Going Postal, part 4

IV. The Address Change
(April, 2007)

A few months before my wife and I got married, we decided, because we did not care to be slaves to the beast that is renting, that we would buy a house. We figured this was a good idea because not only would our mortgage payment be equal or less than our rental payment, but because—now hindsight is 20/20 here—at the time, the housing market in Utah was quite figuratively on fire. It got to a point where we would look at a house in the morning and there would be three or four offers on it by that night. So, after searching one end of the valley to the other, we finally found the nexus of the universe we currently call home.

No joke, our grid address is 4321 South 1234 West.

However, before that, there was a multi-week interim where the Mrs. (or Ms., as it were at the time) had moved out of her apartment, but our house had not yet closed. For the time, she followed her husband-to-be's cue in slackitude and came to live in my parents' basement. Though there were the normal (expected) cliches, it was actually a rather painless experience.

Yeah, it was kind of like that.

We closed on our house two days before we took the plunge/tied the knot/[insert wedding metaphor here]. In addition to the myriad of paperwork that needs to be filled out when getting married/buying a house—change of name, escrow papers, signing away firstborn, and the like—we realized we also had to fill out Change of Address forms, informing the USPS that we would no longer be residents of my parents' abode. And as the pattern of the past three posts still held true, that is when the trouble began.

We filled out the CoA forms (as those in the know call them) and moved into our new home. Sure enough, a few days later, mail started arriving in our mailbox that had been forwarded from Sandy. Notice how I said just "mail" and avoided the use of the adjective "our". This is because it was not just our mail... unless "our" refers to my parents as well. That is right: the same postal worker who did not know the difference between South Dakota and South Africa must have processed our Change of Address forms, because they transferred all the residents of my parents' house to our new address, parents' included.

I personally believe that US Americans need Change of Address forms...

After speaking with multiple postal workers and filling out multiple forms, we were able to convince the USPS that my parents indeed still lived in their house and that is where their mail should be sent. Sadly, most of the damage had already been done, as any number of junk mail databases were updated with our address as the new target. To this day, we receive junk mail addressed to my parents on a pretty-much daily basis.

Although, to be fair, I suppose that is karma, as I still give out my parents' phone number whenever any dubious source asks for my contact info.

Sorry mom and dad.

Going Postal, part 3

III. Cape Town, South Dakota
(July 2002 – July 2004)

In March of 2002, I received—yes, actually received in the mail, believe it or not—a piece of paper that many people know as a "Mission Call", informing me where I would serve my two year religious/humanitarian mission. There were a number of places whose names I wanted to see on that piece of paper, from Scotland to Mongolia to Tonga. It came as no surprise, then, that the place listed was none of those, and was about as far from Sandy, Utah as one can get: Cape Town, South Africa. Over the next few months, I prepared for my 24-month sojourn, informing those I knew and giving them an address I could be reached at there. Incidentally, there was a large number of people who, upon hearing of my destination, would reply, "South Africa? Where exactly is that?"

Wait wait wait... there’s a South Africa?

After a few months of residing in ZA (because SA is Saudi Arabia, obviously), I began to notice many of the idiosyncrasies of the SAPO (South African Post Office, obviously). For example, with the exchange rate it was cheaper to send a letter from Cape Town to Sandy than it was to send one from, say, Sandy to Sandy. I noticed that there could be multiple streets with the same name and numbers—one neighborhood I was in had five Protea Roads—so writing the correct postal code was super imperative. I also noticed that the post office lacked any postage-printing machines, so if someone needed R139.57 in stamps, the unfortunate postal worker had to do an awful lot of mental math to choose the correct number and variety of stamps.

Why oh why didn't I listen to Winnie Cooper!?

The biggest issue I found, however, naturally had nothing to do with the SAPO and everything to do with the USPS. One of every ten or so letters I would receive would have two interesting features on the envelope:
  1) The words "South Africa" would be highlighted in yellow; and
  2) There was a postmark from Rapid City, South Dakota in the corner.
I quickly realized that there must have been a postal worker(s?) out there who saw the "South", saw that it had a "A" near the beginning and ended in one as well, and concluded that South Dakota was probably the letter's destination. (Interestingly enough, I never received a letter that had been mistakenly sent to South Carolina, so perhaps the formula was a bit more complex than I am giving it credit.)

Table Mount Rushmore, South Dafrica

As noted before, this was a fairly common occurrence. However, since the address the letters were sent to was a permanent address in ZA and not wherever I was staying at the time, I only received the mail about once a month and was usually not bothered by the rerouting delay. There was one offense, though, that needs be mentioned. In a letter to one of my friends, I pointed out the (somewhat amusing) error in passing, as one of his previous letters had been sent on the Great Plains detour. In an attempt to prevent any further delivery mishaps, my friend addressed his next letter to me as per postal standards, then wrote "AFRICA" in large capital letters at the bottom. To drive the nail in further, he drew a miniature outline of Africa and pointed an arrow to the bottom with the word "here". Surely there could be no confusion this time.

I chuckled when I saw the envelope. Not because of the giant letters or the humorous drawing... but because "South Africa" was highlighted in yellow and there was a "Rapid City, SD" postmark in the corner.

Ok, in their defense, it does kind of look like South Dakota.

