The US Postal Service is eliminating its numbered-ticket system from all of its statewide branches in the coming weeks, according to The Arizona Daily Star. Traditionally, postal customers would take a numbered ticket from a dispenser and wait for that number to be announced to receive service. Very soon, however, customers will simply have to form a line and wait their turn.
It’s no wonder that the likes of UPS, FedEx, and DHL have thrived in recent years as business owners have sought out less time-consuming options for their shipping needs. It also seems there’s a UPS Store or Mail Boxes Etc. around every corner these days; while they offer both postal and various shipping services, they usually don’t have the wait.
The post office change, according to USPS spokesman Rob Soler, was made to (insert polite cough here) reduce waiting times and (insert more insistent cough here) increase efficiency. Must be something stuck in my throat.
Soler further explained that when customers’ numbers were called in the past, oftentimes they would be in another room checking their postal boxes. Each no-show would delay a postal clerk by as much as 30 seconds. Considering how sloooooooowwwwwllllyyyy the clerks at my post office work, 30 seconds is but a speck in the time-space continuum. Don’t get me wrong, folks. I’m not saying that the numbered-ticket system is God’s gift to efficiency. I recall – and not so fondly, I might add – taking a number as a kid every time I stepped foot inside a Baskin Robbins. Heck, departments of public safety all over the place still use the technology to control walk-in traffic. It is, all in all, just another method of making us wait.
The thing is, with the numbered-ticket system, I don’t have to stand in line in order to wait my turn. I can browse across the latest collectible stamp offerings, or poke around for spare change from the self-serve stamp machines. Or (try and keep up with me on this one) I can even take a seat until my number is called.
Evidently Arizona post offices are among the last in the nation to scrap the numbered-ticket system, which makes me wonder when the location near my home will be killing it off.
Hopefully not before Christmas.
Comments
Jon Says:
September 11th, 2006 at 8:02 am
A few years ago, my wife had a conversation with a Postal Service employee about the reduced staff and longer waits. The employee said that the reason the service had decreased so much was that they were trying to make it inefficient. The idea was that they would degrade the service slowly over time so that Americans would be amenable to privatizing the postal system.
Seems like this ethos applies to a variety of government services.
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