Snider Plaza’s Lone Star Shipping Needs a Huge Bouncer

Yeah, that’s right. A bouncer. A gigantic one who can kick people out of the store.

On Saturday I stopped by Lone Star Shipping Company, the private postal center in Snider Plaza. These guys have the convenience thing down. You run in, BAM, you’re out.

But on Saturday there was a woman at the counter with about a bajillion things to mail. She handed each unaddressed package to the man at the register and told him where to send each one. She spelled every word several times and repeated the zip code. She checked his work for accuracy and added scotch tape to every square inch of the padded envelopes. Total. Beating.

After about 6 or 7 minutes I abandoned the mission and took the kids to Mustang for a donut. We returned. SHE WAS STILL THERE. There was a man behind her in line doing the huffy eye roll thing. She wasn’t even almost done.

So I took the kids to run one more errand and returned. Still there. Waited. Abandoned.

I returned for the final time to find that she was gone. But she’d been replaced with a lady who had a big pile of stuff to mail. Fine. But when it was more expensive than she’d planned, she had the guy remove particular items, reweigh, and provide new quotes. She did every possible combination. My favorite statement, “Remove the Dr. Peppers and tell me how much how that’ll be. I bet those glass bottles are heavy.”

Official rules of conduct for shipping store patrons in development phase.

By Merritt Patterson Jul. 26, 2010 | 10:29 am | 18 Comments | Comments RSS
18 comments to "Snider Plaza's Lone Star Shipping Needs a Huge Bouncer"
  1. kmom @ July 26, 2010 at 11:01 am
    Beware going into a mail/shipping place when SMU is out for winter break or at the end of the year. I’ve been behind a young co-ed that had shown up with EVERYTHING from her dorm room and had the guy packing every bit of it and shipping it Priority Overnight mail to her home. TV, shelves, lamps, computers, knicknacks, books and endless piles of clothing. Besides the time involved, I cannot imagine the cost.

    And as far as shipping store patron rules? You can take clues from the US Post Office – those folks wouldn’t stand for a minute for you to not have your labels filled out and your boxes packed up tight. “Go fill out all the labels, seal up those boxes properly and get back in line when you are done. NEXT!”

  2. Gadfly @ July 26, 2010 at 11:14 am
    AAARRRGGGHHH!!! If it had been me, I would have done a Steve Martin and said something snide. Out loud.

  3. A. B. @ July 26, 2010 at 12:52 pm
    Well exCUUUUUUUUuuse MEEEEEE! :)

  4. Bill @ July 26, 2010 at 1:13 pm
    Why not just use the SMU Post Office inside Hughes-Trigg? They do UPS and Fed Ex too. Open on Saturdays till noon I think. So strange to see people take a beating in line at the Post Office on Greenville Avenue when there is never a line at SMU.

  5. MK @ July 26, 2010 at 1:38 pm
    That sort of incident makes me flip out. Glad I wasn’t there!

  6. FortWorthGuy @ July 26, 2010 at 1:58 pm
    Annoying yes, but to look at it another way…shipping a “bajillion” things requires a lot of cash. Lotsa cash, these days, will get you a lot of courtesy from behind the counter. Was that the owner she was dealing with?

  7. Avid Reader @ July 26, 2010 at 2:18 pm
    Why does the online blog now look like a cheap iphone app?

  8. Avid Reader @ July 26, 2010 at 2:19 pm
    And now it’s back to normal, nevermind.

  9. James Tucker @ July 26, 2010 at 2:35 pm
    You might as well have gone to the US Post Office.

  10. Liesl @ July 26, 2010 at 3:13 pm
    The last time I was at the post office on Greenville and Lovers there was a woman who would not make up her mind how she wanted to send something. The postal clerk kept saying, “I have customers waiting.” The woman would reply, “I understand.” I wanted to yell, “Clearly you do NOT understand!” She was still there dithering when I left.

  11. matt @ July 26, 2010 at 3:43 pm
    Like buying stamps at the post office… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOmwZUsgBBE

  12. KellyinBigD @ July 26, 2010 at 5:18 pm
    Walk across to Park Cities Postal in Snider Plaza… LOVE that place! http://directory.dmagazine.com/best-of-big-d/Best-Personal-Post-Office-Park-Cities-Postal-Center

  13. Adam @ July 26, 2010 at 6:24 pm
    Agreed that’s a profoundly annoying experience, but being friends with the guy who used to own that store (or at least, its initial iteration, under a different name I think), I can tell you that that level of customer service is precisely the service experience a store like that is trying to emphasize, in order to differentiate itself in the market. They certainly aren’t paying the rent with 10-cent copies, lame greeting cards, and P.O. box rentals. They want to be the place everyone would feel comfortable sending their confused grandma if she needed to ship some items. They aren’t selling postage, they’re selling *service.*

    Because let’s face it–if you don’t need help addressing and packing your stuff, you probably drop it off at your own office’s USPS/UPS/FedEx box. If you do need help, the government humps at the U.S. Post Office usually could not care less (in my personal opinion). So, if you do need help, and maybe aren’t even quite sure what you need, you go to a store like Lone Star.

    (The UPS Store is the same idea, on a grander scale. Note how the recent TV ads tout the whole “you bring it in, we’ll help you pack it, you get all the credit” angle.)

    All that said, if Lone Star made you wait that long, then they failed to provide *you* with good service. Which means they should add staff–not kick out the grandmas who come in needing help.

  14. Merritt Patterson @ July 26, 2010 at 7:23 pm
    @Adam, I can’t say exactly why, but I never felt like the guy at the register was “making me wait that long.” The woman had an energy that just sucked the life out of the room. He was under her buzz-kill spell and there was no way he could escape.

  15. kmom @ July 27, 2010 at 12:24 pm
    How about speaking up to the thoughtless, clueless life-sucker with “Excuse me, ma’am? Here’s a pile of mailing labels, you can step right over here and use this pen to fill them all out for each of your packages, to your different destinations, and I’ll help these poor folks here in line that have been so patiently waiting. When you have all those filled out and I’ve helped these kind people I’ll help you finish up with getting your packages packed and shipped.” Is that so hard? Customer service is about juggling your customers and handling and helping everyone that comes in the door. Every service business has to deal with it, especially waitstaff.

  16. laurie @ July 27, 2010 at 6:38 pm
    @Bill, what is the parking situation at the Hughes-Trigg center? And which street do you take to get over there?

  17. dallas cowgirl @ July 28, 2010 at 2:12 pm
    It should be quick-they up charge the postage 100%. Plus, watch next time you go to Bubba’s at night, there are some super creepy looking people getting their mail from those boxes. Why would someone need to rent a mail box? I thought everyone had one at their house.

  18. citygirl @ July 29, 2010 at 4:46 pm
    There are LOTS of great reasons to have a box at one of those stores.

    1. I haven’t had to change my address in 16 years despite moving a couple of times

    2. They sign for your packages

    3. When you go out of town they just hold all your mail until it is convenient for you to pick it up. Especially nice when you get as many magazines as I do. And I think if you are on an extended trip they will even package it up and send it to you.

    4. There is often something else that I need there. From packaging supplies to a notary to sending something certified.

    5. When you want to be on a mailing list you don’t have to give out your home address.

    6. I even have it on my driver’s license for privacy

    and on and on……

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