Let's address the spirit and function behind the BRC Post Office (extreme version). If you have ever gone to the Post Office @ Burning Man you may have had an interaction, either good, bad, life changing -- or with no effect. The same for any on-playa postal deliveries you may have received. 

Out with the Bad (In with the Blue, Blu' and the rest of the gang...)

Our first big goal is to eliminate, to the largest degree possible, as many "bad" experiences participants have had at our post office as is humanly possible. With our experience combined, we have worked on playa at the post office for decades and we now have an understanding as to why people have bad experiences. Much of it is "our" fault, the fault of the window worker or the delivery person. You see -- oh no, we are giving away a big secret here -- we have donned the grumpy and bureaucratic persona letting this be our performance art. Some postal service workers did it well, and others didn't do it so well.

And worse than not doing it well was the worker who never understood that this attitude was a part of a persona -- art, a joke -- and they took themselves seriously. They really believed they had a right to be total tools to other human beings. They forgot the original reason for doing it. This is the wrong attitude, and we won't stand for it any more. What you do must be artful. If you are to be an ass, you must be a creative ass.

Engage the correct Gear

What we as postal workers need to remember is that every participant comes to the postal window differently. Workers need to engage participants in a way that addresses their unique circumstance. Just as a ten-speed bike has different gears depending on road conditions and speed, we need to make sure we adjust to the needs of the participant when they arrive -- needs, not wants. The newbie may be looking to the post office to show them what Burning Man is all about and they may be somewhat delicate in terms of our treatment of them. They may not know the 10 principles. The newbie may also be looking to expand their boundaries in a way they would never have considered, but the workers probing may come to this conclusion. The seasoned veteran and the jaded grumpster have thier own set of challenges, which must be dealt with differently. There are also those who have experienced everything at the Post Office and are looking for something that is much more extreme. We should be prepared to provide it to them.

One-on-one unique performance Art

We are in the unique position of offering one-on-one performance art to participants. The window can be considered a frame, where "art" happens both ways through that frame. In an ideal interaction, both worker and participant are uniquely changed by the interaction. It is true that scripts, schticks and routines are sometimes used by workers to facilitate interaction. But the best service performance artist is not afraid to step away from the routine -- or the window -- when needed.

The bottom line: Our goal is everyone leaves the interaction a positively changed human being.