April 17, 2006
stamps at the post office, what were we thinking?
The wedding invitations are done. I stuck the clear address labels on them tonight. I will have to take pictures and share them sometime soon, because I'm really happy with the way they look.
The Beau suggested that we drive out to the post office to get some stamps, and send them off right away. Sure, it was 11 pm, but post offices have stamp machines and also those automated postal machines, so it didn't matter. Or so we thought. I picked up the stack of 27 envelopes and we headed out the door.
We started at the closest post office to our house (the one by Northcross Mall). We walked in and Beau immediately noticed a bright orange sheet of paper on the stamp machine that indicated it was broken. I wondered if the automated machine could handle a batch of envelopes without making us swipe the credit card 27 times. It didn't matter. The screen on the machine indicated that it was unable to sell us stamps or postage. Drat.
I suggested we try the Far West post office, which wasn't that far away. It's a slightly bigger post office, so I assumed it had more than one stamp machine and that the automated postal dealybobber would be in working order. This time, I didn't even get all the way out of the car. From the glass front doors, we could see the orange sheet of paper on the (only) stamp machine. Beau went inside and confirmed that the automated postal machine was also unusable, although this one was "down for routine maintenance." He also noted that the stamp machine wasn't just broken, it was completely empty.
Both post offices were advertising the automated postal machines heavily, with signs on the walls and even on the floor that said "24/7" in big bright letters. Wrong. Absolutely wrong.
We didn't need any fancy postal services, we just needed 27 first-class stamps. We gave up and decided not to drive to the Jollyville or Braker post offices.
Many of us have a low opinion of the post office, but this seems extreme even for them. Are the old stamp machines being phased out, to be replaced by the automated postal machines? I hope not, because I don't want to have to perform 27 transactions just to get some stamps for wedding invitations. And why weren't any of those amazing, much-touted machines working? I can't believe it was due simply to tax time, because surely the post office must be prepared for that swarm of last-minute filers. Besides, tax filers wouldn't clean out all prices of all stamps in a machine. If it's really "routine maintenance," than those big 24/7 ads are a big lie.
I guess it wasn't anything special. Just routine incompetence. There's nothing I can do ... I can't go to the competition, unless I want to FedEx all the invites. Or I could send everyone email invites, but I think that's a little too informal for even our informal wedding. Instead, I get to waste a chunk of time tomorrow standing around the post office just to get a couple of books of first-class stamps. If I point out the broken machines and complain, do you think I'll get an apology or even a sensible (non-marketing-ese) explanation? Me neither.