I need to rant #smalltownprobs

Arrrrrrggggghhhh.

I don't care if it's after 9am and I'm meant to be working.  I need to rant.

I was ahead of schedule this morning and off to work a bit earlier.  I decided to stop at my local Post Office to get a copy of the Australian for its Legal Affairs section, which it always runs on Fridays, and a prepaid international A4 envelope to send a copy of the Law Institute Journal to one of my contacts overseas.  I have a phone conference on the TTP project at lunch so I can't duck out to the newsagent or post office in town.

So the first thing was that they don't carry the Australian.  Sure, it's only a major national newspaper, but whatevs.  They had the Benalla Ensign, but this wasn't really what I needed.

When I asked for the international envelope, the manager looked at me blankly and said he'd never heard of such a thing.  He actually checked his own catalogue to be sure they exist and I wasn't pulling his leg.  Anyway, could I guess the weight?  I estimated about that of two packets of Maltesers.  He offered to sell me a double-strength A4 envelope and the postage for my estimate.  I didn't need the extra strength envelope but said yes to speed the process up.  As he was trying to get the computer to tell him how much the postage would be, the office's electrical safety switch cut out (he explained it'd been doing this randomly for a while) and so there was a 15 minute wait while his computer system restarted.

And the kicker?  After all this, he said "actually, it's better if I don't sell you the postage now; come back when you've put your stuff in the envelope and I'll work the postage out exactly".

Awesome: I spent 25 minutes there to buy an overpriced envelope and was late for work.

And the kicker on top of the kicker?  Because this is a relatively small town, I couldn't even tell him what I thought of his service.

Rant over.