Customer Service

Some times it's bumpy.

So much has changed since I lived here in the early-90's that I find myself getting lulled into some assumptions. There is food in the stores. There are waitresses in cafes. The garbage is being collected by garbage trucks from our apartment complex. I let down my guard. I take the kids out for some errands. We poke our heads in to the post office-internet-cafe room a block from the apartment. It's sleek and functional in that white plastic door handle euro-style sort of way. We walk down the block to the post office to mail some packages. The euro-door is there at the entrance. And then. We open the door. And are hit with an olfactory and visual blast from the past.
Visual:
Four postal stations. Each counter is a little too short (even for me!) to have a conversation without stooping. Each station has a glass partition with painted on letters that list out the specific services that the station provides: if you want stamps go to station 3. if you want to make a payment, go to station 2, if you want to mail a package, go to station 1. Luckily, my Resident Expert (and big promoter) of the UkrPotcha system, my dad, briefed me that I need to send an 'aviabanderol.' I go to station 1. People were standing at each window.

Olfactory
What is it about post offices? As soon as I opened the fancy euro-door from the street I was hit with the smell of waiting, stress, anticipation, annoyance. Basically, everything from the hours I spent waiting to buy a stamp or to book a phone call to the States, or to recieve a phone call 3 days after I had booked it. The post office still has all that.

Luckily, there were people working every station (both sides of each partition.) And the people on the far side of the partitions had supplies and computers (not an abacus to be seen). Unfortunately, they weren't particularly speedy. Finally when it came to be my turn, I managed to handle almost everything.

Overall, however the space was designed for the workers not for the customers. And it wasn't particularly well designed for the workers either. All the windows were closed (contributing to intensity of the olfactory experience, see above).

I emerge feeling rather victorious. The kids were champs and rather patient so we hit not one but two majdanchyky.
Then we meet my dad and go to asmall grocery store. Argh. 5 cash registers. You need to ask for each product, which means you need to wait until someone shows up to work each station.

It was a shock because I'd gotten used to things being slick and efficient.
It's a process. While I had my morning coffee I heard Radio Era do some interviews about the Constitution of Ukraine. Not much different from what I heard in the 90's.