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| Thursday, September 23, 2004 |
Mailing Woes
I've normally had good times with the post office (USPS that is). Over the past few years, I've sent all sorts of stuff to all sorts of places. But recently, I got a chance to see the darker side of this organization.
Before I left New York I mailed a bunch of stuff that was in my apartment; random crap really, but enough to fill up one medium sized box and two small ones. When I took it to the post office, the lady said it should be to Pasadena in a week to 10 days - fair enough. When I arrived in Pasadena 9 days later, I was surprised to see that only 1 of the boxes had made it. Usually the post office says 10 days, but usually delivers in like 3. Not this time. The next day my second small box arrived, but the medium was still MIA. At first I didn't think anything of it. Maybe the hurricanes had disrupted their service. Or maybe the Labour Day holiday threw them off. But as the days passed by, and then the weeks, I started to suspect something wasn't quite right.
Then out of nowhere I go home yesterday for lunch only to find a beaten, battered, war-torn medium sized box at my door. Three weeks after I'd given it (and $30) to the post office, they'd finally delivered.
There are a couple things I've learned from this experience:
- Don't ever use duct tape. For the first time in my mailing career, I used duct tape instead of packing tape. For some reason, duct tape can make a decent substitute for cement, but it has a tough time sticking to card board. When the small boxes arrived, the tape was just barely clinging to them; if those puppies had another block to go I don't think the tape stood a chance. When the large box arrived two weeks later, it was even worse. The box was patched in random places with the post offices tape. Thus, at some point between Elmsford and Pasadena, postal officials had to perform surgery on my box.
- Always get delivery confirmation on anything remotely important; and especially boxes! (With delivery confirmation, users get a tracking number.) This may sound like common sense to most people, but it obviously slipped past me. All these years of having nothing but good times with the post office allowed me to let my gaurd down, trusting them. Never again. As the days passed by in the wait for my medium sized box I thought, "this package could be anywhere in the country!" I realised then that not having delivery confirmation is like canoeing the Pacific without GPS.
- Lastly, it doesn't hurt to get the insurance option on a parcel. Again, common sense, but, again, I was going on the rapport of the post office. When the boxes arrived, by the looks of the outside I had a feeling they'd been to Fallujah and back. When I opened them up, that feeling was confirmed. Some of my stuff was broken, and others had just been really beaten up. Fortunately it wasn't anything important enough to file a complaint (although I have yet to try and turn on that laptop), but still, I think the shakes my packages went through were a bit excessive. I blame it on the duct tape :) I get the feeling the boxes didn't have enough structure to them and folded under certain pressure. Had I used some reputable packing tape, the boxes may have held up a little better. I'll post an update if I can prove this theory.
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