. It caused me to reflect on my own interactions with this enormous government institution, and why after many years of dealing with them, I finally made the decision to cut the cord with the USPS.
"Boxes? We've got plenty of boxes"
As a boy I read a number of magazines, and collected comic books as well. Sometimes I would fill out the ads within and have all sorts of weird stuff come to the house. As I got older, I became tired of my siblings expropriating my items for their own use and decided to get my own PO box, to ensure that what I actually paid for, made it to me.
I think I was staying at my grandmothers house at the time, and had stuff sent there as I knew it would be safe. So far, so good, right? Years go by, and my subscriptions to magazines such as National Geographic and the like, began to grow. The post office had these little boxes available and they'd roll the issues up in order to make them fit. Jamming them in along with the other mail was damaging the mags, and that's why when I finally had the funds to inquire about a larger box, I was wiling to make the move.
The good thing about those, is that the magazines could lay flat in the box without being ripped as with the small ones. So I paid the extra fee and enjoyed damage-free delivery of my favorite subscriptions. Everything was going fine until the time came for me to pay my box fee. That's' when things took a sudden turn for the worse.
Running into inertia
So I go to the box window to pay and the woman informs me that the large box was rented to me in error? Turn out that this office only allows one box per person, which was odd as they were always complaining that may of their units lay unused, as this is a smaller town. About half of their small boxes were open to rent, and something like 70% of the large boxes were available as well.
So I'm thinking "who cares, at least I'm renting something that would otherwise be bringing in no income" and the lady agreed, but it was an "unwritten policy" that they had. They said it had to do with tying a box to an identity or something like that as the reason behind it. They told me I'd have to choose only one box to keep, and that became a problem.
You see, I knew I'd have to contact each magazine and change my delivery address which would take time. Meanwhile, issues would continue to arrive at the large box until the switchover was complete.
So I said that I'd pay for one more six-month term for the large box to give the publishers time to transition back to the old small box. What did I hear from the USPS? "No!" So I told them I'd go home and think about it and return in a few days once I'd decided what to do. But they said that everything would have to be cut now, today...
Their inflexibility baffled me, as I'd been a longtime customer of theirs and expected they would understand the time needed to move the subscriptions over. That's when they hit me with the other bombshell: If I didn't cancel the large box today, they would refuse to allow me to pay on even the small one and would keep both in limbo until I agreed. Hand on my chin, I told them I'd be right back, and went to another part of the building to mull things over.
Change agent
So I'm sitting there thinking "do I even need this nonsense?" Besides the magazines, most of my mail consisted of sales fliers and other assorted junk. When I broke it down to the number of legitimate items received in an average year, it amounted to less than a dozen which could easily be diverted elsewhere. So taking a deep breath, I tried once more to reason with the lady and even spoke with her supervisor, all to no avail. That was the day I ended my reliance on the USPS PO box service.
The days of standing for an hour in a long line, just to get some junk mail were over. They wouldn't even let you call in find out if what was in your box was worth the trip. I can still recall going all they way out there, waiting for 45 minutes just to have them hand me yet another CD from AOL. Thankfully they ended the practice a few months later, of sending everyone in America a disc every 90-days like clockwork. There would be no more wasted time standing in line.
I ended up going with an alternative service where I have most of my Amazon stuff sent to so I don't have to wait for it all day. With a traditional delivery service, one of my first computers was delivered while I was at work, and the driver dumped it on the front steps, where it sat for over 5 hours until I came home. Anyone walking or driving by could have helped themselves to a free PC at my expense. It seems the computer Gods were looking out for me that day.
I've never looked back after leaving the USPS box service behind. With mail now being slowed overall, it can take up to a week just to send something across town that used to be delivered in a day or two. After my encounter with them, I ended up handling most correspondence via email. The inability of the post office to be responsive and nimble in the blockchain era, makes me wonder if they won't continue to be further left behind. Many of us are on the pathway to simplifying our lives, and I'm so glad I finally made the switch.
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