Things that Make Me Go Postal

Besides the Post Office not opening at 830am this morning as advertised (evidently it now opens at 9am but they never bothered to tell their postal delivery people who leave the notes on your door telling you to take off work to go get the package they could have left on your doorstep.)

What really makes me go want to grab an automatic weapon (or a cheeseburger) are the idiots who can’t possible express themselves without using the words “like” or “you know”. WTF! You’re well into your adult life, don’t you think you might want to expand your vocabulary just a little bit? I don’t know about you but I worked hard to eliminate the “hum’s” and the “eh’s” from my professional life a long time ago. The last thing I’d want to do is fill my pauses with “like you know, like you know what I mean.”

ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!

An Open Letter to the Postmaster General

Dear Postmaster General,

I know that you have been concerned about the precipitous drop in both the volume of letters and parcels your staff has been delivering and in the lack of funds your agency has been brining in. In this economy we are all concerned about lack of cash flow and profit.

The good news is I have a solution.

When I prepay and print my package postage at home let me drop it off at the front desk of my local post office and go about my business. The current protocol doesn’t work. Why should I even bother to do all the work on my own time when the lady behind the counter tells me I have to wait in the long line (20 deep at lunch today) of people who don’t have enough sense to make use of current technology. And then when I get up there says she needs to ask me if there is anything dangerous or illegal in my box.

Yes, I’m shipping a bomb, fireworks, child pornography, foreign produce, elephant tusks, and small pox vials. Gee...I’m glad you asked or I might have gotten away with it!

The geniuses who run the airlines actually figured this out before you did huh? Remember when they used to ask you if you’ve let anybody else hold your bag or you were taking a package on the plane because this nice guy named Osama with the long beard and turban asked you to take this ticking box with the wires on the flight to LA for him? I don’t remember them catching a whole lot of “evil-doers” with that method. How’s it working for the Post Office? Have you stopped a major global terroristic disaster or disrupted a major illegal fireworks operation recently? Didn’t think so.

Next time I’m going to Fed Ex or UPS where they actually appreciate it when you do your business on line.

Sincerely,

The Management at Nobody Likes a Jerk.

You Can’t Mail That....This is America

And dang it, you just can’t mail alcohol. As I tried to explain to the postal employee yesterday, it wasn’t alcohol but rather a pair of handlebars that I was returning to the company that mistakenly sent them to me. To which he explained to me that it has nothing to do what’s inside of the box, you can’t send a box with Alcohol on the printing. What? Why the hell not? If the box is secured properly and there is nothing prohibited inside of it (I would have cut open the tape if asked), then what seems to be the problem.

Well after 30 minutes of digging through the US Postal Service Website the answer appears to be the following in their Domestic Mail Manual (DMM 100):

8.1 Nonmailable Matter—General
Certain potentially undesirable, harmful, or dangerous matter is nonmailable by statute or regulation. The standards for nonmailable articles and substances and the special conditions under which certain of these articles and substances may be mailed are in 8.0 through 10.0 and 11.0. The standards in 12.0, Written, Printed, and Graphic Matter Generally, 508.8.0, Pandering Advertisements, and 508.9.0, Sexually Oriented Advertisements, apply to nonmailable matter in written, printed, or graphic form and contain the rules on advising mailers of matter covered in 8.0 through 12.0, 508.8.0, and 508.9.0. The standards in 8.0 through 10.0 and 11.0 apply to the military postal system, its employees, and undelivered mail that is or has been in the official custody of this system and its employees. References to Inspection Service apply to the Postal Inspection Service and authorize

This goes under the stuff that is so small on the grand scheme of things in life that it really shouldn’t matter. However this is MY life and pondering the little things like this is what gets me through my day. So with that in mind here goes:

I understand the sexually orientated advertisements portion of this restriction. Nobody (well almost nobody) wants to get a box from an E-bay vendor with a very noticeable advertisement for a penis pump on the side (even if said box contains said pump)...but we’re not talking about that in this instance. Here we are talking about handlebars in a box for Vodka (Orange Stoli to be exact). Is the USPS concerned that by accepting this package those postal employees might be driven to drink (vs. all the other blatant ads out there for booze)? Or are they concerned that the company who was going to receive the package might be tempted to run out and hit the hooch to hard? It’s tough to say but I can for sure tell you that while you can’t use an alcohol themed box, you can still send firearms through the mail. Guns are ok...just not booze. This is the kind of stuff our kids should be learning about in school and not all that math and reading crap. This is the kind of thing that would really get them prepared for the minimum-wage earning, no healthcare provided, my truck just got repossessed, real world they are going to embark into upon graduation (if they make it that far).

Not a thought, just a sermon.