Counter service

The Service Counter is a station in the Customer Service zone. Clerks sell retail and take drop-offs. It does not need power. It does need a clerk on the floor and readable desk light.

Lobby hours

New counter customers spawn only while the counter is open, a Service Counter or Passport Station exists, and an on-floor clerk can work that station. Sales also stop if every customer-facing desk is too dark to read.

After 17:00, people already in line or mid-service may finish while the light still allows it. Otherwise they are sent out. Clerks stay for closeout while those customers still need service. Mailbox drop-off and PO box pickup can continue after the counter window when the building is otherwise open, but not before 07:00.

Queue

The line is first in, first out. Someone still walking in is not assigned a window. Passport applicants go to a Passport Station. If none is free they rotate to the back of the queue. Stale queue entries are dropped so a counter cannot latch forever. Counter work outranks a clerk's other jobs while customers are waiting.

What the window sells and accepts

• Stamp sheets, whenever the counter is open, that counter has enough sheets, and a clerk finishes the window. Stock lives on the Service Counter. The Auto Postage kiosk can sell sheets without a clerk, and it still takes them from the nearest stocked counter.
• Extended retail when counter drop-off is offered: envelope packs, shipping boxes S, M, and L, packing tape, money orders, and certified mail. Passport service takes much longer and keeps the window busy. Passport is only in the basket if you have placed a Passport Station.
• PO box rental when the counter is open, rentals are allowed, and a PO Box Wall has a free slot. The guidebook states a setup fee, then a daily fee.
• Counter drop-off of letters and parcels the customer carries in, when you have an Outgoing Mail Bin and an evening outbound run on the clock (that run exists only if you have a loading dock).
• Parcel pickup at the window is only for box-mail hold parcels, not a general "anything in the building" will-call.

Parcel rule

Incoming parcels at the counter require a working Scanner Bay. Letters and flats are still accepted without one. The game can show a hint that the counter needs a Scanner Bay. The bay itself belongs on a Sorting Floor or Distribution Floor: carriers grab a handheld scanner there before street delivery, and clerks grab one before scanning at Package Sort.

Where the mail goes next

Customers keep letters and packages visible in their hands. A large car load borrows an empty letter tray, canvas hamper, or route bin, fills it at the car, and brings it back. The clerk charges postage, then carries that load to an Outgoing Mail Bin in Customer Service. Hub mail in the bin leaves on the evening truck. Local mail goes into plant sort. In a distribution center the bin is inducted into plant sort instead of calling the evening truck. See Outgoing mail.

Service grades

There is no separate counter SLA. The daily government grade (processed, delivered, backlog, labor, budget, satisfaction, mail quality) is facility-wide. Sundays waive it. A dark or unstaffed counter shows up as missed customers and weaker satisfaction, not as its own contract line.