Today I am not the editor of an online newsletter for small businesses, trying to say something insightful and maybe even helpful about entrepreneurship.  Today I am not the rational writer looking to offer perceptions and humor to our readers.

Nope.  Today I am the whiny and petulant customer who is being denied a service to which she has become accustomed.  Today I don’t care about efficiencies and profits and jobs and overhead expenses and such.  Today I just want my machine back. 

I do quite a bit of business with the United States Postal Service.  I am well aware that I’m not even a blip on their radar screen, but it looks like a significant amount to me.  Whenever one of my Senior Ease customers specifies that a shipment is to be sent by USPS mail, I take the package to one of their Topeka offices and send it off.

For the past few years, the two USPS offices that I use have each had a really dandy little machine.  You could mail a package there without having to stand in line or even talk to anyone.  The machine would weigh your package and ask you a bunch of pretty standard questions: Does this package contain explosives?  Liquids?  What’s the addressee’s zip code?  Do you want regular or priority mail? 

Then you would swipe your credit or debit card, and the machine would dispense the correct postage.  There was even a receptacle into which you could drop your package.

It worked wonderfully.  I cannot tell you how many times I have breezed in and out of the building while others were standing in line waiting to pay for their postage.  The only down side to using the machine at the Gage Center office is that I didn’t get to harass my buddies who work there. 

Several months ago, the machine was removed from the downtown office.  When I asked about it, the clerk told me it had been taken out because it didn’t pay for itself.  But then, she added flippantly, they didn’t want it there anyway because it took jobs away from them.  That remark, of course, annoyed me no end.  I stood there for a minute trying to decide between giving her my opinion and writing an entire column about it.  Fortunately, I did neither.  There is no way anything good could have come from either one.  Besides, I don’t use the downtown office any more than is absolutely necessary.

But this morning, trying to send a shipment from the Gage Center office, I discovered that their machine – MY machine – is being removed later this month, too.  I am devastated.

Why, oh why, I asked one of my favorite USPS employees.  It’s not cost-effective, I was told.  It’s supposed to bring in a certain amount of money, and it’s not living up to expectations.  It’s being sent to Colorado.  I told him I would chain myself to the weighing platform, but he didn’t think that would do any good.

I don’t care.  I love that machine – MY machine.  So here I am, the whiny customer who cares way more about her personal convenience than about whether the business I patronize makes any money.  I don’t care whether it’s cost-effective or not.  Isn’t there something to be said for the fact that it was already in place?  How about the fact that at least one customer thinks it’s wonderful?  Doesn’t it count that it’s pretty low-maintenance once it’s installed?  Did anyone figure the cost of ripping it out and putting it in a crate?  What about the cost of shipping the thing several hundred miles?  It must weigh a ton.  What about patching the wall?  Doesn’t that count for something?  Huh?

I don’t care about the efficiencies.

I just want my machine back.

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Sharon DuBois is the president of Senior Ease (www.seniorease.com), as well as the editor of KsSmallBiz.com. Comments and responses may be emailed to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

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