Inner-city lessons from the Post Office

I frequent the post office. Between mailing things for Adrian, our newly found love of e-bay, or my commitment to be better at birthdays and birthday presents, I find myself at the post office about once a week.

There are small "post offices" located throughout Buffalo. They are found in the back of an Indian food market, inside a pharmacy, and other various locations throughout the city. All have similar offerings, including a no credit or debit card policy. However, visiting each post office is a different experience.

The post office I go to most frequently is about a mile from my house, in a nice suburb called Snyder. It is a middle class and upper middle class area. There are three happy old men that work at the post office and each one makes going to the post office a pleasant experience (did you know that was possible?). They each offer great customer service and always make Taylor think he is the best thing that happened to them that day. That in and of itself makes for a happy mom. Another perk about this post office is that they accept personal checks and they don't have any additional fees for not going to the regular post office. Also, they are always eager to help me figure out the cheapest way to send my items. And there is rarely a line.

Now contrast this with my most recent post office experience in Buffalo. It is in a low income neighborhood, also a mile from my house, but in the other direction. I called ahead to be sure they were open (it was Saturday). The person on the other end of the phone replied, "we are supposed to be open, but I don't know where she is(as if I am supposed to know who she is). I think she will be here soon because she should already be here. But yes, we are supposed to be open until 1:00."

When I arrived I was happy to see that she arrived to work and the post office was open. She was not friendly, and did not like me asking questions. When I asked for a medium flat rate box, she stated that "if you cannot see it out there, then we don't have it." Since I was already there, I didn't want to drive to another post office so I paid more and used a large flat rate box. After grumpily (is that a word?) taping it up for me, she told me they only take cash, no checks. But for a small fee I could use the ATM located in the store. I didn't have a choice at that point because my box was already addressed and taped up. They also added a small fee on top of the regular post office fees (she didn't tell me that, I just knew it because, as I said before, I am at the post office often).

While my post office experience was frustrating and more expensive than I had planned, I felt that it illustrated perfectly the disadvantage of living in a low income area.

First, a lot of people in that area don't have cars, so they don't get to choose another post office. As a result, the company running the post office is able to take advantage of those coming in by adding on additional fees. In addition, patrons cannot use personal checks, and so they often have to use an ATM machine, with incur more fees. And all of this on top of no customer service. I would guess that the average customer is living pay check to pay check, just scraping by.

So while the rich keep getting better customer service, and more choices, the poor are getting poorer. Its sad that people in Buffalo have to pay higher prices and get painfully bad service- but perhaps the worst part is they don't even know that things are better elsewhere.