Episode 48: What the hell is going on at the post office?

So, winter is still here and I hear it is supposed to keep coming with another four inches of snow tomorrow. This is not just affecting my mood at this point, it is making me down right miserable. I pace around the house, make up excuses to leave and go to the store. I am going utterly stir crazy.

The baby has been keeping me busy in the house now that she can fully walk around without holding on to anything. She is entertaining as hell but boy, is she a hand full. She is at a good height now to open up drawers and take things out and she has almost figured out how to open the fridge by herself. One cool thing that she does is run over and try to use the computer whenever either one of us is on it. This is cute, except for the fact that she just hammers on the keyboard and yells. As I look down now I see that the shift key and right arrow key are completely missing, and the 'N' button sticks, creating mistakes throughout every document that I type. (and you all know I do nothing but type documents all day).

Anyway, the weather has me at the end of my rope, but there is another source of frustration in my life that has completely trumped that lately. The U.S. Postal Service. There are a variety of organizations and businesses whom I have both had it out with and, in some cases, eventually boycotted. Phone battles include incidents with Comcast, the YMCA and T-Mobile, but the real vicious shouting matches and eventual boycotts came after conflicts with Ticketmaster and Eastern Bank. Like most people, I just don't like incompetence or corporations trying to rip me off. If Ticketmaster were a person, I'd be in jail. Probably for a while. That's all I'll say.

Putting those incidents aside for a moment, I have always been a loyal user of the USPS. Sure it takes a little bit longer and stamps seem like an outdated way of doing business, but they have always been reliable and there is something about paying bills online that I just don't trust. I have never owned a computer that hasn't completely failed on me at one point in time or another. I find the USPS to be a good alternative. I mean, what else do you know is going to happen every day no matter what- unless it is Sunday or a holiday? The mail is going to be there and be picked up whether rain, sleet or snow, or however their little motto goes. At least that is what I thought.

The problems first started in September. We had been living here for about three or four months and I hadn't noticed anything different about the mail other than the fact that it was delivered much later in the day than I was used to. The first incident happened when my mother mailed me tickets to a football game. She had sent them about two weeks early, but the game was quickly approaching and they still hadn't arrived. Without boring you with the details, a series of phone calls followed, the mail man at one point actually refused to go look for the package, and eventually the tickets arrived the day before the game in a tattered, wet envelope with a note that said 'some of your goods may have been damaged in transit.'

At this point I began to notice that my mail man was potentially worse at his job than anyone else in America. He arrives at 5 p.m. every day, despite the fact that I routinely see him starting his route around 8:30 a.m. just a few streets away. I still get mail for the woman who used to live here despite having told him 2-300 times that she does not live here any more, not to mention all of the mail I get for the people downstairs. The mail boxes are right next to each other and our names are on them. How do you mess that up?

The mail continued to arrive this way for some time, but the bills and things that I really needed were still showing up, so for the most part I let it go. Next came late December. The trouble bean around Christmas when a package I had ordered for Monica never arrived. I tracked it and the Internet told me it was delivered by the USPS so, of course, I had to call the USPS' 1-800 number. I spoke to a useless woman who was no help and eventually had to file a claim with the company I ordered from to have the gift replaced. That was just the beginning of the problems, too.

I have been living in Salem or the surrounding area for about seven years now, so I have a pretty good idea of the local utilities and when the bills are delivered each month. I like to stay on top of things. No one likes having a childhood memory of having the lights turned off.
Last month I noticed that the cable bill was not delivered at the end of the month like it was supposed to be. At about the same time, Comcast mistakenly turned off my cable (this was a whole different conflict that involved me yelling on the phone a few times as well). This was not because I hadn't paid, but during the two-week process of getting my service back to normal I realized that my payment was past due and I hadn't received the bill. I took care of the issue and paid it over the phone. Three days later, on January 10, my Comcast bill arrived. Due date: January 3.

It was at this point that I decided to confront the mail man again. I was nice and I simply said something like 'excuse me, I was just curious about something.' and then told him the Comcast story. His response? 'I don't sort it, I just deliver it.' I contained my anger until I went inside and called the 1-800 number for the postal service (which at this point, I almost know by heart) and filed my second complaint against the mail man ( the first coming after he refused to look for my tickets). In retrospect, it may not be a good idea to file complaints against the man who is in charge of my mail, but since the USPS is a government agency, there is no accountability anywhere.

Speaking to the woman was again useless and I left the phone conversation more aggravated than before. Infuriated, I started to think that perhaps the problem is not with the mail man and is with the USPS in general. Case and point. Late last month I went to the mail box to mail a large pile of letters. There were about 20-25 invites to the baby's birthday party and a few bills, including my electric bill.

I didn't think anything of it until yesterday when my new electric bill came and claimed that I did not pay last month. Mad at myself for being such an idiot and forgetting, I went in search of the bill, only to found that the stub had been ripped as if it were paid. Hmm. More investigating found that check numbers 250, 251, 253, 254 and 255 had been cashed, meaning that check 252 was missing. The electric bill check. Then I started to think back and I distinctly remember where and when I mailed this stuff. To make matters worse, I asked Monica if all of the invites had arrived, and she said no and that there were several people who id not get the invites or had them delivered much later than everyone else. One of them postmarked twice.

This is the crap that I have to deal with on a daily basis. I have no idea what to do. I have spoken to other people on my street who have had similar problems, but there is seemingly no solution because, as I mentioned before, the USPS is run by the government. This makes it both incompetent and corrupt by nature.

So, if there are any bill collectors out there looking for money, or anyone expecting a card or invite, blame the mail man. That is what I am doing. All of this frustration is going to boil over soon. My 1-year-old is more able to understand things and get things done than most people I encounter during the day, and those people are at work. Sad.