Friday 3 February 2012

How to google a postman

Yesterday I went to the local post office to send a few letters. Yes, I belong to that archaic group of people who still sends enveloped letters by post. To be completely honest, mostly for work or as holiday greetings, but nevertheless. Waiting in queue can be both boring and interesting. Staying in a crowded room full of strangers is tiresome, but it pays. Where else do you get to see so many different individuals together, their nerves strained against time? For instance, there is an old woman who regularly comes to this post office to pay some bills (I wonder where she gets so many bills), and her hobby is queue jumping. I'm sure she thinks she has mastered the art to perfection and that's why nobody objects anymore to her irrational behaviour: taking several queue tickets, then not using any of them and squeezing close to someone at the reception window and sliding her bill and banknotes with explanatory murmurs  to the person who's about to pay his own bills. Of course people don't usually deny her help, but it has nothing to do with her sneaking talent.
So yesterday morning I was in that queue again, observing people inconspicuously, when I saw two teenagers at the reception window. What they were trying to do made me grin so wide I couldn't stop myself. From what I understood they had written a letter to the headmaster of their school and gathered signatures under it, so now the letter had to be sent in official mode with a return receipt in order to get proof that the letter has reached him. So far so good, democracy at its highest. There was only one problem. The students didn't have the envelope to put the letter in, didn't know the exact address of the school, nor did they know the postal code of that street. And when the postal worker drew their attention to these facts they were flabbergasted! "Why, that is the job of post office to provide us with such information!", the girl exclaimed. The postal worker, a very kind middle aged man, did his best to help the ignorant, but still couldn't help shaking his head. Ah, the delightful google-generation!

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