Going Postal, part 2

II: The 4-Month Delivery
(January – April, 2002)

My freshman year at college was my first real experience of living on my own. With that experience came a slew of life lessons, oft times learned the hard way. I learned that bringing an acoustic guitar to college is a bad idea, unless you want to be "that guy", and I learned that no matter how you dress it up, ramen noodles are never a good choice when you tell a girl you will cook her dinner. I also learned that an equation made up of (one bored college student) + (the novelty of eBay) + (access to a roommate's credit card) = bad news for all parties involved.

Classy

(Regarding the previous sentence, let it be said that I always paid back any and all expenditures, lest I be esteemed a villain.) During one of my (what quickly became daily) scrolls through the online auction house, a particular item caught my eye—a Braille edition of a book, which was certainly a collector's item. Being overcome with giddiness, I purchased the book and was surprised that shipping was only an additional $12, as Braille books are usually rather large and have to be broken up into multiple volumes. The seller was quite prompt in shipping the book, being told that, due to its size, it would arrive "within eight to twelve business days".

When the eighth business day passed, I started anxiously checking the mail. When the twelfth business day passed, I was a bit miffed. When the twentieth business day passed, I asked the mailman what the deal was, to which he replied that since there was no tracking number, I would just have to "wait until it show[ed] up". When the thirtieth business day passed, I began keeping a watchful eye on the news to make sure I-80 had not been blocked by some sort of natural disaster or, as I feared, a wizard.

You shall not pass!

As the business days turned into business weeks and then into business months, I began to give up all hope regarding my long-lost book. It was just as I was considering buying another book (that had popped up on my eBaydar) when I came home from class one day to discover, much to my surprise, a large box waiting by my door. Upon opening it, I discovered that my book had finally arrived! With 106 calendar days on its belt, I hoped to find foreign postage, burn marks, and other such things one would expect from such a far traveler; after all, it is more-or-less a straight-shot down I-80 from Des Moines to Provo. However, the box was in perfect condition—ruling out falling from a truck or being taken in a hostage crisis—and the postmark was marked on the day when the seller said he sent it—ruling out any tomfoolery on his part. There was only one viable solution left: the USPS, doing its job as per expectations.

Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.

After exhausting multiple avenues—I quickly learned that if you have a problem with the postal system, it is quite difficult to actually speak with someone regarding the problem—I had a conversation with Kevin, manager of the Provo post office. When I asked him what could have possibly happened to make a package be delivered more than four times longer than me actually walking to Iowa, picking it up, and walking back, he simply replied that "sometimes, these things happen". Though I kept silent at the time, I realize now I should have taken a cue from Carlotta in The Phantom of the Opera: "Si! These things do happen! Well, until you stop these things happening, this thing does not happen!"

Broadway jokes, anyone?

Going Postal, part 1

Recently, I had a rather unpleasant altercation with my local post office over, well, what I view as their inability to do their job correctly. This conversation between myself and Jill—the postal manager who not only could not be brought to an understanding that perhaps one of her workers could have made a mistake, but who also implied that it somehow must have been my fault, though I obviously never touched/saw the package—left me more-than-a-little irked and left the package more-than-a-little lost.

Jill (artist's rendition)

Now, I am aware that it is a mite bit cliche to talk about how ineffective, unprofessional, and at times worthless the United States Postal Service is. However, after a quick jog through my mind, I was able to come up with five examples (including this most recent incident) from my own life of the USPS's ineptitude, poor customer service, and general incompetence.

I: The Dollar Stamp
(April, 1999)

Being a young and spry teenager who had access to the relatively new innovation that was "Free Electronic Mail", I had little use for the postal system growing up. In fact, virtually every piece of mail I received when I was younger could be filed in one of two categories:
  1) Birthday/holiday cards from grandparents and the like, which were always fun as they allowed me to figure out how much my relatives loved me, down to the exact dollar amount; and
  2) Credit card offers from solicitors who not only somehow got hold of my personal information, but who also somehow failed to realize I was barely old enough to have a checking account, much less a Visa Platinum with no preset spending limit. Although, in retrospect, perhaps they did realize that, and they were trying to start me young.

smooth

During this time, one day I found myself in need of a stamp to mail a letter. Not finding one around the house, I took a quick walk to the post office. As always, the line was inexplicably long; but as fortune would have it, there was a machine off to the side of the lobby which sold stamps. I approached the machine and inserted a dollar bill, with the intent of buying three $.33 stamps and getting a penny for my change. However, the machine quickly laughed in my face, informed me that it was out of said stamps, and suggested I make another selection. I obviously could not afford a book of stamps, so I pressed the change return button. The machine ignored my request and again suggested I make another selection. Again I pressed the button, and again I got no response.

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

After pressing the change return button a score of times and getting no response, I realized I would have to do as the machine suggested and make another selection. A quick browse through the options showed me that the only stamp within my price range was the $.01 American Kestrel Stamp. I selected the stamp (with a quantity of one) and was asked if I wanted anything else. When I informed the machine I did not, it then and only then told me that exact change was required and that I would not be given any change back. And since I had already said I did not want anything else, I lost any chance I had at recouping my loss. The machine must have been able to see my shock at the time, because it then kicked me while I was down by telling me to "Have a nice day."

Before / After

Defeated, I hung my head and returned home. I never saw the machine again after that fateful day, but I assume it is still out there somewhere, scamming another person out of their hard-earned cash.

Find the Queen, get the green, fellas!