USPS strikes again!

Well, there is that, but I think it is more just plain old lack of motivation.

Years ago I sold a rare record to a man in PA, but I inadvertently transposed the last two digits of his Zip Code. The record was sent via 2-Day express, and the buyer notified me on the second day that his mail had been delivered but my parcel wasn't there. I verified his address and it was then that we discovered the transposed zip code.

Fortunately, it turns out that the parcel was still at the post office in an adjoining town, and the buyer was able to contact someone there who held it aside for him to pick up in person. A nice chap he was, and gave me good feedback despite my error. I have received parcels that had been shipped out as much as two years before they were delivered with no explanation.

 

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Same here.

I have a friend who routinely enters only the Zip Code on the third address line. One would expect with all the automation that this should be sufficient, but I wonder about the expert staff at both ends of his mailings.

 

I still leave a Christmas card with cash for both my weekday mail person and my weekend mail person. I moved to my current house in 2004 from the same town. Mail addressed to my old address shows up in my current mail box without being forwarded even though postal regs say they will only forward for six months.
My gifts are very minor. My returns are above and beyond anything I could have expected. Weekday gets $10. Weekend gets $5. How much is your aggravation worth to you?

 

Yet another reason I use a post office box. The post office knows me, even if the box number is wrong, and I don't want valuable things dropped off at my house, let alone people knowing where I live.

 

Unfortunately, getting to know folks at my PO isn’t really possible. The town is under 100K population with a main and two small branch offices that aren’t full service. I’d guess the main office has as 50-100 employees who work inside the building. In part, this is because the same zip code serves an adjacent large university that isn’t within the city limits. I think all business mail for the university goes through the main PO, but some may go between the university mail division and the regional center. I recognize some clerks at the PO, but they switch counter personnel around often. Our delivery person seems to change every year or two. Rarely see them anyway. Live in the country, and the mailbox is about ½ km from the house. So for me, it’s pretty much a faceless bureaucracy. I do know our OnTrac and UPS delivery persons pretty well though.

Cal

 

Had this happen to me many times.

 

I must be lucky. I never have had a real USPS problem. Perhaps it’s something to do with the small community I live in and the fact that the postal carriers more or less know everyone.

Talk about knock on wood.