Post Office

Since I forgot to 1) reset my clock and 2) turn off my alarm, I'm up early this Sunday morning. Being none too excited about that, maybe it's a good time to cover the post office.



Address: 333 Shore Ave, Kotzebue AK 99752
When ordering things online, most shipping software doesn't recognize Kotzebue physical addresses because there's no mail delivery to them, only to PO boxes.



It's always tricky wiggling around the shipping catch-22. You can't ship this item to a PO box, but your physical address is an invalid address. Sometimes the website will ignore the fact that it's invalid, so you can ship to your physical address but include the 4-digit zip code extension to make sure it gets to the right box.



Once a package arrives (or sometimes a few days later), you get a yellow card in your box. Usually it's kind of an exciting thing, your package arriving. Lately there's a love / hate relationship with them, however, because it means standing in a long line.



These are the normal hours, but for the past few months, I guess they've been struggling with personnel issues, and they've been making up their own hours.



Kotzebue's a town of about 3000, and everyone who gets mail comes to the post office. Granted, not everyone has to stand in line for a package, but in this remote place, much business is done via mail. When I first got here, as far as I could tell, there were 5 employees. Lately I've only seen 2 of them. I'm not sure what's going on, but I know it's not fun to spend a chunk of your Saturday in line. The worst for me was after having waited an hour, the guy in front of me wanted to apply for a passport. That just baffled everyone and took forEVER! You always hear comments (although people have been exceedingly patient), but I guess some have reached their limit.



I just saw this posted on the bulletin board outside the PO lobby. I haven't called it yet.
Something just has to happen before the Christmas rush. If it's not fixed, I'm imagining someone - be it the postmaster or someone in line - going postal alright.

I do wonder if all of the waiting has been good business for the volunteer fire depo coffee shop beside the PO. They're in the same building, and when the line runs out of the PO lobby, it passes right in front.



It's a small place and just sells different coffees, "pops" and pull tabs or scratch-offs or whatever those money-and-paper-wasting things are.



It's a nice little space; they could probably do more with it. The proceeds support the volunteer fire department, so I buy a soda there from time to time. With much more waiting in line I may resort to playing the scratch-offs to see if I win enough to ship using UPS next time!
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