I don't know how people with actual jobs manage to ever get anything done.
I had to go to the post office to send a few posters off to those good enough to want to buy some off me (details on home page). I was planning on heading to the gym afterwards and then on to the library. It was a plan. I felt good. Fulfil a task, do some exercise and do some work - that's a full day for a comedian.
But the post office on the way to the gym was inexplicably closed, with not so much as a note on the door to apologise or inform its customers what was going on. So I had to walk for another fifteen minutes and out of my way to go to Shepherd's Bush main post office.
And when I got there there was predictably a massive queue and only four windows open. I was there for a good thirty minutes. If I had a job then that would be my lunch break gone. Although if I had a job I would a) probably not be posting posters of myself out to people and b) I could just have put my mail in internal mail and had it sent out for free. But still, you get my point.
Forget Falluja - the queue in the post office is one of the most miserable places on planet earth. No-one is going there to have any fun, but only to perform some menial task which is usually going to cost them money (unless they are collecting their pension or child support - which let's face it, isn't enough money to make you whoop with joy) and then you end up being made to wait for the privelege. "Yes, we'll take your money - but in our own time!" And once you've invested twenty minutes of your life waiting and are still ten people back, you feel you have to wait or you'll have wasted your investment.
But the people working there don't have much of a deal either. They get to serve people who don't want to be there who are all complaining about the thirty minute wait. I heard them say, "Sorry, we're under-staffed" more times than I can remember. I feel more sorry for them having to endure this Hell and also get the blame for it for eight hours a day, five days a week. Where's the job satisfaction? I don't think anyone working behind a post office counter has ever made anyone truly happy - a postman may occasionally get a thank you or even a kiss for delivering a piece of mail that someone has been particularly waiting for, but someone at a post office counter? Has anyone ever cheered with delight because you've helped them pay their TV licence? I don't think so.
The professionals that commit suicide the most often are apparently dentists - and you can see why, it must be horrible doing a job where everyone you meet does not want to see you and many of whom are frightened of you. No-one ever hugs and thanks a dentist after he's given them root canal.
But second largest number of suicides must come from post office counter staff. Plus you also have to contend with the disgruntled workers who have decided to go on a killing spree. You don't see many post office counter staff over 40.
The most annoying thing about the wait was noticing the cynical way that whoever was in charge had decided to line the route of the queue with cheap looking dolls and transformer toys. They knew that lots of mums with kids would be coming in to use their services and they knew they'd be waiting for at least quarter of an hour, so they put toys there so kids will have time to bug their parents asking for the piece of plastic shit they are hawking. Or even better, as almost happened with a young boy behind me, the kids would start playing with the toy and then break it or the damage the box, so their mums would be forced to pay for it. Because you could see from all the mums faces that they could just do with some extra stress to make their lives more interesting.
It made me wish for a swarm of four year olds to bust in and rip all the toys to pieces before buzzing out the door again. That would teach the evil Post office, who can't even deliver a Scrabble Gameboy game by recorded delivery in less than three weeks.
Hope you enjoy your posters.
