US Post Office

If you want the feel of living in a third world country, move to Lancaster, MA and try to get or send your mail.
Over the ten years we have lived here, we have been subjected to the following:
«You had too many boxes shipped to us! We aren’t set up for that!»
When I asked for 100 first class stamps, «We don’t carry that many stamps.»
When a carrier who I had never spoken to or met left handwritten post-​it notes in my mailbox stating that she was our new carrier and we were being unfair to her, I heard this from the postmaster, «I told her you weren’t out to get her. We just need to be patient and understand her.»
When I tried to mail 40 packages for my business, «We can’t do that for you. You need to get online, print out the labels and buy a postal scale.»
We received repeated notices from the postmaster to raise our mailbox by at least 24 inches. I measured our mailbox height, added in two feet, went into the post office and asked if they really wanted us to build a custom post for our mailbox so that it would be over six feet high. The person at the counter said, «I don’t know.»
They take a one hour lunch and close at 4:30 pm so they’re really hardly open. When I came in at 4:10 pm, twenty minutes before closing, I was told, «You barely made it. I was going to close up in a couple of minutes.»
When we had record snowfall, the person at the counter announced to everyone there that all mail would be returned unless everyone collected it on Monday. Someone said, «It’s snowing again on Monday. What if you’re closed again?» The person at the counter said, «I don’t know.»
When we gave them a forwarding order to our business post office box located ten feet away from the counter the postmaster said, «We can’t do that! The machine that prints out the forwarding stickers is broken!»
When they closed down their handicapped access for weeks because they chose not to clear the snow and ice, forcing my husband with a bad leg to use the stairs, we were informed that we should use calcium chloride to clear the space around our mailbox because the carriers wouldn’t get out of their trucks so we wouldn’t get our mail. This was said without irony. The shreds of the caution tape remain on the handrails on their handicapped access ramp to this day.
Last night, a neighbor down the road came by with a package that had been, in her words, «crammed into» her mailbox. It was addressed to us and was delivered two days before while our forwarding order was in force.
I thought that I might be unreasonable or possibly going insane. Then I went to the Clinton, MA post office which is in the town next to us. They had stamps. Lots of them. They offered to set up a time to do a large mailing for my business. They asked me how they could help. I felt like I had moved back to the United States and I almost cried in relief.