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I’m usually much nicer than this

This morning I walked to work, opened up the office, turned the lights on, made the coffee and took the mail over to the post office while waiting for the coffee to brew.

Victor, later in the day The post office is in the L’Esplanade Laurier: it’s one of those little privatized outlets. It’s run by slow-motion imbeciles. Victor is elderly, dense and painfully slow, and he has a very bad comb-over. His movements are barely perceptible. He measures everything, even standard-sized envelopes. S l o w l y. He speaks slowly and indistinctly. He never looks up. He is oblivious to everything around him except for the one miniscule detail he’s attending to at any given moment. (This is a picture I snapped of him later in the day.)

There’s a woman there sometimes who moves a bit faster than Victor, but treats everybody with contempt and acts like she resents the customers for showing up and buying things. You ask for a stamp and she sneers at you. You ask how much it costs to mail this letter to New Zealand and she heaves a huge sigh and rolls her eyes.

Sometimes there’s a younger woman there who moves a little more quickly and efficiently. She appears not to wash her hair and she wears badly pilled jogging pants with “Spoiled” written on the ass. (I am no fashion maven myself, so when I criticize someone else’s clothes, you know it has to be bad.)

My office has an account at this postal outlet, so I’m supposed to go to the side counter, hand over my stack of mail, and leave. This way I don’t have to wait in the main lineup, which is about four feet away. It’s a very small postal outlet, but the staff are completely lacking in peripheral vision and they never look up, so they never see me there. As a result, I often end up waiting longer than I would if I were in the regular lineup.

Anyway, I’m standing there with my mail while Victor (who is the only one working this morning) deals with the only other customer. In fact, as I arrive, their transaction is complete. He watches while she slowly pockets her change and puts her receipt away. I stand there waiting patiently. She glances at me and then she decides to strike up a conversation with Victor.

“Do you know,” she said (in what I believe was a German accent), “When I first came here in 1992, I went to the post office on Rideau Street and I was so surprised by how nice everybody was.”

“brg,” murmured Victor.

“I took a long time because I didn’t understand how it worked in Canada,” she continued, “and when I turned to leave, I saw there was a long lineup of customers behind me, waiting.”

Victor made a gurgling noise.

“And you know, those people didn’t even get angry at me for taking so long,” she said.

Victor nodded slowly.

“That’s what I love about this country,” she went on, “Nobody’s impatient.”

Meanwhile, I’m standing there, growing increasingly impatient.

“Rgh dm bl ek,” said Victor.

“People are so understanding here,” she said, “Nobody ever gets angry.”

“Vg isi,” said Victor, “Ek jnglg flug.”

I coughed. I shifted from foot to foot. I looked at my imaginary watch.

“You can stay for a few extra minutes and have a pleasant conversation and people don’t mind waiting until you’re finished,” the woman said.

By this point I’m starting to wonder if she’s deliberately trying to piss me off. Because I’m seriously getting pissed off. The irony is not lost on me, but I’m too irritated to appreciate it. I just want to hand Victor the mail and get back to my office. He could just reach over and take the mail from me while continuing this conversation if he were capable of doing two things at the same time, but so far he hasn’t even noticed me standing there. But the customer has: she keeps glancing at me while she talks.

“In my country, people aren’t like that,” she said, “Everybody’s always in such a hurry. Rush, rush, rush. Not like the patient Canadians, who always have time to be nice.”

“FUCK,” I screamed under my breath, “Just shut up and leave already!”

“I like it better here,” she said, “People don’t mind waiting until you’re done. People don’t mind if it takes a few extra minutes to be pleasant.”

“Blg inki brah shmnz,” said Victor slowly.

It didn’t stop there. It went on and on.

Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I was too pissed off to stand there waiting for this endless drivel to end. I turned around and stomped out. Of course I got about 50 paces away and thought better of it. If I didn’t drop the mail off now, I’d just have to come back and do it later when there would be more people in the lineup. I stomped back in.

“Oh here’s another customer now,” said the woman brightly, acting like she’d never seen me before.

“An impatient one!” I snapped impatiently. I actually said that out loud, while glowering at her.

I’m usually much nicer than this.

6 comments to I’m usually much nicer than this

  • Heh. Funny story.

    I used to go regularly to a similar little private postal outlet at the mall near where I worked in Toronto. The guy who I assumed to be the owner once started yelling at a little old lady who was either confused or a little bit fussy (not fussy in a nasty way, just kind of fussy in an I-don’t-understand-this-newfangled-way-of-doing-things way).

    I was horrified, so stunned that I didn’t say anything when it was my turn. I still kick myself now for not telling him off for treating some poor 80 or 90 year-old that way.

  • Patti

    Hello Zoom,

    I was compelled to say, and I have thought this many times before after reading your posts, that I think you are a marvellous writer and could also pursue this as another artistic career. The collaging writer! Maybe you already write for newspapers and magazines and I don’t know about it.
    Thanks for making me laugh.

  • Transit Rage (I love your name, by the way), I am the master of kicking myself later for not saying something at the time.

    Patti, your comment made my day. Thank you!

  • Gilles Seguin

    LOL!!!!

    I think Victor and his contemptuous sidekick must work part-time at the Motor Vehicle Bureau.

    And you *do* have a most amusing way of expressing yourself — no wonder you’re such a BloGodess!

    Cheers,
    Gilles

    (Sympathetic because I’m a perpetual victim of the longest-line-at-the-bank-is-always-the-one-I’m-in curse)

  • Thanks Gilles! BloGoddess has a nice ring to it. I always pick the shortest line at the grocery store too, and it invariably ends up being the slowest line. I might need to change my strategy. Next time, instead of looking at the length of the line, I’m going to size up the the cashiers and choose one who appears to still be alive.

  • Dan

    Late to the comment game on this one, but yeah. When I worked downtown, I would occasionally stop at that outlet to mail company stuff, or maybe an eBay sale – and that guy was the WORST.

    Every goddam time, when I’d ask for a quote for shipping to wherever, he’d ring in the sale, even though I had specifically asked only for a quote, and told him that I was not shipping the item at that time.

    The counter help is just the same. I once purchased two snacks of some sort, which were ‘on special’ for a relatively low price… after ringing me in, taking my money and giving back my change, the woman decided that the price was wrong, and tried to grab one of the items back.

    Needless to say, I don’t shop there any more.