Service with a Smile

So I walk into the post office the other day, the one in Huguenot, not Cuddebackville, (check the map! http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Huguenot%2C%20New%20York%2012746&rls=com.microsoft:*&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl (slide the bar on the left down a little to zoom out) my house is under the second f in Godeffroy) and an older gentleman in a cap and plaid shirt/jacket is complaining because he can’t get his hand into his P.O. box. There was all this stuff around the edges of the inside of his box and he couldn’t get his mail. One of the women behind the counter explained that he had said that he kept scraping his hand on the inside edges every time he went to grab his mail, so they fixed it. They cello-taped cotton balls all around the edges! We all had a good laugh!!!! These are the same people who will cover me and still send my mail out if I am short the postage money, because they know I’ll be back and am good for it. Now the women in the Cuddebackville post office are every bit as accommodating, but that office closes from 11:30 to 1:30 every day for lunch, which of course is the time I usually want to mail things, so….I wind up south, not north more often than not. Not long after we moved here, someone sent us a letter addressed to “Seth & David Cuddebackville, NY 12729” and they delivered it to us. They can do it with every address here. Yes there are only a little over a thousand people living in Cuddebackville and Godeffroy (the one post office serves both towns, since the Godeffroy postmistress retired and they couldn’t use her living room for the post office any more –that was against regulations, though someone told me she was happy to rent that part of her living room for the purpose.

Having recently experienced airport hell as we travelled from San Diego to New York through snowstorms Christmas week, with lost baggage, other people’s baggage coming to us, etc. It is good to be reminded that customer service with a smile (and a joke or two) still exist in this country. One wouldn’t know it from the air lines that raise fares, cut services and flights and generally expect you to thank them for treating you badly. Remember the days when air travel seemed like first class even when you flew coach? When flight attendants smiled? When passengers didn’t push and shove on the jetways afraid the planes will take off without them, even though it’s 20 minutes to departure time? When they loved to fly and it showed?

Did I tell you about the two different neighbors who arrived with their snow plows as we were taking our baggage from the cars? They knew we were coming home that day, and since there had been a snowstorm, wanted to make sure we could get in the house. Go ahead you city and suburb folks, ask me again why I live in the country!