If you had 365 bags of coins to pay into the Post Office.....

Oo that's a lot. I never do that doubling up thing either. I'm always a bit dubious for some reason.

I've got about £25 worth!! although I suppose I could double them up for one of their offers, but I don't like their website

Jalima

Oh Bugger, KatyK, that has reminded me that I meant to take my Tesco vouchers with me this morning and get some money off my bill (I would have torn them out first though)

Slightly off subject, but in Tesco this morning there were long queues as you can imagine at this time of year. I stood in what looked like the shortest queue. There was a man being served who had a loaded up trolley. The shopping was scanned through and it came to over £200. He then fumbled in his pocket for his phone, tapped in some numbers and handed it to the assistant. She scanned (what I am assuming was a bar code or something giving him money off something). She handed him the phone back. He scrolled through his phone until he found another code or whatever an handed back to her. This was done about 10 times. When that was done he fumbled in his pockets again for books of coupons, gave them to the assistant to tear out and scan each one - there were at least 12. Meanwhile the rest of us were standing there fuming. He could at least have torn his vouchers out of the book before he left the house. How inconsiderate.

Our village PO is now just a space at the end of the counter in the ScotMid store. You queue up with the customers who have loads of shopping and when you reach the front of the Q the assistant moves to the space at the end where he/she deals with your business in full sight and hearing of all the other customers. For missed deliveries we have to go to the depot on the outskirts of the city, 7 miles away.

Now that all our local bank branches are closing, even with internet banking, we will be forced to use the PO as a place to pay in cash or cheques. Even in our main large town, which used to have a main PO and 3 sub POs, the always busy, 6 teller, purpose built PO has closed and all that is available is a counter in a small grocery, staffed by the owner and his family. Unfortunately the Father, who is the Postmaster, has very poor English, (the sons and daughters are fine) but it is he who usually deals with the PO side of things. This small shop is often queued right out the door.
Apparently, this was the only business who bid for the franchise, although there are 5 big supermarkets in town.

Maybe the post offices should 'address' this problem. If they offer a service, its quite reasonable for people to take up the offer, but perhaps they could be directed to a counter just for 'long-winded' issues.

Just be very glad that you have all of these Post Office options - queue or no queue

I am not in the UK and all local post offices are now closed - our parcels and letters that need to be signed for go to a supermarket 10 miles away or icy country lanes.

On Friday I got notification that a parcel was waiting for collection so DH drove the 10 miles - but when he got there he was told that the Post Service had unfortunately delivered it to a supermarket 50 miles away by accident - so come back Monday!

paddyann. This is a local village PO. One till, one member of staff. There isn't another till to open or staff member to staff it. This is why the event exasperated me. There are three PO within 10 - 15 minute drives which are bigger and always have two tills staffed.

I think Monica was justifiably indignant. I have been turned away with a stocking full of saved -up pennies for coming on a busy day shortly before closing time. This was very many years ago, when I was too young to know better.

paddyann the sub-postmaster is on his own at my PO. That's why agree with M0nica that the woman could have gone to a PO with more than one counter.

I'm with M0nica on this one. I stood in a queue likewise for nearly half an hour one Saturday whilst a young newly wed couple had their passports checked, hers was in her maiden name requiring all sorts of administrative activity to align the pair of passports. Very exasperating for all of the rest of us in that queue. As in the case cited in the OP, this was a local sub post office with one counter open.

I do wish people with complicated issues would attend one of the larger POs where they can take their time without unduly delaying the rest of humankind. We are only four miles from a large town with an excellent transport system.

Rant over.....

or get the PO to put on another member of counter staff

I'll put in a word for M0nica! We've probably all, during our long lives, both been held up in a long queue by someone doing something time-consuming and been the one doing the holding-up. However, it seems to me that the point is not the rights of the person doing the holding-up, but the fact that she didn't acknowledge the effect of her actions on everybody else. As M0nica says, it is possible to, at least, smile and apologise. Then everyone feels better, which is surely a good thing at this time of year!

Perhaps it is reaching that stage in the Silly Season where we're all a bit ratty and frayed around the edges ...

Nonnie - same here.
But there's often a similar buildup at our post office - I think some people go there to have a chat with the person serving, and advice on their financial problems.

Just in case anyone else has to pay in masses of coins our bank has a machine where you simply pour all the money in and it gives you a slip of paper to take to the tellers to have either the money or pay it in. It would save holding others up like this. If you do this do check the amount you are paying in first because our machine got stuck and I insisted that the helpful person stay until I had all my money.

You could have shoved her aside M0nica, like that woman did to me in the gift shop.

Oh, come on, do not take it too seriously. I merely posted a quick query after an exasperating trip to the Post Office,

I will now return to the far more serious matter of Phoenix and her gammon

We need an eye-roll emoticon! Talk about molehills and mountains!

The hows and whys of my being at the PO are irrelevant, they were brief and did not hold up other people unduly. My need was no more important than anybody elses, but it was not just me, it was also the people all queued up behind me, about 10 of them, not to mention those who gave up and walked away. Ours is only a small PO at the back of the Co-op with one till and one teller, but it is busy.

I quite agree that the lady had a right to be there doing what she did when she did, but I regularly have to make a large mailing of about 100 journals. I never take them to the PO all at once. I take then 10 at a time and try to choose times when the PO is likely not to be crowded and I let people past me if they only have one quick thing to do and if a queue does build behind me, I apologise. I do nothing that most people do when they have time consuming operations at a bank or Post Office.

As much as anything it was the indifference of the lady to the inconvenience she was causing that annoyed me, and others muttering in the queue; an acknowledgement that she was causing a bottle neck, a quick apology 'sorry, I can only pay in on a Saturday' or some acknowledgement of the inconvenience she was causing, would at least have have indicated that she was aware of the problems her long transaction was causing and had some thought for other people.

Yes, the person had every right to do this, but it wouldn't stop me from thinking she was being thoughtless at the very least. We have a similar setup in our local PO with only the sub-postmaster serving. He often has an eBay seller turn up at about 4.30pm with dozens of parcels. The last Royal Mail collection is at 4.50pm and there's tasks to be done at the last minute in time for that collection. The sub-postmaster has asked the customer to come a bit earlier, but he just ignores him. Anybody hoping to catch the last post will probably be out of luck.

You might think this is all rather unimportant, but postmasters make their money by the amount of transactions they have. Also, the more income a PO takes, the more services it is permitted to offer. If someone goes into their local PO and can't get served in a reasonable time because of something like a customer taking a really long time, they might not bother using their local PO again. This is one of the ways local POs end up closing down.

maybe it was the only time she had to go to the PO,I often went llast thing at night with a huge pile of mail all needing weighed ,I had no alterbative and it was just too bad for folk in the queue behind me.Maybe THEY could have gone at a different time ?

But they have just as much right to do what they need to do when they need to do it. It is the inference that they were being inconsiderate that made me ask if she had thought her need was greater than theirs. If not why even comment.

I certainly didn't infer from M0nica's post that she felt her need was greater, or that her time was limited in any way. She was simply surprised, as I would have been, that someone was inconsiderate enough to monopolise the post office counter for a full half-hour on one of the busiest days of the year, seemingly oblivious - possibly even uncaring - that a queue was building up behind her as a result.