USPS – United States Postal Service

The United States Postal Service, hereafter known as the Post Office, was once a respected and profitable organization. The courtroom scene in the movie Miracle on 34th Street was a paean to the Post Office as it was in the 1940s and 1950s; today it is deeply in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy and/or dissolution. I would like to illustrate a reason why.

My wife and I spent most of our vacation in Minnesota and I signed up for the Post Office’s Premium Forwarding Service for too much money. After about three weeks we received our first small package – three weeks? for a weekly service? On the day we left to return home we received another small package. Where was the rest of our mail? Well, guess what; the Post Office screwed up and put the wrong address on the package and returned it to itself as: Not Deliverable As Addressed Unable To Forward.

The three-inch thick Medium Flat Rate Box Priority Mail package was hand addressed correctly but taped on top of that address was a card from the Vietnam Veterans of America. That card was addressed to: Valued Veteran Supporter at my home address. It could not have been placed/taped to the package anywhere but at the Post Office – the IDA J. HAXTON branch in Huntington Beach, California.

How ____ing stupid!

No one but a Post Office employee could have done this. Stupidity? Sabotage? You be your own judge.

For myself, I’m disgusted; whatever the reason, it seems to me that the Post Office and its employees have decided to commit economic and political suicide.

I have just filled out a “complaint” form at the USPS website. Will any action be taken? Will I get a refund? Will I even get a cogent response. Stay tuned; film at eleven.
September 17th, 2013 – Still no response from the USPS, but, what the heck, it’s only been a little over a month.