Have a nice day

Despite the cold, I had to venture out of the house today to visit the Post Office; even in this interconnected world, sometimes it means far more to send an actual card than a virtual one. Visits to the Post Office fill me with dread and today’s was no exception. There were over forty people in a queue that doubled and trebled back on itself and I settled in for a long wait.

After checking Twitter, Facebook and sending some emails, I’d moved about three feet and that was mostly because two of the people in front of me had given up and left in disgust. It was as I was looking around me that I spotted something that called itself a “Post and Go” machine, tucked away in the corner. Figuring that it was worth giving up my place in a non-moving queue on the off-chance that the Post and Go machine might be the answer to my prayers, I wandered over to investigate.

I’m pretty tech-savvy, I like to think, but it was a bit complicated and I was clearly wearing my best bewildered expression because an employee came over and helped me out. She had the kind of bustling efficiency that I’ve come to associate with ladies of a certain age, usually nurses: kindly and brisk. She pressed all the right buttons - on the machine, that is - and got me on my way in about two minutes. The queue, I noticed with smug satisfaction, hadn’t moved at all in the meantime.

Let’s leave aside the fact that I’ve spent a lot of times in queues, waiting to post things, and not one of the assistants behind the counter has pointed out that I could have used the Post and Go machine. I don’t know whether that lady was employed specifically to help baffled customers - she certainly gave me the impression of being on her way to do other, more important, things. The transaction didn’t add any value in monetary terms, it didn’t add to the bottom line, but she left me with a totally different (and positive) experience of my visit to the Post Office. It struck me as a timely reminder, as we think of cutting costs and efficiency savings, that not everything can - or should - be measured in monetary terms. Sometimes providing good customer service, making someone’s day a little better or brighter, making the world even just a little better place, is worth more than money.