Common courtesy

is fast disappearing - or so it would seem.
I was in the Post Office yesterday. I was served by someone I didn't know but he dealt efficiently with me. As he was finishing and I was saying thank you one of the staff I do know well finished with someone else and then glared at his back view as he left. 
There were just the three of us left in the post office which is probably what made her feel she could say something. The man had come in talking on his phone. He had passed over some paperwork and a card - presumably to pay for something - taken the paperwork with the receipt and the card and walked out again. He made no effort at all to even meet the eyes of the person attending to him. Before you ask - it was a social conversation.  He didn't bother to interrupt it to say thank you or even nod an acknowledgment. The manner in which he behaved was discourteous in the extreme.
I like K.... the post office person a lot. I like all the staff in there. They have been very good about sorting out how to send things to strange addresses - something my job sometimes demands. They will always work out the cheapest way to send something or the best way to pack something too. 
Yesterday afternoon a friend called in to deliver something I was planning on taking to a meeting tomorrow. In the course of our brief conversation she informed me that she had been invited to talk to the group about the same  topic at some point. I don't have an issue with that. I do have an issue with the fact that the group has not informed me what they expect of me. At the last meeting I was put on the spot because the topic arose and I was asked to speak about it. I couldn't. I wasn't prepared. I didn't have the necessary information or materials with me.  I had been told that the issue was coming up in the October committee meeting and I expected to be told if they wanted me to talk about it after that. I felt embarrassed and I apologised - although I am not sure why I felt it was necessary. Nothing was said to me though. Now I don't know whether I am expected to provide the information I planned to provide or not. The friend who told me isn't sure what they want to know because, as she put it, "you're the one with all the information".  
Common courtesy would solve the problem. All it would take is a quick email saying the group wants the information or it doesn't and when they want it if they do want it.
And then, very late yesterday afternoon, the parcel delivery girl turned up. She has replaced the young man who replaced the very efficient person the Downunder Post decided was not right for the job for reasons which are a mystery to everyone - including the local post office staff and the man himself. The new delivery person is pleasant but not efficient or, I suspect, particularly intelligent. She is struggling with the job. We have got to know her because she has had to deliver a string of parcels to us for other people in the street.
(The Senior Cat being almost always home this is convenient for everyone. It makes him feel useful too.) 
But this time there was no parcel. She had been earlier in the day and delivered one which I was about to go and give to a neighbour. There should have been two parcels. She had lost one. Had someone brought it around? 
No.
She stood there and I could see the panic and the tears. It had been a terrible day for her. She had dropped a parcel containing a very expensive bottle of wine. Something else had gone wrong at home. And there was another issue I can't mention here. 
I looked at her and said, "It's not the end of the world. Give me the tracking number and I'll look it up. I think I know what it is. It can be replaced if nobody hands it in."
Although I was feeling a little more than irritated by the time that all this will waste there was no point in getting angry with her. That would just have made matters even worse. Instead I tried to be courteous, to find a solution and to think about it from her point of view. 
I wish the man who had come into the post office earlier in the day had thought about it from K....'s point of view and that the people who expected me to do something had thought I might need to know so I could my best for them. 
It's just common courtesy.