Please, abolish this miserable place
This post by Don Boudreaux over at Cafe Hayek echoes my own thoughts on the post office. I can’t imagine why on Earth we still have this waste of an agency. What exactly about delivering little pieces of paper is too delicate to leave to the private sector?
One thing that I hated about living in Baltimore was that you couldn’t get packages delivered to your door. You had to go to the post office to pick them up, because the neighborhood ne’er-do-wells would inevitably scavenge anything of value lying on your doorstop. That’s city life and you get over it, but I never got over having to go to the Post Office to get my damn packages.
The word Kafkaesque comes to mind. Dingy atmosphere. Hot. Long lines that seemed to drag on forever. Often there was only one person at the counter, while you could see and hear several people chatting away in the back room. I always felt bad for the people working there; it felt like such an utterly hopeless existence, even though as far as jobs go, it probably wasn’t so bad. I mean, why does something as simple as picking up a package have to take so damn long!?