The package machines at the POs here will sell you 1 stamp of any value you want, prints it right up. Ugly little barcode things, but 1 stamp.
A lot of the delays at the post office is people that don’t know what they’re doing. I see a lot of people walk in with unsealed unaddressed boxes of stuff and the postal worker actually helps them get it all together. If people actually came in prepared they could cycle a 25 person line in 15 minutes.
The machines at my PO only take credit/debit cards, and can’t do a transaction less than 1.00. Everyone in the line I was in was ready, but the clerks were incredibly lackadaisical in handling and processing everything.
This happens a lot in the post offices I use. Customers come poorly prepared to conduct their business. I always come with everything I know I will need, what service I want, and money to pay for it all in a convenient manner. Then it's like bang-bang and you're out of there. The only time I've been angry is when the clerks just leave the counter and go in the back seemingly for no reason. They aren't getting anything for a customer, they aren't bringing supplies to the counter. It's just like, they go away. And no, I don't think it's for potty breaks, unless there is an epidemic of weak bladders in the USPS.
Speaking of that, I once used (or tried to use) the automated Priority Mail machine to mail some legal documents in oversized envelopes.
I had already addressed them in the traditional manner, and paid for the stamp, when out prints this 4"x6" sticker, with mostly white space, that I could not fit anywhere on the face of my envelope without covering the address and having to rewrite it somewhere on the edge of the envelope.
I then found out that the machine DID ask me to make sure that I had space for that absurdly large sticker, but I had missed it, assuming that the POST OFFICE (who ostensibly has some experience with stamps, envelopes, etc) would make "stamps" that will actually fit on the majority of envelopes on which they will be placed.