USPS

I retain a requisite amount of contempt for government-run institutions and the bureaucrats with whom I have to deal on occasion. Every interaction with them makes me want to pull my hair out. Government websites function as if they haven’t been updated since dial-up. I would rather go to the dentist than the DMV. It’s as if each employee has been specially hand-picked to make you hate the government more. These are features of the system, not bugs. Take the TSA, the organization which seems to derive the most joy out of making things difficult for parents flying with toddlers. In an effort to thwart these desperate adults chaperoning tiny terrorists, the agency will inexplicably change up the protocol for strollers every single time.

Seattle My local post office in suburban Seattle seems to be rigged to obstruct customers these days. After standing motionless for half an hour awaiting my turn, I find that I've lost the will to live even before the inevitable altercation with the masked clerk squinting back at me through a sheet of plastic. When you ask for the slightest bit of 'consumer assistance' — as their cheerful mission statement on the wall promises they’re only too happy to provide — they seem to get ferociously cross. Not long ago I was read the Riot Act by a young USPS employee because I politely asked if I might be allowed an inch or two of Scotch tape from one of the dozen or so open rolls of it I could see on the shelf behind her.