I discovered today why the government has no money. It’s because services such as the United States Postal Service are grossly incompetent. It’s actually kind of comical. Let me tell you about my wedding invitations….
I have 135 wedding invitations and my dad volunteered to mail them for me. Score! He had one envelope weighed, bought postage for each one, and had them hand-canceled. Once all 135 envelopes were stamped and canceled, my dad gave them to the post master and went on his day.
This was Saturday, 8 days ago. Tuesday rolled around and no one received an invitation. OK maybe it took a day longer. No biggie. Wednesday, I’m freaked out. Re-ordering will cost a lot of money, not to mention the time commitment in redoing each of these damn invitations. Thursday, Friday, Saturday. NO INVITATIONS. Not one person has received them. WHAT is happenening?
It should also be noted that I moved this week. I still have the keys to the old place, but never go there, except today to clean. We turned in our keys and the oddest thing happened – we had a package. I didn’t order anything to be shipped here – what could this be? The guy got the box and it looked oddly familiar. It also did not seem to be well-taped. Basically it was a janky looking box that, were it something I ordered from a company, I would have called the company to tell them their packaging blows.
I checked where it came from – the return address said it was from our wedding stationery company. WHAT in the fuck – we have ordered nothing from these people since we ordered extra invitations. Wait a minute….I put the 135 addressed envelopes in this box that I gave to my dad to mail. Could these be the invitations?
Yes.
I opened the box, and there are 135 invitations staring up at me. Address and stamp side up, ready to be taken from the box and sent to their respective destinations. Instead, they are in a box in my hands.
So this is what happened: My dad went to give the post master the invitations. He started pulling them out of the box to give her. She said, “No, leave them in the box. They’ll fit in my cart easier.” So he folded the flaps inward and gave her the whole box. Then some incompetent asshole at the post office came upon this box, saw the envelopes with the stamps and addresses face up, and decided to pull the flaps out of the box, seal it with tape and put it on the conveyor belt. Um, no. This is not right.
The best part of this is that it went to my (now former) home address. None of the invitations were addressed to that location, and the return address is a different one altogether. Basically, they sent it to the address on the label on the box, WHICH WAS A LABEL FROM FEDEX!! The label didn’t even belong to their company, thus they received NO money for this transaction. Could they be any more incompetent? I don’t think so. I mean, I’m 100% stoked on life that I don’t have to pay a couple hundred dollars for more invitations, nor do I have to experience the soul-killing process of addressing and stuffing invitations again, but for this to be the reason just absolutely kills me.
Question: they are all post-marked for over a week ago. They’re also canceled, meaning the stamp isn’t reusable. Am I going to have a problem when I bring my invitations (sans box) to the post office tomorrow? Cuz if that’s the case some poor postal worker is going to get an earful.
