I missed the memo. 
Though I agree Tending a Bar isn’t much good as a comparison, it should be noted that tipping bar stalf doesn’t happen often in UK (where this OP is set, and where GorillaMan lives) so the analogy isn’t quite as bad as you think.
Well, now that C K Dexter has amalgamated all the stickies in ATMB it’ll be easy for you to catch up. I’m sure you’ll find the “don’t poke lissener” guidelines in there somewhere.
Let’s see:
a) You walk into a nice clean office and go to the first available teller. You hand your package to the pleasant clerk who weighs it and places it efficiently on a little trolley that another worker takes to the back. You pay the bill and leave.
b) You walk into a shoddy, unclean office that looks like Walmart after a 50% off sale. You stand in a line that snakes out the door. When you finally get to the front of the line your package is handled by someone who looks like they’ve been up all night on a boozer and appears to be the sort who regularly goes through ashtrays looking for dogends. Your package is thumped and bashed around as it is being weighed and measured before being tossed into a large canvas bin filled to overflowing. You are afraid to pay using your credit card, so end up digging through pockets for change.
Which one do you think is likely to end in a satisfied and grateful customer? Which clerk is likely to get thanked for their service? And while my example ‘b’ is rather over the top, I’ve met my share of surly clerks that looked at me as more of an inconvenience than someone who wishes to pay them for their service. Seeing as the only way they are going to get paid is if I, and others like me, pay them for their service, I don’t think it is much to ask for some courtesy and convenience.
I don’t understand how your two examples relate to my taking issue with the bartender comparison at all. Perhaps you meant to quote somebody else?
The “What incentive is there to be polite to a postal worker” I used to springboard my post off of. If a postal worker is polite and considerate of you and your time, then they will get back what they give.
I gotta tell ya, our mailman is pretty good. He’s not a nice man. He’s grumpy, in a silent surly sort of way. But, he damned sure does whack on the door nice and loud. And, he leaves your package with the rental office if you have given them a written notice for him to do that. And, he picks up your packages too, if you do the on line printed postage thing as well. So, I don’t much have to go to the post office at all.
My previous carrier was a very cute young girl, and quite friendly. But she came at irregular hours, and delivered letters more or less at random to the bank of boxes. (Yeah, I got to know the neighbors pretty well, there.) She also just did not understand the words “Hold my mail for a week” at all. Nodded, smiled, said “Sure” and delivered it until the box was jammed full. She was cute, though. Looked good in shorts.
Tris
“In my opinion, there’s nothing in this world, Beats a '52 Vincent, and a red headed girl.” ~ Richard Thompson ~
Gotta disagree here. Tipping bar staff in the UK happens more often than you seem to think.
You don’t tip, you wait for your next drink.
You do tip, “Same again is it?” in short time.
What, I’m supposed to make travel plans in order to deal with my frigging post?
When ordered to go fetch stuff, I get no option as to where to get it. Currently that is the Whitechapel sorting office, before that it was Mount Pleasant :eek:
For sending, since they don’t open early or late, and I don’t feel like heading out on a saturday morning to post things, I have to use the ones near where I work - which means the big one opposite New Scotland Yard, or the smaller one on Eccleston street (half-a-dozen windows, queue to door). There is one on Vauxhall Bridge Road, but since the queue was out onto the pavement the one time I went there I’m not sure whether it classifies as a ‘small’ one - I gave up before I got inside.
Maybe I could save up all my parcels and stuff and take them with me when I go to visit my mum in Wales…
Were you tearing about in one of those red vans? How do posties manage to break all known laws of physics as well as road use without any repercussions? It’s always mystified me how a knackered old diesel van can manage to do those kinds of speeds without exploding.
slaphead
Yes it was one of those red vans that gave me power over all others on the road.
You may or may not know this but once a postie is behind the wheel all other traffic immediately becomes invisible to the driver. This is because of a specially fitted invisibilty screen which all vans, red, for the PO, use of, are equipped with.
Therefore in the apparent absence of other vehicular activity and filled with a burning desire to get the job done as quickly as possible all Royal Mail drivers are certifiably insane.
Also, AFAIAW Royal Mail vehicles are the only ones which are legally permitted to ignore traffic signals.
The police, NO, fire service, NO, ambulances, NO.
Royal Mail, YES
Sorry forgot this…those vans are not by any means knackered.
They are serviced each day and maintained to a very high standard. They are not allowed on the road without these daily checks.
So stringent is the maintainance that a driver is not allowed to change a tyre in the event of a flat, an engineer has to be sent out with a spare 'cos the vans don’t carry them.
Wow. Have to admit to my eternal shame (sorta) that I actually felt exactly like this, just Tuesday night! I work at Borders two nights a week, really entertaining job most of the time, but had this exact situation come up, except I eyeballed the customer before she had to catch my eye and said with a huge smile to her, being proactive, I thought: “I’ll be right with you as soon as I finish up here, thanks for being patient!” She smiled right back at me with a killer shark grin of 900 blazing teeth, and retorted, “OH, but I’m NOT!”
She was the very next person in line. Both of us were just about to free up. We had 3 people call in sick that evening, not that that is her fault of course, but I felt the 2 of us were in Extreme Hustle mode, and no other customers had complained at all, sizing up the sitch and giving us the early-holiday benefit of the doubt. I have swallowed my tongue loads of times as is necessary if you’re going to be stupid enough to work retail at Xmas, but for some reason, I wanted to step out and throttle this woman until her immense quantity of teeth rattled like canastas. Instead, I got the store manager to serve her, leaving no one to help folks on the floor for a minute, but hey. I still hate the woman two days later, however.
To the Op, my PO’s exactly the same, but I tend to get angrier at the dipshits who have to have the entire process of buying a single stamp & attaching it to one Christmas card explained in detail to them while the line queues out the door behind them. If there is a sense of entitlement anywhere, it surely exists in these idiots who can’t and won’t figure out that December isn’t exactly the time to saunter into the PO to find out “how it all works”.
–Beck
I’ve only seen it in club bars, and fancy bars, I’ve not seen tipping in pubs yet. (Though I don’t get to many UK pubs except on holidays nowadays).
No, he’s under the impression that nobody is capable of understanding how the world works quite like lissner does.
‘Shrug, laugh and move on to the next post’ works well.
Hehehe. I suspect you have buried a mild jest in your two fact-filled posts. I have narrowed it down to this section, which I think contains one truth and one red herring. Now if I could only figure out which is which…
Both the above statements are true…believe me I know, I’ve been there.
Aha! I forgot to factor in that they don’t get paid by the hour, so the sooner it’s done, the sooner it’s beer o’clock 
Last April at a small pub in Northamptonshire, I left a tip on the bar after the bartender handed me our beers. About two minutes later he walked over to our table and gave it back, explaining that it’s not customary to tip when you’ve only ordered drinks.
They do get paid by the hour with the added incentive of job and done.
So if you can do all you have to do in 4 hours you are still getting paid for the full shift of 7+.
Then if ya want you can do overtime at double rate, finish that within the time span and man you’re quids in and the boozer awaits you.
I believe Royal Mail have put a stop to guys earning (not working) 40 hours overtime a week.
One week I earned 36 hours overtime but only actually worked for 23 of them.
Don’t the couner personnel sometimes have to pitch in with sorting and processing mail in the back? I don’t know how the post office works, and what sort of automation they have, but I expect that when you hand a package to the clerk, and they throw it through that window-like thing behind them, someone has to take it and sort it into the right pile to be loaded on to the right truck, to be put on the right airplane, and so on. I’d expect that a rush of packages handed in at the windows means that some of those window personnel will have to help the sorters later on.