Post office fixes aren't without glitches

Huntington Station Postmaster Gregory Gallienne plugged his credit card into the Automated Postal Center and pressed a finger on the machine’s touch screen.

The display froze, and the machine wouldn’t dispense stamps. A clerk had to open the machine and fix it.

“It’s usually very reliable,” Gallienne said, chagrined.

More Long Island postal customers soon could experience similar situations as the U.S. Postal Service moves to replace the human touch with the touch screen.

In both Nassau and Suffolk, window-service hours are being adjusted and in some cases cut back, as the postal service nudges the public toward using the Automated Postal Centers — available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Twenty-four Long Island post offices have adjusted counter service hours for various reasons since summer, and 16 others will be doing so in the next five weeks, said Tom Gaynor, spokesman for the postal service in the New York region.

In Nassau and Suffolk, there are more than 20 APCs. They’re being relied upon to trim long lines and to provide customers with stamps, postage rates, insurance and receipts.

The most recent shift to APCs comes just as postage is set to increase: On May 14, first-class postage goes to 41 cents from 39.

Miriam Goodman of Huntington isn’t happy with the changes.

“I’m not fond of going to the machine. I like going to the counter,” said Goodman, who is in her 80s.

The change in hours at some post offices has included extending evening hours, until 7 p.m., in an attempt to capture home-bound commuters, Gaynor said.

Jennifer Trost of Huntington said she uses the machine to mail items she sells through her online consignment business.

“The hours change doesn’t affect me. I use the APC machine when I can,” she said. “It’s just better than standing in line.”

Gallienne said he hasn’t heard any complaints about Huntington Station’s reduced hours, which include closing at 1 p.m. on Saturday instead of 3 p.m.

“You don’t have as many people coming in now because people are coming in in the middle of the night,” Gallienne said, using debit or credit cards to enter the lobby and use the machines.

Not all post offices that have reduced their hours also feature APCs.

For example, at the post office in South Farmingdale, morning hours changed April 14, with opening pushed from 8 a.m. to 9.

Opening at 9 instead of 8 was a change made a year ago at the Commack Post Office, Supervisor Jim Gibbons said. Complaints have been few, he said, because his office has had an APC for two years.

In Melville, the post office will begin opening at 9 a.m. instead of the customary 8 effective Monday.

Pete Furgiuele, president of the Long Island New York Area Council of the American Postal Workers Union, said that with the changes in hours, post office managers are taking the “service” out of the U.S. Postal .Service.

“They’re not really addressing the public’s needs,” he said. “It’s supposed to be a service.”

Both the postal service and Furgiuele