I’m usually much nicer than this

This morning I walked to work, opened up the office, turned the lights on, made the coffee and took the mail over to the post office while waiting for the coffee to brew.

The post office is in the L’Esplanade Laurier: it’s one of those little privatized outlets. It’s run by slow-motion imbeciles. Victor is elderly, dense and painfully slow, and he has a very bad comb-over. His movements are barely perceptible. He measures everything, even standard-sized envelopes. S l o w l y. He speaks slowly and indistinctly. He never looks up. He is oblivious to everything around him except for the one miniscule detail he’s attending to at any given moment. (This is a picture I snapped of him later in the day.)

There’s a woman there sometimes who moves a bit faster than Victor, but treats everybody with contempt and acts like she resents the customers for showing up and buying things. You ask for a stamp and she sneers at you. You ask how much it costs to mail this letter to New Zealand and she heaves a huge sigh and rolls her eyes.

Sometimes there’s a younger woman there who moves a little more quickly and efficiently. She appears not to wash her hair and she wears badly pilled jogging pants with “Spoiled” written on the ass. (I am no fashion maven myself, so when I criticize someone else’s clothes, you know it has to be bad.)

My office has an account at this postal outlet, so I’m supposed to go to the side counter, hand over my stack of mail, and leave. This way I don’t have to wait in the main lineup, which is about four feet away. It’s a very small postal outlet, but the staff are completely lacking in peripheral vision and they never look up, so they never see me there. As a result, I often end up waiting longer than I would if I were in the regular lineup.

Anyway, I’m standing there with my mail while Victor (who is the only one working this morning) deals with the only other customer. In fact, as I arrive, their transaction is complete. He watches while she slowly pockets her change and puts her receipt away. I stand there waiting patiently. She glances at me and then she decides to strike up a conversation with Victor.

“Do you know,” she said (in what I believe was a German accent), “When I first came here in 1992, I went to the post office on Rideau Street and I was so surprised by how nice everybody was.”

“brg,” murmured Victor.

“I took a long time because I didn’t understand how it worked in Canada,” she continued, “and when I turned to leave, I saw there was a long lineup of customers behind me, waiting.”

Victor made a gurgling noise.

“And you know, those people didn’t even get angry at me for taking so long,” she said.

Victor nodded slowly.

“That’s what I love about this country,” she went on, “Nobody’s impatient.”

Meanwhile, I’m standing there, growing increasingly impatient.

“Rgh dm bl ek,” said Victor.

“People are so understanding here,” she said, “Nobody ever gets angry.”

“Vg isi,” said Victor, “Ek jnglg flug.”

I coughed. I shifted from foot to foot. I looked at my imaginary watch.

“You can stay for a few extra minutes and have a pleasant conversation and people don’t mind waiting until you’re finished,” the woman said.

By this point I’m starting to wonder if she’s deliberately trying to piss me off. Because I’m seriously getting pissed off. The irony is not lost on me, but I’m too irritated to appreciate it. I just want to hand Victor the mail and get back to my office. He could just reach over and take the mail from me while continuing this conversation if he were capable of doing two things at the same time, but so far he hasn’t even noticed me standing there. But the customer has: she keeps glancing at me while she talks.

“In my country, people aren’t like that,” she said, “Everybody’s always in such a hurry. Rush, rush, rush. Not like the patient Canadians, who always have time to be nice.”

“FUCK,” I screamed under my breath, “Just shut up and leave already!”

“I like it better here,” she said, “People don’t mind waiting until you’re done. People don’t mind if it takes a few extra minutes to be pleasant.”

“Blg inki brah shmnz,” said Victor slowly.

It didn’t stop there. It went on and on.

Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I was too pissed off to stand there waiting for this endless drivel to end. I turned around and stomped out. Of course I got about 50 paces away and thought better of it. If I didn’t drop the mail off now, I’d just have to come back and do it later when there would be more people in the lineup. I stomped back in.

“Oh here’s another customer now,” said the woman brightly, acting like she’d never seen me before.

“An impatient one!” I snapped impatiently. I actually said that out loud, while glowering at her.

I’m usually much nicer than this.