The (dreaded) Inwood Post Office

My post office lesson, courtesy of a gentleman named Frankie Constanza, reads like something from a movie script.

Anyone who ever goes to the Inwood post office knows how pathetically pathetic it is, as though designed to make you wait as long as possible. Actually, it probably is.

The last time I went to pick up a package, the wait was more than 30 mins. The middle-aged woman ahead of me in line was there with a young child, and clearly had pain in her legs from standing around for so long. When it finally became her turn to go to the pick-up window, she realized she didn't have the necessary ID. As she was leaving, she looked about ready to cry.
I decided it was time to give the manager a piece of my mind. After all, the problem of the endless line is easily solveable, simply by creating three queues: mailing/stamps, packages, and money orders. I explained to him that I dread getting package slips in my mailbox, because I know that I'll have to dedicate at least an hour of my, yes, precious time, to go and get that package. I mentioned that, as much as I believe in a public postal system, if I'm given the option to choose USPS or UPS/FedEx, I much prefer the latter because they spare me the endless wait at the post office.
His response: the woman should have brought ID, people should do more things online (as though that's really an option for many USPS customers), and that haha, actually, when I use UPS or FedEx, they often pay large fees to the post office to leave things there, so that's fine. To be fair, he also said he couldn't do anything about the number of queues, as this is nationally regulated
Well, that clarifies a few things.

Today, the consolidated package pick-up/stamps/money-orders line was endless, as usual. No changes made.
So, I joined an elderly gentleman who was lingering around the back door, thinking I would just point that out to someone. The gentleman said, "I've been waiting for a package; a lady sent it to me on Valentine's Day, from Hoboken."
I waited to see what his point was.
"That's 5 days. I could've gone back and forth to Hoboken a dozen times!"
Unlike me, though, he had an "in" for talking to the employees: he'd been one himself for 45 years. And, "I'm their oldest customer!"
He listened to my complaint, and said I should go into the post office proper and ask to speak with the manager. I said I didn't want to do that because I didn't want to make a scene (mainly for selfish reasons, but also still having in mind how unnecessarily annoying and stressful it seemed, however justified, when a very agitated young woman started shouting for a manager and justice and various other common-sense requests, in language straight from the Occupy Wall Street protests, when the queue was literally out the door one hot day last summer).
In any case, when an employee opened the door, and recognized the gentleman, not only did he respectfully and cordially go and get his package, but, the all-important Valentine's package (a "special cake") still missing, he went back to look for it, and brought it out, along with another one. The gentleman had received all of his three packages, and circumvented the line to boot. Good for him, I say!
The gentleman then introduced me to the employee, and I stated my business. The response was, as a result, friendly: he'd let the über-manager, who would visit tomorrow, know about my suggestions, and that if I should miss a package delivery again, since "Surely you don't work 7 days a week", I should call the following number between 8-10am on a weekday or a Saturday and ask to speak with my mailperson directly to arrange a redelivery, not forgetting the appropriate Christmas present then. Um, ok, thanks, that's probably an effective, if exceptional and cumbersome workaround.

As we were leaving, the spry gentleman explained to me: "Look, I'm 88 years old, a World War II vet, and if there's something Frankie Constanza has learned it's that being nice is well and good but it doesn't necessarily get you anywhere. Too often people watch when things are wrong and don't say anything because they don't want to make a scene. So then I get to be the crazy old man who says something - when I've been waiting in line for an hour, I start huffing, 'What the hell is wrong here, I want to talk to the manager now!' - and you should see how suddenly things speed up. Take my building. Nobody wanted to say anything when we weren't getting heat and hot water because nobody wanted to get on the wrong side of the landlord. So I started complaining, and one day five Spanish ladies show up at my door, they have no heat, so we started collecting complaints, and we got 60 neighbors to sign on - and so the landlord had to give us heat and hot water. So which would I rather be, nice and cold, or crazy old man and warm?"

Good point.

And, getting to play the age card is a benefit I think I might enjoy, as a senior!