Point not raised, but one emphasized by Charles Peters, a critic of the Postal Service, a generation ago. People tend to regard letter carriers agreeably but tend to dislike postal clerks. I’ve forgotten Peters’ elaboration on the issue. I think the source of that is that the letter carrier is out on the streets bringing you something you value. The postal clerk is behind a desk taking his time giving you a service you require. In my experience, the dispositions of postal clerks are a function of the local culture and of the probability the clerk will run into you on the street. Small town postal clerks are pleasant to the customers. They have something in common with postal clerks in general: they putter. The gentleman who said ‘not well organized’ I’m wagering is referring to the whole mise-en-scene where the line runs out the door, you have four service points, and three of them are unmanned (while some rando is wandering around in the back by all appearances doing nothing of much urgency). One of my more recent experiences saw three employees leave for the day out a staff egress while the line ran out the door. The desk clerks are not being rude to me, but they are underperforming (most likely because their supervisor does not insist that customers are given priority over miscellaneous processing tasks).

While we’re at it, just who are National Review‘s paymasters?

Wherever I’ve lived, DMV service is head and shoulders above what I knew in Rochester ca. 1980. It is one aspect of American life that has dramatically improved.

Actually I have. Never had anything else, actually. People bitch about the post office all the time, and I’ve sometimes wondered if part of the reason is an ideological grudge. At any rate I can go a lot further than “have had” positive experiences: I’ve never had a negative one, in the sense of feeling that the employees were hostile or incompetent. The worst thing that’s ever happened to me there is a long line, and the employees were not to blame for that: there just weren’t enough of them to handle the number of customers.

Nor do I find any dealings with vehicle license stuff especially unpleasant, although I’d certainly rather not bother.

I suspect, but can’t prove, that the explanation for the difference in experience is that I’ve always lived in small towns. People don’t just habitually act like jerks in places like this, as they apparently do in some cities. Maybe part of it is also living in the South. Southern good manners are over-stated, but still, you just don’t go around snapping and snarling at people, no matter which side of the counter you’re on. Anyway even on the occasions when I’ve used the post office in the nearby moderate-sized city (~200,000), I’ve never encountered a rude clerk.

So you’re saying that you’ve had positive experiences posting a letter and at the DMV in years gone past?

It got to about as good as it was ever capable of getting and then it imploded. Because the entire edifice (Affirmative Action) was a house built on sand and a denial of facts pertaining in base-level Reality… the bit that doesn’t go away when you stop believing in it.

Don’t need to go back to the Dark Ages. Do need to base social policies and forms of government on what people demonstrably *are* rather that what one dreams they ought to be.

But it does appear the Leftist indoctrination had been growing like mold inside the wall, and only now in these last 20 years has finally shown itself on the drywall inside the room.

Yes. I and no doubt many others here can testify to the same, though my background was vastly different. I believe it was Bob Dole at the ’92 or ’96 Republican convention who said something similar.

It is sad beyond words to be reduced to being an old man saying “It wasn’t always like this” and knowing that people don’t believe you. Or else they think you’re just an old racist white guy lamenting that you’re no longer able to oppress the POC as freely as you used to. We all understand that there were many things wrong with that old world, yet those who are succeeding us are destroying what was good while failing to fix what was bad.