Buying a single stamp from the post office - Germany

Dear TT'ers.

I am aware of the fact that I should be wiser and more tolerant than I am, but I can't help it - I feel evil today. I have noticed lately that the dear Deutsche Post doesn't sell its customers single stamps anymore. You, as a customer, are oblidged to buy 10 stamps at one time. They realise that it isn't completely right of them to force their customers to buy that many stamps if they only need to buy one stamp (who still writes letters these days?) so they offer following solution: certain counters still offer single stamps if the contingent of single stamps have not all been sold yet. The thing is, they know they are lying to you. While telling you that they are unable to sell you single stamps, they offer to put a single stamp on a letter you hand in directly at the counter. If you don't happen to have the letter with you, they are suddenly out of stamps and you need to buy 10 piece. The automats outside are often out of service, switched off or you don't have the right amount of change. A higher amount than the price of a stamp gets refunded to you in the form of useless, small stamps. This is an extract of what happend to me yesterday at the post office at Münchner Freiheit:

MajorB: stands in queue
MajorB: finally gets to the front..
Postal Worker(smiling) : How may I help you?
MajorB: I need some 55cent stamps and one €1.45 stamp, please.
Postal Worker: I can offer you this lovely collection of 10x 55c stamps, for instance. Or look at these - aren't they lovely?
MajorB: Yes, they are nice.. ok, I'll take 10 of them. But I only need one €1.45 stamp. Can I have one please?
Postal Worker: No. You must buy 10 at a time.
MajorB: What? You don't sell single stamps anymore? At a POST OFFICE??
Postal Worker(looking uncomfortable): Err, no. You have to buy 10 stamps or go outside and use the automats.
MajorB: The automats are very often Außer Betrieb (not working).
Postal Worker: Well, I am sorry, we don't sell single stamps.
MajorB: Ok, this is incredible. I am in a post office, I just stood in a queue and you want to force your customers to buy 10 stamps if they only need one?
Postal Worker(nervously looking left and right):Well, err, actually, we have two colleagues selling single stamps. There are two designated counters for that purpose. Counter 1 and counter 5. Those colleagues are allowed to sell you single stamps, should any single stamps be left. We only get a certain amount of single stamps to sell, after all.. but I unfortunately do not see the colleagues at the moment, they aren't at their counters, so I cannot help you I'm afraid.
MajorB(as friendly and patiently as possible): So, now imagine I am a customer standing in the queque, just like I did.. how do I know which of you people would eventually sell me a single stamp?
Postal Worker(brightens up): Oh that's easy! If it's in the morning, go to counter 1, in the afternoon go to counter 5.
MajorB: But it's not written anywhere is it? So if you don't know this in advance, like I didn't, and you get to the front and want to buy a stamp and by chance end up at a counter different to Nr.1 and 5, you walk away without stamps, is that right?
Postal Worker:Err, look. If you have the letter with you at the moment I will gladly take it and put a stamp on it.
MajorB: Ah. So if I had the letter with me, you'd suddenly have a single stamp to put on my letter? No, I don't have the letter with me. But thanks for the info.
//went off and kicked the first poodle on my way

So my dear fellow TT'ers. It's a lot of fun. It's obviously a very sore point with them. If you want to freak them out, ask for a single stamp next time you go there and insist on having the right to get one. I can only say Servicewüste Deutschland.

I don't believe a word MB, that postal worker was far too polite to work for Deutsche Post.

I always just hand them the letter and they tell me how much. I dont even think they stick a stamp on it just put it through a machine which prints something on it. I thought thats how everyone does it.

Ask him to print it for you from the printing machine he has at his counter.

I agree that it's totally stupid, as does MonksTown in another thread where we posted this. Of course, 'I told you so' doesn't help

I'm hoping they'll release a new 70p stamp for letters to England too, as 2x35cent stamps sucks! Purely out of aesthetical reasons though.

I always get the speech "your envelope is too big speech". Which is fine really for my german is not good enough for me to understand. So I get to fall into the Homer Simpson syndrome.

Postal guy: Blah, blah blah blah blah blah
Perdido: Hes talking I see him , but I am thinking of hot dogs and beer. Oh sweet beer, pruveyor of ideas. Stimulator of social conversations

Anyway MB sorry about your predicament good luck

70c

/pedant

So bludgeoning him to death with an ice pick wasn't an option then?

@ER

Actually, at Münchner Freiheit they have always been very polite to me. She wasn't being impolite either, she just refused to sell me a single stamp after I had already bought 10 stamps of a different kind. I didn't have the big letter with me. I don't see why they shouldn't be selling single stamps anymore. If I go into Karstadt and want a liter of milk, they aren't going to say "no, unless you take 10 bottles" either. What is wrong with this country? I was unaware of a different discussion about this matter on TT.

if you stick a picture on that rant you'll prob get 3 months TT subscription MB, might recoup your costs

Ah right. I stand corrected.

So bludgeoning HER to death with an ice pick wasn't an option then?

But they aren't going to want to sell you 100ml of milk for a couple of cups of tea either and that is how the post office looks at their product now.

Single stamps? Use a machine or the one counter that will sell them every other Tuesday morning from 0930 till 1030.

Cost reduction innit.

@Crawlie

Look, it's not her fault either. *They are just following rules afterall.* She was very friendly but very nervous about it.

@mb
Thanks for putting it all down - I had a similar experience at Goetheplatz post office just before Christmas but just couldn't face writing down the whole exchange.

Here's the "executive summary": I actually wanted to buy a dozen stamps for postcards but the guy said that only counters 2 and 4 sold them (not that it was marked anywhere). I happened to be at number 3, of course... and no, I couldn't move across when one of those two became free, I'd have to go back to the end of the line. As I said, this was just before Christmas, you can imagine how long the line was (the last few people in it were literally outside the building). Grrr... just thinking about it makes my blood boil!

Gee, I was about to go to the Post and try to buy one stamp this afternoon.

Unfortunately, I have to wait till they open up again at 3.