There’s few things I appreciate more than the big smile and the attitude of my mail carrier Russ. I send out far more packages than the average guy, and once in a while Russ needs two hands to pull it from the mail box. One day I apologized to him for exercising his arm, he smiled warmly, and said “George, I’m glad to have a job! Just keep them coming!”
I have a lot of experience with the flat rate boxes, these are both good and bad, but what I like is you don’t have to weigh it, just ship the darned thing light or heavy, sometimes I’m in a hurry.
Whatever fits, goes. But when I send a pulley out for example, I use the smaller shipping box that stands 8 inches tall, the pulley is only two inches or so tall, so then I need to fill up the box with stuff that will go to the land fill. Several times I’ve swept the floor of my shop and just poured in saw dust, metal shavings from the lathe, dirty gritty packing, Styrofoam peanuts, and a lot of empty plastic sacks, little plastic envelopes that come off junk I buy, or the wife brings home. One day a friend was watching and said, “The guy you are shipping that off to is going to kick your ass for sending him all that crap! I replied, it’s usually only Randy Allmand, and yes he’s bigger than me, but he can’t drive all the way up here from Silver City New Mexico to kick my Ass 🙂
Covington, WA Post office is one of the better Post Offices I’ve ever done business with, the employees there proudly display a sign on the wall that says “in God we trust” There’s been an occasional lefty from Seattle who’s visited, and demanded the sign come down, but it remains thus far. Covington Post office views me as a customer, when I finally get to the front of the line, I often get a smile. The folks there noted that it was rather ridiculous to force people to stand in line, so they allow you to drop these prepaid packages that are ready to go on a table to the right of the serving windows, “a closely monitored area under the camera’s eye”. Prior to this, I could wait in line up to 15 minutes to hand the parcel to the person at the window only to have them set it on the same table.
One time I was in downtown Kent, and decided to drop a Flat Rate box there, I saw about a dozen people in line, and one window open, there were other postal workers there, but maybe not qualified to open another window? I went to a window where there were a few packages dropped, and set my prepaid ready to go item down, as I spun around to leave, the guy behind the counter yelled at me. “Hey you can’t do that, it’s against the law!, pick that package up and get in line like everyone else!” I sheepishly obeyed, and noticed the other people in line staring at me. As I waited my turn, I realized that the downtown Kent Post office is closer to our center of Socialist activity (Seattle), and these people are more conditioned to the Norms and behavior of Socialists.
I have a lot of experience with shipping pulleys now, and recently I have become a little guilty about shipping all this crap to my friends and customers. I started to take a razor knife, and cut the box at the corners, this allows me to fold the top flaps in further and makes the box far shorter and easier to pick up, I add a lot less packing too! Things were going fine till I got a call from Randy Allmand in Silver City New Mexico. He got a card in the mail that he had packages at the post office he needed to pick up, when he got there, he was told they had been sent illegally, and if the Post Master there in Silver City had wanted too, he could have sent them all the way back to Kent, and forced the sender to repay and resend them legally.
I told Randy, this is insane, if he had an issue, why didn’t he take it up with he Post Office that sent it to him? Why does he punish you the ‘receiver’ of these sins? The Silver City Post Master found himself in a position of power, and he simply needed to tell Mr. Allmand face to face how lucky he was to have these packages, and it was only though his benevolence that he had them at all!
I told Randy I wanted to talk to Silver City, they are the only post office in the USA that can bash up a box, and deliver it smashed open all too often, and parts missing,. Randy says, hey they are a lot better now, it’s possible that that happened before it got to Silver City, “don’t make trouble for me George, this is a small town, and I don’t want to be driving down here for every reason the Post Master can think of to hold my mail, besides other people working in that Post Office are always helpful!”
As I set here thinking about the logic, as I think about Mother Earth and her needs. What can I fill this box with to assure that pulley arrives inside the box? If it’s loose, you can simply rock it back and forth and it will wear a hole through the card board..
The answer is Sand! It’s friendly stuff to the planet, it’ll keep the pulley centered and it’s great packing material. There are some downsides, small tears at the corners of the box could let the sand out, the trucks, conveyors, sorting equipment, might have problems with sand, but this common beach sand won’t be much of a problem at the land fill.
I thought making the box smaller was good for everyone, far easier to pick up, stack, no packing material required, but I was wrong again 🙁
I was thinking, they’re looking to downsize the Post Office, can you imagine a better bureaucrat to transfer to your new Government Healthcare program than the Post Master at Silver City? Ever talk to a person on Medicaid who has given up on using his prescription coverage because of all the does, don’ts and cant’s? Here’s a man that can likely memorize all the reasons to say NO on the first day!
Let’s look at the facts here, I did call my Post Office and talked to the manager there, he said. “Even though we decided to mail your package as it was packaged by you, the Post Master in Silver City STILL has the authority to reject it”
Makes me wonder about Government health care. What analogy could we use? I know!
“just because we stopped your heart doesn’t mean we have to start it again”
I love government..
