Thursday, May 28th, 2015, I arrived a little before 3:30 p.m. at the postal office at 3198 S Grand Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63118, and once again discovered that the door was locked, a closed sign was displayed, and a clock card was displayed on the window that claimed "will be back at 4 p.m."
This branch has posted hours that claim it is supposed to close at 4 p.m., and there were several people waiting to get in, wondering why the door would be closed when the hours listed the location as open. A friend of mine walked up, and claimed he had shown up at 3:05 and the door was locked, so he was coming back to see if it had opened yet. Another man, who was also very upset, claimed that this was the third time he had suffered this blatant disregard for the posted hours. I had seen this happen once before when I arrived at 3:45, but figured they closed early for some reason. But closing an hour before the posted hours is clearly unacceptable.
My wife and I share a car, and so I had to walk quite a distance to the post office in order to mail an important and timely package on time. This was not easy for me, as I was still recovering from a broken leg. Another elderly man commiserated with me, as he had walked a much longer distance to mail a package, as well.
I waited, thinking that at least when the postal employee returned, he or she would open the door and mail our packages since we had already been robbed of a great deal of time and subjected to aggravation.
When 4 p.m. finally rolled around, the worker magically returned to the door, opening it to lock it, cavalierly claiming "we're closed." I asked how she could close now when the office had already been prematurely closed for an hour. I asked about the "back at 4" placard, and she refused to reason with me, instead claiming I should call her manager. I got the number for that manager, called her, and was told the manager was coming and would deal with the issue. 15 minutes later, the manager arrives, but all she does is tell those of us waiting to mail our packages that the postal worker was on her lunch break from 3-4, as if there never was any problem to begin with. "So you really close at 3 p.m., but keep the door and online hours listed as 4:00 p.m," my friend inquired. "No, we close at 4," the manager claimed, "but she takes her lunch at 3."
Everyone was baffled, but this manager acted as if nothing was amiss. She claimed that they didn't have anyone else to take her place during her lunch hour, but my friend asked why this happens several times a week, as he had experienced it repeatedly. It was as if the manager, who is in charge of scheduling workers, could not care less who else her inability to schedule workers or lack of care whether offices are staffed negatively affected. It was just our loss, and she had no intention of rectifying the situation. She claimed we could go to another office that is still open, but the next nearest one is all the way in a different zip code on the other side of Gravois. "Will you drive me there in your postal van, then?" I asked. "We don't have enough room for you in the van," she responded. When we asked her why she couldn't simply do her job and mail our packages now that everyone was there, she claimed that the cash register was already 'closed out' for the day, and that it could not be reopened again. Basically, the reason she can't do her job now is because she refused to do it before. She already closed at 3, so she can't close at 4 when she is supposed to. read more
