The Post Office Rush in Northern Ohio

The lines at the post office are long every day, and Monday December 17^th, was no exception. In fact, you may have noticed that today's lines at the P.O. were just a tad longer than usual... tad being an understatement. Today was the busiest mail day of the year. With Christmas Eve a week away, everyone is getting their last minute gifts addressed and shipped out.

"Lines were long, for sure," says Diane Smith, regarding the post office in Amherst, OH, a suburb west of Cleveland. Smith, an Amazon bookseller who visits the post office daily, noticed an unusually long line at the Automatic Postage Counter in the lobby. Here customers can print their own postage and buy quickly by sliding in their credit card or dollar bill.

The APC stays open all day, and after 5 P.M. Smith saw more than 6 people still waiting in line there. However, she raised an eyebrow about this. "All of the packages get dumped into a chute. I'm always wary about using it, because the person behind you can always put a heavy item on top of yours and crush it," Her word of advice: if your item is fragile, make sure you personally hand it to a teller.

Another Amherst native, Grady Jacobs, notes that the post office has been hectic for the past few weeks. He says that it is evident that people are getting restless waiting in the line. "They [the customers] sigh, like uh can't this go faster? There's always that one person who has a million packages to mail out and takes forever to get out their choice of payment. Then they complain about having to spend so much to ship out these huge boxes and stack of cards," he commented, admittedly frustrated. It doesn't help that despite the holiday rush, the Amherst P.O. only has two or three cashiers at any given time.

Oberlin Ohio postal worker Eric Vitelli doesn't think the chaos is over just yet. "People will still wait till the last minute, no matter what," he believes.

In need of a few words of advice to prevent unwanted stress at the post office? Send e-mail greetings instead of Christmas cards. Send gift certificates (in the form of e-codes) for places like ITunes and Amazon.com via the Internet. Use digital postage websites like Stamps.com. If you must venture into the post office mess, just take a deep breath. Remember this is the season to be jolly, and don't lose your cool.