We need to talk about your TPS reports.

My field is experiencing some rather severe setbacks of late and this resulted in the RIF of our mail room clerk.

His duties were redistributed to a number of (apparently disgruntled) coworkers.

So when I went to send a piece of mail certified it was no surprise that the form used to bill my department and the envelope were brought back to me with another form that I need to fill out, but was not aware of.

I completed 2 forms and set them on top of the envelope in the mail room to be mailed. Success!

Now it is a month later and I attempted to mail another envelope. Early the next day I received a testy (teehee) voice mail notifying me that I must google where to attach the 2nd form to the envelope because if the envelope is not fully prepared it wastes her time.

Ripping off the backing of the adhesive strip wastes her time, but calling and leaving a 2 minute angry and repetitive voicemail is an excellent use of her time. I called her back to explain that the rules keep changing and yet I am not notified and that I will take care of it, but during the frenzied conversation this woman made a huge point about how mailing envelopes is not her job and wastes her time.

So I waited for this joyous individual to go off of mail duty, and go downstairs to reclaim my envelope and adhere the form to it. And lo, it is gone. The mail sorting room is the size of a small walk-in closet and contains 1 counter with 1 thing on it. That 1 thing- not my envelope. I checked in my mailbox, I checked in the to-be-sent mail box, I looked on the counter and then the floor. Nada. I assumed that when I had called her earlier and listened to about 16 seconds of vitriol before saying, "Ok, bubye" and hung up on her she changed her mind and just did it.

This morning, imagine my dismay when I received another voicemail complaining that I did not take care of my envelope. Knowing it would suck, I wearily called her back and explained that the envelope was not there. The conversation went thus:
Rude Woman: I left it on the counter.
Me: When I went down there it was not on the counter.
RW: Yes it was, I left it there.
Me: I looked on the counter, there was nothing there. I figured someone must have mailed it.
RW: (becoming hysterical) IT WAS THERE. ON THE COUNTER. TO THE LEFT. YOU HAVE TO AFFIX THE...
Me: OK, bubye.

So I waited another hour or so and go to the mail room. The envelope was not there.

I dug around and find that someone had processed it.

Finally. My envelope was mailed with two wasted trips to the mail room, two phone calls, and two torturous voice mails. No wasted time here. Certainly none wasted on actually processing mail.

While I'm sympathetic to the fact that it is annoying when people don't follow rules and being screwed over by the budget cuts sucks, I'm not sympathetic to people who cannot behave themselves appropriately. Doing the mail may suck, but unfortunately for the rest of us, doing the mail is this woman's job. It's easy (which is great because my only other interaction with her was when she lost important paperwork and blamed me because paper-clipping it putting it in an envelope was insufficient), and apparently leaves you plenty of time to act like a jerk.