Post Office pains

Holy crap, Bat Fans, what day is it!? Where has this week gone? I’ve spent a good portion of it in Mail Hell, working on an extremely complicated mailing at work. Thank God someone was paying me to figure it out and get it done, because if not that thing would still be laying around.

What is it with the Post Office? No wonder they’re running out of money. They have not made an effort to bring their processes up-to-date with current technology, or only marginally so. For instance, when I mail a package to my soldier, I send it military priority mail (good price) but it involves filling out a long customs form by hand. There are 5 carbine copies so you have to make sure you write firmly enough to go through, or the clerk will make you rewrite it at the post office. At which point you lose your place in line or everyone behind you stares daggers at you.

It’s true that you can fill our the form on the computer, but you must then print 5 pages to make up for all the carbons. Imagine if you are mailing just three boxes, that’s 15 sheets of paper. Also, because it’s going outside the country you have to physically take it to the post office to mail it. What’s that about? I thought we were concerned with dangerous items coming in, not going out.

For a certified letter, which is what I have been sending my time on for the past two day, you have to address the envelope, address the tear off sheet, address the return card twice, transfer a sticker from the tear off sheet to the return card, and check at least one box. Oh yeah, and for all your hard work you will pay over $5 to mail it. How crazy is that? On top all this, I also had to include a mail merged letter, site specific map, project flyer, two pamphlets and a self-addressed postage paid envelop. I’m telling you the diagram on the instruction would have look like one those drawing where it takes a thousand senseless steps to get for point A to point B. I was trapped in a Rube Goldberg drawing!

I had to go to the post office to pick some more certified letter materials. I asked for a set of 100, they only had 150 sets so all they would give me was 10 sets. They needed to save some in case other customers needed them. What’s the deal with that? Isn’t the point in printing them to get them used? It’s not like I wasn’t going to use them, I really needed them! It wasn’t like I was trying to horde them so other people couldn’t get any. What if no one else came in for certified mailing materials, they miss the opportunity to have them go to a good home. And really if I need a 100 than 10 just isn’t going to do it. For a moment I had flash back to my times with Sprint Customer Service. (As vile an organization that ever existed and the ultimate oxymoron.)

I used to have to do bulk mailings at another job, and let me tell you there are a thousand ways to get those wrong, and a lot of it depends on who is manning the counter when you take it in. I used to cruise the parking lot peeking into the windows to see if it was even worth going in. One clerk in particular you just couldn’t please! She would always have you at one of the tables making changes, or send you away completely. Who your clerk is, is a big factor in determining how successful and painful your visit is. The truth is you’re not getting out of the Post Office without some pain involved. It’s a wonder that its only been postal worker shooting up the place.