Japanese Post Office

Japan is trying to privatize the postal system - the recent election was called to basically oust those MPs that were holding up the privatization. This should be interesting when it actually goes through. The Post Office holds most of Japanese people's savings. They have tons of money and thus are more a bank than a postal service. That being said, I don't think they are all that interested in being efficient in the postal area. Hopefully privatization will improve this.

The reason I bring all this up is that I had to go and pick up a package tonight. Every area has a post office that is open 24 hours, so I headed down to mine. This service is actually extremely convenient, but they post offices are not usually in the most convenient locations. In fact any time you get a package, it seems it is stored at the inconvenient head post office in your area, rather than the one that is only a few blocks away.

I actually made excellent time walking there and back - about 20 minutes each way. I spent the same amount of time waiting to be served though, as in 40 minutes... and there was only one person ahead of me. By the time I left, there were 7 people waiting behind me. I should note this is at midnight. I think the guy was pretending to help the customer ahead of me, and in reality was going in back and taking mini-naps or something. The guy ahead of me even said to look after me first (obviously he was doing something complicated, although it was quite clear the clerk was bumbing - he brought out about 7 different packages for the man, none of which he took). Anyway, he finally moved on to serving me 15 minutes after the customer ahead of me said I could go first.

I should also point out that there is more than one employee working there, but no one else came up to help. It just makes me shake my head. Anyway, I eventually got my package and wandered back home to bed. Hopefully I will be at home next time they try to deliver something, and it will save me the trip.