To loose my temper in post office?

[irritablesally]

So yesterday I get to my local post office.
It's a busy city centre branch.
They have 5 on the counters and 4 "self serve machines"
I go through and do my parcel but at the end it comes up with "please wait for host" who basically confirms you've done it correctly.
All 4 machines were stuck on "please wait for host"and lots of people waiting behind.
The lady who was working (or supposed to be working ) on self serve was going around attaching 50th birthday balloons to everyone's desk and the post office.
I stood for 6 minutes (along with the other 3) waiting for her ..she looked over and continued fannying on with balloons.
I lost my temper and said "instead of messing about with that can you actually help us"
Then she came over ..
Was aibu to say this?
I felt guilty after ..

@cabochard I work in retail.

My point about the signs is that, in my experience anyway, they only seem to be rife in shops/service areas where the staff dilly-dally about rather than getting on with their jobs, as in the OP's original post where the worker felt it was more important to put balloons up than to assist the customers she was being paid to help.

I usually internally eye-roll and take the signs as a fore-warning that the customer service will be piss poor and my time will be wasted.

🙄

Posted too soon... because some customers will get aggravated to the point of being abusive to the staff.

Obviously that's not okay but I can;t help but think that if these certain workers just got on with it then the collectively raising blood pressure of the annoyed queuers would reduce and less confrontation would occur.

Where l work the service you’d receive would be excellent.
As you alsowork in retail you’ll appreciate that my day will be peppered with assholes... the signs are displayed in all types of establishments anyway.
I see what you are saying though.

Just saw your other post.
You know that most of the time it takes very little to annoy some people...
I was verbally threatened on Friday for pouting out that a customer needed to use a different till, while l had the nerve to be making a report. A report that is supposed to be done while shoppers are around... and l don’t need to be serving them!
The general public are getting worse and way more entitled...
l worry for my mental health and for that if my colleagues. Young women regularly end up in the back, crying and terrified. :(

@cabochard, yes I do for sure. Unfortunately where I work we have to pretty much put up with it as it's still a bit "customer is king" here.

While I don’t think the OP was BU to get annoyed, please remember that in most cases where there are self service machines, these have replaced actual human staff. I work in a library where we have several self issue machines. Quite a few people come to the desk to issue or return their books ‘so that we don’t lose our jobs’. They don’t seem to realise that we have to do so much more than issuing books. We have to do all the stock work, displays, events planning etc while we’re on the ‘shop floor’. I would love to spend all day chatting to customers about books but we just don’t have time.

You were a bit rude OP but I get why. Nobody likes waiting that long especially when there's an assistant nearby.

It's lose not loose too

@cabochard, yes I do know that.

I am not defending anyone that abuses anybody else, in any situation.

I am sorry you were verbally threatened but my post is in reference to the OP's situation where the worker looked at her waiting customers and then chose to ignore them and go back to putting up balloons, presumably for a colleague's birthday.

She wasn't doing a report or engaged with another work task, she was twatting around not doing her job. Six minutes isn't very long but if the OP hadn't said something who knows how long everyone would have had to wait?

If people thing being a customer in the post office is bad you want to work there. I did for years and it was the most utterly sole destroying job. I got shit from the customers all the time cos I was doing what I was told, I got shit from the staff cos I actually wanted to get on and serve customers instead of count my stamps. Lots of people I worked with were just waiting for their redundancy or retirement package and couldn't give a shit. I avoid crown offices like the plague now.

My local PO is brilliant. It was always good, the staff really helpful. They have introduced self service in addition to, not replacing counters. It has really speeded transactions up. The self service is manned by someone who is ready to show you what to do/resolve issues. The staff still seem plentiful and are still helpful. Returning online purchases there is now a breeze. No queues.

I like the people in our post office but they drive me mad. That is because they are obviously told to upsell. I'll get to the counter after queuing for 20 mins and the line behind me is out the door. They will weigh and charge me for my parcel and will then try and upsell - "have you thought about our car insurance" or some such ridiculous statement that surely nobody will say yes to. They would make far more money if they just keep serving people !

I had to ask (very politely) for a till to be opened up in our Waitrose today (!) They are normally excellent at opening tills if there is more than 1 person waiting. But they are refurbishing, so now we have a bigger (mainly unused) self service area plus someone to help, plus a number of staff wandering around helping you find where they have moved everything to this week. But only 2 proper tills plus a basket one. I was not impressed. If I wanted to queue I'd go to Aldi.

I hate the bloody self service tills. Always something goes wrong,,,and its 'please wait for assistance,' Then the assistance arrives, flashes a plastic card across the scanner and all is well...iTS SUPPOSED TO BE QUICKER AND IT BLOODY WELL AINT..!!

I went to the post office yesterday. There was no queue so went to the open till where it said, "please wait here to be served." the lady behind the till was on her mobile. I did a gentle cough to get her attention and she replied with, "hang on a sec will you?"
ER, NO I WILL NOT!! of course, I said nothing and waited patiently. I have since played the scenario out again in the shower and guess what, I WON!!

Minnie

shannon
I work in the customer services desk - lm constantly told: “ l’ll give you this! massive basket as you’re not doing anything!”

Firstly we don’t take baskets of shopping and second, l am busy. I’m just not serving as.this.isnt.a CHECKOUT!

*on the.

I had this in ASDA the other day. The women supposed to be on the self-service tills was cooing over a baby she knew in the aisles.

There was about 6 people all glaring at her who couldn't finish their shopping.

I get that most people like to sneak a bit of down time during the working day, but unfortunately you really can't in a job like that

I hate the post office. Whenever I need to post a parcel or letter I use a unmarked postbox. My post office also has installed some self service machines. But you still have to wait for someone to come over for packages to take away. However there’s little point in complaining about it. I rarely visit my local post office these days. OP here’s a suggestion for you. Use the mailbox on the street or wait for a postman to come.

I work in the customer services desk - lm constantly told: “ l’ll give you this! massive basket as you’re not doing anything"

Same here, but at the supermarket I work in my desk is one half of the cigarette kiosk so when I'm not busy I will give them a hand serving. If I'm doing a customer service job that can wait (e.g. rehanging clothes that have been returned) and there is a long queue then I will serve customers first but generally I'm too busy with my own job.

Sometimes I will be busy with important paperwork (e.g. if someone hands a debit card in we have to record it our lost property form immediately and secure it in a till/send to the cash office) or waiting for a customer to come back with an exchange product and so I can't help the kiosk.

The amount of abuse when this happens because I'm "doing nothing" is unreal. I hate it because customers are cursing me for not serving customers when actually my primary job is not to serve them but because I'm in the general vicinity of a till and am visible to the queue they assume I am shirking off. If I ever do try to explain I invariably get a load of tutting, eye rolling and muttering as they see it as an excuse

melj
You have the same job as me ( l think) combined kiosk!
I’m sorry you deal with it too. It ain’t easy.

I agree. Except you don’t loose your temper lol

YANBU at all. This afternoon I had to wait, along with a queue of people behind me, in the Post Office while an an idiot in front of me (who knew the woman serving her), wittered on about her partner’s stag weekend in Hungary, including showing her photos from her phone. She was there to exchange his currency back into £££. The huge pile of notes amounted to £15.40. The faffing around on both parts took more than 15 minutes. When it was eventually over, they started chatting about their children. When I was eventually served, my ASOS return took literally 40 seconds. Gaah !

You were very patient. I hate ha nging around