The Italian Post Office Adventure

The Italian Post office sells cellular phones and provided calling plans. They compete with the private cellular providers. This is unheard of in the U.S, where only private companies provide cellular service and phones.

The first time I went to the post office to buy an Italian cell phone, a student at the University helped me navigate the language barrier to get a phone with some minutes. All I had to do was provide Euros to the Post Master.

Then my phone ran out of minutes, and I needed to “recharge” my phone. The Post Office does not have an Internet site to recharge or add minutes using debit cards. So I had to physically visit the post office on my own. Italians, I found out, do not trust payments made on-line.

Then the adventure started!

Having visited  the Post Office before, I had noticed the post office had a queuing system where customers would take a number. Looking around, I noticed a yellow box inside the entrance that looked like a numbering system.

Examining the options on the face of the box, it was hard to tell what ticket to take, because the directions were in Italian. One option had a euro sign on it, another one had a icon that looked like the outline of a stamp. The third one had the words Finanze, which meant financial, and the fourth one had the word ‘Internationale”.

I ruled out the Finanze and Internationale ticket options right away. Looking inside the post office, I noticed people with packages or white slips in their hands lingering around the desk that had a green stamp icon above the window. People waiting for the desk that had a euro sign above it did not have anything in their hands.

I took a number for the desk with the stamp and the desk with the euro sign.

My number came up for the desk with the euro sign. A lady was standing behind the counter. Her dark hair was pulled back and she had lines running across her tanned face. At the counter I asked in my broken Italian to add euros to my phone. The woman behind the counter looked at me and frowned. I showed her my phone, and said “euro e phone, recharger”. She threw up her hands in frustration in like she had given up.

The customer at the counter next to me said he would help me. He spoke five words to her in Italian and she understood that I wanted to add euros to my phone.

I wrote down my cell phone number on a piece of paper. She read the number and the same exasperated hands flew up in the air, because she could not read my “American” numbers. American numbers?

The man came back over and put a cross mark through the middle of the 7’s, and turned my 1 into something that looked like a teepee. Then she understood the numbers for my cell phone.

He also said a few more things to her. She took my money and gave it to a another lady a few counters down. The other lady’s dark, wavy hair was was all over the place, like she had put her hands through it many times. Her face had lines and she looked stressed. She was wearing a white, long sleeved, wrinkled shirt. She had a lot of tickets on her desk to process.

The lady helping me returned to the station, stared at me and didn’t say anything. I thought to myself, this lady just took my money and didn’t give me anything. And why is she just standing there staring at me?  Just wait and see what happens, I told myself.

A blonde haired lady walked by behind the counter. She looked like the manager. She was wearing a white, pressed shirt and black pants. Her hair was pulled back tight into a ponytail in the back. She also had the stress lines across her face. She was frowning and closely inspecting the workers as she passed. She spoke some words to the lady serving me, who almost jumped when the blonde spoke to her. My server threw up her hands in reply to the blonde lady’s questions. The blonde lady passed by.

After five minutes, the lady helping me walked over to the ticket lady, picked up a piece of paper and gave it to me.

The slip of paper showed my payment to get my phone recharged. Then I realized that this post office did not allow servers to handle cash, and all cash transactions went through the stressed out ticket lady in the center.

The lady at the counter said, “Arrivaderci!”.

I left the post office feeling thankful about the American post office.