the post office

The other day, I had to go to the post office to mail home some forms. I didn't have the right postage for overseas mail, so I figured I'd just go in and get it dealt with. I'd been procrastinating all week, because the thought of bureaucratic errands makes me cringe, and usually, leaves me pretty frustrated.

Every time I've had to go to the post office at home (in the US) the wait has been, on a good day, 10-15 minutes, and on a bad day, up to an hour of standing in line. I know that postal workers are busy, underpaid, etc. but they just don't seem to be in any extraordinary hurry to do anything. Between serving each person, they inexplicably disappear for a few extra minutes. Though at each post office I've been to, the counter has had room for 5 clerks or even 7 or 10, I've almost never seen more than two clerks out at a time, even when the line bends around twice.

So imagine my pleasant, bewildered surprise when I walk into a post office and a clerk is immediately available to help me. There's no line. I mail my letter. I'm done. In less than 5 minutes flat, I'm on my bike again. It doesn't even register until I've gone a good ways how painless that was, and how comparatively amazing. I feel stupid for having put it off all week.

Let's not forget how quickly domestic shipping itself takes. I've mailed and received letters, merchandise, etc. I live on Shikoku, which is the smallest and most "rural" and out of the way of the four major islands, in some ways. Plenty of Japanese people have never set foot on Shikoku. And yet, mailing a letter or package within Japan STILL takes only one business day to arrive (Okinawa excepted, because they really are far away). Granted, Japan is the size of California, but even if I mailed a letter/package from San Francisco to San Diego, I guarantee it will not arrive the next day. Probably not the day after, either. And the one time I used a private shipping service (takkyuubin) to ship my oversized, overweight luggage from the Narita Airport to Shikoku, it still got there overnight for a reasonable fee.

Why? Whyy is the Japanese post office so quick? (Okay, to be honest this letter mailing episode isn't my first time dealing with them. It was the first time it dawned on me how different the system works from the US though. So I think it's fair to say they're mostly quick.) For starters, there are zillions more Japanese post office branches, I think. I can think of 4 different ones I've been to in this city, off the top of my head, and I know there are more. In contrast, I can only think of two post office branches in my much more populous and sprawling suburban city at home, and they are a good drive apart from each other, as opposed to a short bike ride distance apart.

The Japanese use their postal system as a kind of bank too; they can open savings accounts and deposit money in them. This money can then be withdrawn at any post office branch or post office atm machine in the country, which is a distinct advantage to the mostly local and regional "real" banks that dominate the banking system here. For example, for my upcoming trip to Tokyo, I have to withdraw all the cash I plan to be using in advance, because there are no branches of my bank outside my prefecture. (I mean, I suppose I could try to withdraw money from other atms? I don't know if this is possible? I definitely would have to pay an extra fee. And I'd rather not risk being cashless in Tokyo.) So anyways, digression on banking aside, the Japanese use their postal system for more purposes than mailing letters, so it stands to reason that there are more branches. More branches = fewer people at each branch at any given time = less of a wait. Though, that cannot be the full reason because their "real" banking services do seem to be slow. I've always had to wait, and sometimes pretty long times, in order to do business with my bank. And there are always a waiting room full of people, despite having even more branches than the post office. Perhaps people have to do business with their bank way more than with the post office, who knows? And shutting down at 3pm can't possibly help matters much.

Anyways, the speed of the Japanese post office is a miraculous, mysterious phenomenon that I will cherish and dearly miss when I return home.