Man Glad Post Office Appointment Shaved Two Minutes Off 90-Minute Wait

Customer space is limited to six visitors at once, and the office never has on duty more than two or three clerks to serve the hundreds of people who require their services.

Jerusalem, September 14 – Reduced staff and limits on the number of customers who may occupy the facility at any time, to help prevent spread of the coronavirus pathogen, have resulted in crowding outside numerous post offices instead of inside, leading one local man to take advantage of the online appointment-setting feature of the postal service’s website, a move that allowed him to wait a mere eight-eight minutes in a crowded, hot space as he waited for the system to call his number instead of the full hour-and-a-half that customers without an appointment spent in the queue.

The Israel Postal Service instituted a COVID-prevention policy several months ago that places a cap on the number of customers who may enter a given branch at once, depending on the size and shape of the room in question. Aharon Mizrahi, 46, chose the shrewd option of making an appointment to pick up a package at the Rehavia branch, which limits its customer space to six visitors at once and never has on duty more than two or three clerks to serve the hundreds of people who require their services each day. Mr. Mizrahi’s appointment permitted him to waltz past others as they waited for their numbers, obtain his queue number from the machine, and wait with everyone else on the crowded pathway connecting Keren Kayemet Street to the post office entrance.

“I feeling like an insider now,” admitted the father of six. “How many of the folks in that crowd knew they could save time by making an appointment and getting a number that would be called sooner – up to a hundred twenty seconds sooner? By my count, may be six of the forty people who were there in the queue. As the line snaked out beyond the path and onto the sidewalk, I just kept my smug thoughts to myself, but no one could stop me from thinking them. Not even the six people within spitting distance who wore their masks only over their mouths.”

Mizrahi recalled other instances over the last several months when having an appointment made his post office visit more efficient. “We have friends who send our kids books from overseas,” he explained. “The books are too big for the carrier to schlep, so instead we get a notice to pick them up. Well, the last couple of times that happened, I did the smart thing and made an appointment via the site. I got there right on time, touched the ‘I have an appointment’ button on the screen, typed in the phone number I submitted when making the appointment, and boom – a special number with a ‘A’ in front of it that got called after only an hour’s wait – at least ten seconds earlier than the suckers who just showed up.”

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