The Buckingham Herald Tribblog

Say what you will about the Glebe Market, but they were open on Christmas day. I know that there are people in my readership who do not like the store, disliking especially the men who stand outside. But God bless owner Sam Chon for having the store open when I needed vegetable oil! (It’s not Christmas at the Thurston house without fried bread dough, and I did not realize that I had finally run through the two jugs of oil I bought at Costco about two years ago.)

No one else was open, and I did not even try Glebe Market at first, figuring surely they would be closed. I was happily mistaken.

I wish the same could be said for customer service at the Buckingham Station Post Office. I was near the end of a line that stretched from counters to doors just before Christmas on a day when only two of the three windows at the counter were open. Station Post Master Harold Graves stepped from the back room to the front counters, asked if anyone needed only to stamp envelopes, and when no one raised a hand or stepped forward, he disappeared into the back room again.

I’ve been to other post offices during the Christmas rush when managers are out in the line of people helping them with insurance forms, or delivery notifications, or answering questions.

I can guess that the holidays is a bad time to be in the postal business. It must be exhausting, with long hours and snippy people. Still, it could have been handled better.

While I’m on it, where’s the stamp vending machine in the post office?

All this at a time when NPR tells us the postal service is losing money.

For the first time, you'll find a guest column below. The writer is a former worker at the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents which might be shuttered in the economic downturn. It's an interesting piece, if more statewide than Buckingham-centric. More news next week.

Labels: Buckingham Station, glebe market, Post Office

// posted by Steve Thurston @ 7:17 AM