Warning! And…
Here’s something I didn’t know.
If you write “Do Not Bend” on your mail going out… you will get charged more for your postal needs. I tell truth. I went to mail out the latest issue of Art-o-rama (it’s coming to you now, subscribers) and I wrote, as I have in the past, those crazy words DO NOT BEND on the envelopes. THIS TIME, however, I was charged A WHOLE BUCK EXTRA! That is until I said, “uh, wait up a sec.” It was explained to me, right then and there, that this is what happens now when you write that on the envelope. More Postage. The nice postal lady then proceeded to SHOW me how a postal worker might bend the envelope, which I wasn’t really happy about.
Long and short. Your Art-o-rama issue is coming to your mail box; It might be bent. I am sorry (Except for yours, Audra. You got the extra postage).
I’ve noticed more and more little addons in the post office too; we mailed our annual calendars to our British family and each one cost about as much to mail as it cost to have printed.
They will find ways to nickel & dime us like the airlines… It makes us consumers cranky.
Actually, hold your fire there, peeps. Don’t blame the USPS. Blame the users (ourselves included) who flip out every time they want to raise postage a couple cents even though it’s the cheapest service in the world and even the commercial delivery services rely on them for delivery in the “last mile”. Even though those few extra dollars could pay for the extra warehouse space or that one extra truck or planeload that would allow them to be less judicious about how things are packed.
Then blame the property owners who are just as frugal and using smaller and smaller mailboxes. How are things supposed to fit, even when bent let alone when we insist they come flat as a board?
Then ask is it more fair to charge everyone for the special needs of a few, or add that charge just to the ones who need it? Some things should be shared cost, others should be tagged for those who need it. The biggest qualifiers are how common is it and does it serve the general good. Like how an educated populace benefits everyone and is used by most so yes the cost of public education comes out of everyone’s taxes. But so relatively few fishes or hunts and it’s purely for their own benefit – so they pay for their own license which covers the cost of tracking that info.
Just saying the USPS does a pretty good job for an outfit that’s been around for more than two centuries and has had a pretty good track record in general even with the extra scrutiny of being such a publicly used and watched service. We should cut them some slack here and there, eh?
G. Wolf… I appreciate your “other side of the coin” there, GreyWolf. I won’t disagree with some of your points… small mailboxes in newer residences… the fact the USPS does their job alright…. BUT, like the airlines…. something that was free, included and part of the service is NOW an extra charge. It went from included to “you pay extra.”
And add in that they really are not supposed to be bending or folding the mail during processing in any event.
The Post Office is in a bind right now – but many of their responses to that bind have actually hurt their bottom line.
Standardized packaging has led to a glut of over packaging, in order to avoid increased rates. (I am speaking of a box that I received not long ago that literally contained 95% packing material. The actual item that was shipped occupied the last 1/4 inch of a 3 inch deep box – an it was also narrower and shorter than the box.
UPS has had a huge increase in shipping since the USPS raised their rates and has started doing some very… odd things in consequence. (Raise your hand if you have received a package that was shipped cross country by UPS, then shipped locally by the USPS….)
And so on and so forth.
The Auld Grump, and as for international shipping….
Somewhere along the line, the Postals decided that they needed to put out a bunch retail stuff… wearable ties, and stamp related things… as if that is what we paid money to the post office to do. Couple that with the hoards of money given to sponsor say…. a bicycling team headed by Lance Armstrong. The Post Office shouldn’t be sponsoring anything! If the Post Office is in such financial straits… who thought that throwing money at these extracurricular activities was such a good idea? Of course, who pays for these bad decisions but the consumer?
At the end of the day, I’m not going to flip out about the post office. I’ve never had a problem with them. As opposed to the government that chased me out of my home country, the politicians who get nailed for corruption and still walk out with full retirement plans and benefits for their whole families, massive retail chains that establish monopolies and then choke out everything in a given region, and basically everyone out there constantly creeping up prices. At least the postal service generally does their jobs.