The US Postal Service is Evil April 12, 2007
I am helping put on a dance at our local Middle School and we’re sending out hand-addressed invitations. For the “addressing party” I’m in charge of bringing the 200 stamps we need, so I had the bright idea that I’d order them from usps.com so I could choose a nice design. Plus, I’d have the convenience of having the stamps arrive at my house without me having to wait in line at the post office. Brilliant! However, there is a small fly in the ointment…. the U.S. Postal Service.
I chose my stamps easily enough and added them to my cart. When I clicked “Checkout” I was told that I would be given my shipping charges after I entered my address information. Shipping charges? Doesn’t a postal worker conveniently make a delivery to my house six days a week? Hmmm… I decided to proceed just for grins. How bad could it be? I had to first create a username and 8 character password consisting of at least 1 number and 1 capital letter. Nice. Then I had to enter my address, a password hint, etc. Oy. THEN I had to agree to the terms and conditions of the site. THEN I had to view a confirmation screen with all of the information that I had just entered. By this point, I was starting to get a tad annoyed. Finally I was taken to a page where I was told that the stamps would be shipped to me via Priority Mail and standard Priority Mail rates applied, plus a $1 handling fee. So, we’re looking at something like at least $5 to have the mail carrier deliver stamps to my house.
No way.
I’ll go wait in the line at the post office, thankyouverymuch. It’s the principal of the thing. I do not want to pay for the post office to deliver something to my house when they’re already delivering something to my house almost-daily.
Am I crazy? Maybe. Overreacting? Probably. But I still can’t swallow the delivery fee.
Ahhh, I know how you feel, though in your case they didn’t do anything wrong; just stupid.
Let’s see…
I have had them fold a book along the spine, completely destroying it beyond use.
I have had them somehow fold a 700 page hardback textboook that I paid $70 for, and did not get a penny from the post office.
And I have had them rip open an envelope through their carelessness and charge me $3.94 (I was the recipient) for repackaging it (it cost much less to send it in the first place).
Oh man - those are some bad moments from the USPS. Sheesh! You’re right - they didn’t harm me in any way, just annoy the heck out of me.