Monday, March 31, 2003 :::
This is kind of a question about pleasantries, but it's mostly a kvetch. You've been warned:
I went to the post office to get a tax form, and they aren't there where they have been years past. I wandered around for a while, trying to find where they were, and finally found someone to ask, who told me they didn't have them but that they were next door, at a federal building, on the twenty fourth floor.
On my way out, I saw signs posted on the entrance by which I left; these signs informed visitors that IRS forms could be acquired next door, and they got me much more irritated than logic can defend, because they started, "For your convenience".
Now, I may respond to pleasantries differently from some people, but going to a federal building — where most entrances have been disabled so you can be directed through the metal detector and put your stuff through the X-ray — and finding your way to the twenty fourth floor, that's not a terrible burden; it's more convenient, say, than flying to Washington to get a schedule B, but where the audience is people who apparently came to the post office to get tax forms there, are they going to feel the signs are more polite because they assert that they're not inconveniencing us? Why did they decide to rub our nose in the inconvenience of it?
::: posted by dWj at 3:38 PM
