American In Sydney

Letterheads...

Is there such a thing as a rude American living abroad in Sydney? I know that Americans have a pretty bad reputation around the world for being loud, obnoxious, and well noticeable (for lack of a better word. I think being Asian-American, I tend not to stick out as an American, but rather someone from China? Japan? oh..Korea...right, but I haven't had too many altercations while I've travelled, or even moved to Sydney. I know there are Americans out here, I can easily detect the foreign but familiar accent amongst the long lazy ones. But I had never really run across too many before - granted, I haven't spoken to many people here in Australia, but this is this one person I just overheard (granted, it was hard not to when he's yelling) in a post office.

Today started on a good note, I was ready to mail my application for a position in the government. That's right, mail. The description said that we could e-mail the application, however we had to mail a signed application anyway, so I decided just to mail the whole thing - figure it best to keep things together. So...I marched over to the post office, excited that this application was finally going out, and it being Tuesday, I was pretty sure that a local delivery to another location within the Greater Sydney area should take most two days, okay, maybe three if the post men decided to drop my envelop. As the application is due on Friday, I decided to err on being early.

So...in I marched and stood on the line (I don't think I have ever NOT stood on a line at the post office) and glanced in acknowledgement of the person in front of me. The line went forward, and this guy in front of me goes to the front, and the next thing I know he's yelling something about a hand written letter being his letterhead and as the director of his company he should be able to do something - change an address? I have no idea. The poor woman, I have seen her there before, and she's a slow speaker, was trying to explain and show the fine print where his letterhead needs to be official and printed and can't be hand written. The guy starts going off on "where in the australian constitution does it say that letterheads can't be hand written...each letterhead is unique...blah blah blah" I realised! He was American! Or may Canadian, but I can't imagine a Canadian guy screaming about law and crap. The poor woman went into the back and brought out the manager I think...

Luckily another teller opened up and it was my turn. My teller just looked miserably at the poor woman trying to help the other guy. I then gave him my envelop and asked...will his definitely be there by friday? As he gave me a stamp, he said, sure, it should be there by tomorrow...but then I asked him...are you sure? This needs to get there by Friday. I was trying my best to be threatening so that I could be sure that this application got to where it needed to go by friday...but he said, "we'll do our best". What more could I ask? I put the stamp on and dropped it into the red bin and poof! I was done - the application was out of my hands.

I looked back to the American guy at the counter and he was still there going on about an official letterhead...

One thing I've learned is that Aussies are sticklers for rules if there are any. They may be laid back and happy go lucky, but don't try to argue with them about what's already written on paper...

Geez...letterheads...dude...just go home and print one up on the computer.

posted by Leighna @ 4:06 pm