My USPS Blues Part 2

by | Feb 1, 2011 | Life notes, Local Tech Notes

As I wrote in my last post getting mail forwarded from our downtown office to my home office has been an ordeal. Confusion, misinformation and delay have caused considerable disruption in the mail for Morse Media.

Here is what happened after I thought I had successfully submitted a change of address form by going in to the main Eureka branch:

While at the old office cleaning up, the letter carrier arrived with mail. I said it’s supposed have a forwarder on it. He said he’d check on it and tell the other carriers (there seemed to be a new one each day). But not wanting to take any chances, I went back to the main branch. This time they had me talk to a Supervisor who looked all of 28. She told me that the post office doesn’t forward business mail. What?! I couldn’t believe that. Nowhere on their website was this policy made clear. No one (neither the mail carriers or the people behind the counter) had ever mentioned this policy. It seemed absurd on the face of it. She insisted this was true. I asked what I was supposed to do and she said I could fill out another form to put a hold on the mail sent to the oldMail Men address and I could stop by and pick it up. This sounded rather lame, but SHE WAS A SUPERVISOR! So I did.

The next day I got a notice from the Post Office at my new address that mail was indeed now being forwarded from the old address. So, back I went to the main branch and once again talked to the “Supervisor.” After she took my information and went behind the wall, I suppose to talk to an Uber Supervisor, she returned to tell me that she had been wrong and that mail addressed only to me personally would not be forwarded. But other mail would be. So, I then had to withdraw the hold on the mail she had me submit earlier.

After a couple weeks mail finally did start arriving at my new address. I learned that when mail has a forward it is shipped to some place in Sacramento, readdressed shipped back to Eureka and re-distributed to the new mail carrier route for delivery.  Understandably, this has slowed payment and other correspondence down considerably. Talk about snail mail!

Beware, if you move your business and need to change your mailing address. Ask for the Uber Supervisor right away.

My USPS Blues

by | Dec 17, 2010 | Life notes, Local Tech Notes

Generally, I think the US Postal Service does a pretty good job. We still rely on it for some things, especially for checks to arrive. But lately I have had a series of P.O. failures.

It began when a couple of checks that clients said they had mailed never arrived. After going back and forth with them and arranging alternate payment, I thought to look in the empty suite next to ours. Sure enough there where the checks, along with several other days mailbagworth of mail. Now granted, we used to occupy that suite, it was connected to our current office through an inner door. But we hadn’t been in that room for over a year. It had its own suite number and all the mail had clearly been addressed to Suite 8.

Most recently, in the process of moving out of the building altogether, I tried unsuccessfully to submit a change of address at http://usps.com which is what they tell you to do now even if you physically go in to the post office. At the end of the form process they  ask for a credit card that is associated with the address we are leaving. Each time I tried to use our company credit card it failed. The website claimed it couldn’t verify the card was associated with the address.

So, I went to the next step: Printing the information from the web page and mailing to the main local post office on Clark St. This was over 2 weeks ago. As of yesterday, they hadn’t started forwarding mail. I went in to the Clark St. office and discovered they had never received the form! So, I filled out yet another form. They assured me that mail would start to get forwarded today. But while we were in the office cleaning up and moving things out, there was the letter carrier with another check to be delivered.

Is it any wonder that electronic payments are taking over and the USPS is losing money? It’s not just email that’s killing snail mail. It’s the whole antiquated, almost quaint use of paper in its many forms. We can’t seem to give away our fax/copier/scanner. Watch out Dunder Mifflin. Your days are numbered.

Personally I can’t wait for payments by smartphone.