At the post office

I had to go to my local Post Office to post a parcel yesterday morning. I  had been forewarned that they had a two person limit on customers allowed in the shop and that the queuing, while maintaining  distance, tended to be erratic and without any rules. On my arrival, I saw a guy pacing back and forth talking (presumably on his phone), however, each time he passed the (closed) Post Office door, he would stop and speak in a different way, before resuming his pacing (and phone call) – this confused me. I asked him twice if he was in the queue and, on the second time, he seemed to say that he was. Eventually, he walked off with only a comment seemingly made to the door but without entering the Post Office – perhaps he wasn’t queueing at all(?).

 

I was left having to re-interpret my assumptions about the situation.

 

I decided to try to open the door. It was locked, but it became apparent that there was some kind of gap in the glass which I realised was due to a pane of glass having been removed to facilitate restricted entry. This accounted for the previous man’s change in conversation, as each time he passed, he must have been speaking through the gap in the glass. The guy inside said:

“What do you want”

I tried to explain that I wanted to know when it was my turn to go in.

 

“What do you want?” he repeated.

I realised that he literally wanted to know what I wanted from the shop so I explained that I  had a parcel to post. So easy -  I was let in without further discussion. The two guys working in there were efficient and helpful when I finally got in there, but it took a whole lot of work to get there and understand the new system.

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