What you see as a slow clerk wasting time with chit-chat might be that person's only way of coping with working in a chronically understaffed environment. Just

What you see as a slow clerk wasting time with chit-chat might be that person's only way of coping with working in a chronically understaffed environment. Just because Safeway can afford to keep enough people in the store to be able to move an additional person or two to registers during busy times doesn't mean that your local post office has the same budget.