A PSA from a newly minted postal worker
[written last night]
I feel the need tonight to share some wisdom I've gained from working as a USPS mail processor clerk. You know how sometimes you get a piece of mail in one of those "oopsie" plastic bags because it's been ripped nearly in half and looks like a kindergartner tried origami? And you're like, "What the hell?? It's a plain flat envelope with two pieces of flat paper inside, why the blazes would the machine spindle -that-?" Well, the problem isn't your envelope; the problem is, maybe 5 pieces of mail -before- yours was an envelope in which someone decided to mail a thumb drive, or a rosary, or a lanyard with two keys attached. Or, a fru-fru hotel could decide that the best way to reunite a former guest with his fugly necktie was to fold it in quarters and put it in a plain ole envelope and stick it in the mail, like we encountered tonight. And then -that- piece of mail jams in a machine, and there's a 10-car pileup by the time the machine can stop, and those 10 pieces of mail are crammed into such a small space that we nearly achieved nuclear frickin' fusion. And in most cases, some anal-retentive clerk like me spends 2 to 5 minutes carefully extracting those 10 pieces of mail, including yours, trying not to rip anything any more than necessary, and sometimes failing. In the special cases, like tonight's necktie, I won't even try, because the technician has to come spend half an hour taking part of the machine apart to get the damn thing out. And in the really special cases, the technician will have to come back 4 more times over the remaining three hours trying to recalibrate everything, because now the machine is jamming on anything that isn't a postcard. In between each visit, the anal-retentive clerk will try running more mail, only to have yet more pieces accordioned, and no, she will not actually go postal, largely because her co-workers are commiserating with her, and eventually the number of f-bombs will reach critical mass and again with the nuclear metaphor, only here they decay into sardonic laughter and off-color wordplay involving mail/male and thickness. All because the guy at the desk at a hotel that likely charges 400 bucks a night couldn't be bothered to swing for a 50-cent padded envelope and the buck-thirty or so to send something as light as a tie first-class mail. So anyway, here's a rule of thumb, literally: if it's thicker than your thumb, DON'T FRICKIN' STICK IT IN A PLAIN FRICKIN' ENVELOPE. Because karma's a wench, and she's gonna turn your next tax refund check into confetti and you'll get about two-thirds of it an oopsie bag and you'll be left asking "Why, God, why? It was just an innocent piece of paper in a normal envelope!"
Originally posted at http://violetcheetah.dreamwidth.org/70849.html. Feel free to comment there
comments
I feel the need tonight to share some wisdom I've gained from working as a USPS mail processor clerk. You know how sometimes you get a piece of mail in one of those "oopsie" plastic bags because it's been ripped nearly in half and looks like a kindergartner tried origami? And you're like, "What the hell?? It's a plain flat envelope with two pieces of flat paper inside, why the blazes would the machine spindle -that-?" Well, the problem isn't your envelope; the problem is, maybe 5 pieces of mail -before- yours was an envelope in which someone decided to mail a thumb drive, or a rosary, or a lanyard with two keys attached. Or, a fru-fru hotel could decide that the best way to reunite a former guest with his fugly necktie was to fold it in quarters and put it in a plain ole envelope and stick it in the mail, like we encountered tonight. And then -that- piece of mail jams in a machine, and there's a 10-car pileup by the time the machine can stop, and those 10 pieces of mail are crammed into such a small space that we nearly achieved nuclear frickin' fusion. And in most cases, some anal-retentive clerk like me spends 2 to 5 minutes carefully extracting those 10 pieces of mail, including yours, trying not to rip anything any more than necessary, and sometimes failing. In the special cases, like tonight's necktie, I won't even try, because the technician has to come spend half an hour taking part of the machine apart to get the damn thing out. And in the really special cases, the technician will have to come back 4 more times over the remaining three hours trying to recalibrate everything, because now the machine is jamming on anything that isn't a postcard. In between each visit, the anal-retentive clerk will try running more mail, only to have yet more pieces accordioned, and no, she will not actually go postal, largely because her co-workers are commiserating with her, and eventually the number of f-bombs will reach critical mass and again with the nuclear metaphor, only here they decay into sardonic laughter and off-color wordplay involving mail/male and thickness. All because the guy at the desk at a hotel that likely charges 400 bucks a night couldn't be bothered to swing for a 50-cent padded envelope and the buck-thirty or so to send something as light as a tie first-class mail. So anyway, here's a rule of thumb, literally: if it's thicker than your thumb, DON'T FRICKIN' STICK IT IN A PLAIN FRICKIN' ENVELOPE. Because karma's a wench, and she's gonna turn your next tax refund check into confetti and you'll get about two-thirds of it an oopsie bag and you'll be left asking "Why, God, why? It was just an innocent piece of paper in a normal envelope!"
Originally posted at http://violetcheetah.dreamwidth.org/70849.html. Feel free to comment there
comments