the kindness of postal clerks

Never let it be said that the Military Post Offices have any relation at all to the US postal service other than the fact that they have a zip code.

About mid-day I received a very nice email from one of the civilians working at the Heidelberg (used to be hospital and is now an Acute Care Clinic) Mail Room.

Was I – he inquired – the person who sent this Tuff box from downrange? It seems like I had done a complete Malaprop on the receivers name, flipping first and last initials followed by changing the suffixes such that – if I hadn’t know that GL was really LG there was absolutely no way I would have guessed.

He figured that I must be headed back from downrange and probably did not want to the Tuff Box to go back there (I wonder what, in my extreme tiredness, I actually wrote for a forwarding address on that Bagram Mailroom card ….). So he just thought he would check.

Please note – it is not like he had my email just sitting around on the shelf. I haven’t used this mail room since 2007 and his name was not familiar. Sending me an email meant that he took the time to go on line, look me up and write.

Think I will hike over first thing in the morning and thank him. Along with stopping at the G1 and apologising to Lory for messing up his name…. And then I will drag my Tuff Box home. Knowing that it must contain that flipping cable along with the last couple of items I need to clear CIF.

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12 Responses to the kindness of postal clerks

  1. Linda M says:

    what a nice moment – reinforces one’s faith in the inherent goodness of people.

  2. Bonnie says:

    Wow. That kind of customer service is practically unheard of these days. And you’re right, it never, ever existed in the US postal service.

  3. Holly says:

    I think I am spoiled! Between Heidelberg and RAF Croughton, it is going to be hard to join the “real world.”

  4. Alison says:

    I’d send him one of my chocolate tortes if I could. That’s so far above
    and beyond what anyone at my postal service in this area would do.

  5. Berg says:

    There are still some ones left

  6. Mary says:

    Glad to hear there are still some post office personnel who like their jobs, care about what they do and go the distance!

    I was in my post office the other day (just this week) and wanted to know what airmail stamps are going up to in early April. The woman gave me the rate for domestic first class and I politely said I was looking for airmail to the US and the continent. She didn’t know. I asked if she cld find out. Her mgr didn’t know and I got the bank response from both of them “we are waiting for Royal Mail to tell us.”. But aren’t you Royal Mail? I asked. “We’re the Post Office,l. Aren’t you the public-facing body that a customer like me uses for information related to Royal Mail. They couldn’t answer that question, cos of course the answer is yes! So, I have been told to wait til the 4 April or after to find out cos they won’t know until the price actually goes up!! OMG! Time to privitise them all out of jobs!!!

  7. Margo says:

    Wow, that’s the sort of thing that must give you faith in humanity! Nice story.

    Sounds like you are finding your ‘re-entry’rather interesting (but that was to be expected). Still, it must be great to be home

  8. Angeluna says:

    Just lovely. Hope you kissed him!

    Now, if that behavior would just filter down, or would it be up, to my local post office. To the postman who drives by and leaves packages on top of the locking mailbox on the street. And the postman who has a registered package but doesn’t want to come up to the door for a signature, and therefore leaves a pink slip in the mailbox saying I wasn’t home (when I was watching him from the window). And then the mailman who takes the large envelope clearly marked “do not bend”, folds it in half and creases it so he can shove it into the mailbox slot at such an angle that it cannot be removed from the mailbox without bending it in half in the other direction (usually small paintings from a friend in Europe, destroyed at the very last minute of their long journey).

    That lovely young postal clerk in Heidelberg would have a lot to teach the above bunch of slackers.

  9. Helen says:

    Classic case of sleep deprivation…lucky a patient wasn’t in that Tuff box…

  10. Cheryl says:

    Actually, you might want to write his supervisor a nice letter-that way it can go in his OER (or whatever it is that civilians get).

  11. Janet says:

    Remember civilian employees never work for their money or do anything extra….

  12. Bob says:

    Let me be said here and now, Nice things happen to nice people. And add a thanks from all of us that still use the APO service from time to time.

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