacked anything else.
What can be done? Well, I say start with spending a few billion dollars on totally renovating every single post office in the country. Make them comfortable spaces to exist in, lively even. Hire a bunch of new people. Expand the services: I’m sure having an office in every single town could be a great launching pad for any number of services for people: try stuff out and see what works. Banking? Why not. Computer lab? Why not. Maker space? Sure, fuck it why not. Tool library? Hell yeah. Open back up on Sundays and let people BYOB the afternoon away. Throw up some TVs and show the football game. Make it a whole thing.
