Post Office adventure

This adventure took place in 2015 (yeah, same year, very busy one 🙂 ).

I found on Olx.ro a person who was selling the style of clothing I like to wear: gothic, medieval, renaissance, etc. and I was waiting, with the excitement of a volcano waiting to erupt, for the package.

I went to the Post Office no. 77 (it`s going to go down in history!), very close to my workplace, and I waited in the queue. I was calm, my headphones were filling my ears with amazing music and I was feeling good. There were three people in front of me, and the postal worker was moving quite fast, so I was sure I will be on my way to work pretty soon.

I read all the leaflets that were plastered all over the walls (at least 10 times), then I saw a 10 bani coin and I kept staring at it for as long as I could (I picked it up when I left, as a gift for my Brownie 🙂 ).

45 minutes later I finally got in front of the counter. I handed out a notarized copy of my ID to the postal worker and I said that I came to pick up my package.

She looked at the photocopy of my ID and she said with great importance (like the mysteries of the world were streaming through her lips):

– This is a photocopy of your ID.

– (Really ?? Oh, thank God you told me; that`s why I came to you, guys, to enlighten me!) Yes, Ma’am. I lost my ID, but I have this copy which I am using until I receive the new one.

– When did you lose it?

– (In which way is this relevant to this situation? Would you like to go on a search and rescue mission?) A few months ago, but I neglected to renew it.

– Don`t you have another ID on you?

– Yes, I have my employment ID card.

– Don`t you have a passport? The employment ID card is not acceptable.

— (So… let me get this straight: my employment ID card expires as soon as I take it into a post office. I have to tell my employer about this, dreadful company! My passport has, just like my ID, my picture and my name. If you are afraid I found, on the street, a photocopied ID which looks, astonishingly, exactly like me, and I came to this post office to pick up a package I wouldn`t know about if I was not waiting for it, then I really want to go to the post office detective course that you studied at!) I don`t have a passport, Ma`am.

Behind me, in the queue, a gentleman barges into our chat, trying, I guess, to help the postal worker, in her quest:

– Don`t you even have a driving licence?

– (Why, in the name of God, should I have one of those? It would have my picture and my name, exactly like my passport and employment ID card! What are you trying to identify here? Did I come to pick up a large amount of money and you are afraid it does not belong to me? Maybe I am a drug or arms dealer and you want to catch me in the act, while I am using forged documents. I`m not bloody Al Capone … I am better than him!) I don`t have a driving licence.

– Will you pay for the package?

– No, Ma`am, I already paid through bank transfer. I only came to pick it up.

– I am sorry, but I cannot give it to you …(she already had a brainstorming session with one of her colleagues from that amazing post office, one that had a nose for the petty crooks like myself, who are always up to something rotten).

– OK. So … how should I proceed now, to be able to gain possession of my package?

– Well, you have to tell the sender to go back to her post office and to write a statement that the package no. X, weighing Y lb. will be picked up by another person, of your choosing, who has a proper ID.

– (OK, then! Why don`t we make this situation more complicated, because it was way too simple, and for three damn second-hand shirts we can involve two post offices from two different cities and two people that don`t know each other, but they are exchanging goods, for more than 6 months, with no problems? Long live the Romanian Post Office!) It is unlikely for this to happen because the person who sent the items lives in a village and they have to travel to the nearest post office which is 30 miles away. It doesn`t seem fair to put them through this for three shirts.

– But I can keep your package here for a month, so you have enough time to solve the problem.

– (So you can hold my package according to your rules that clearly state that you will start charging me a fee after the third day. In other words, I am paying you to hold on to my package that you refuse to give me. Again, I am amazed by the training business courses you guys seem to attend. My logic bows before yours!) OK, understood. Thank you very much.

– I am sorry I cannot be of any further help.

– (Not as sorry as I am for your brain that wants to burst out of your skull, but cannot find the exit. I am sure you will go home crying because you couldn`t help me). Have a good day!

I stormed out of that place and I called Nick because she used to work at a post office. She told me to go back and talk to the manager. I told her if I go back and find the same postal worker, I will take a bite of her flesh, give it to Maiyun (one of my friends, who`s a doctor) to analyze it because I really wanted to know what that person was eating that made her so damn smart 😀 !    

Needless to say, I went back there the next day, holding my passport, my document whose pride and joy was to prove that I am … me, and guess what? The same postal worker was there, to greet me. I don`t know if she remembered my face or just the dull conversation we had the day before, but she made me very happy by giving me my prize possession.