The Post Office strikes again

mailboxtag, originally uploaded by edrahe.

For years and years I never had a complaint with the U.S. Postal Service. In fact, I thought it was unfair that postal workers are the butt of a lot of jokes and are usually portrayed in movies and television as bumbling idiots. I admit, I enjoyed the Newman character on Seinfeld, but I took him as an over the top parody. After my experiences of the past year with the post office I'm beginning to think Newman is all too real.

It would happen every couple of weeks. We would get mail addressed to our neighbors. Okay, that can happen once in a while. But then it started happening regularly so I called the local Post Office to bring this to the attention of the local Postmeister. I was assured that additional care would be taken and that seemed to solve the problem for a while.

Then it started happening a few weeks ago and a pattern began to emerge. We live at 433 Elm Street (the address has been changed for this narration) and on a regular basis we were getting mail for 433 Pine Street (also changed for this narration), which is one street over. We would still get random pieces of mail addressed to our neighbors on Elm Street.

I called the local Postmeister two weeks ago and explained my displeasure at the situation. He was very apologetic and explained that he would "flag" our address. We were to be sent a sticker to put on our mailbox which would remind the mail carrier to double-check the accuracy of our delivery.

It seems other neighbors have called to complain about misaddressed mail. It took two weeks but we finally received a sticker to put on our mailbox. It was addressed to the house at 433 Pine Street! That's right, a sticker that is supposed to remind the mail carrier to make sure we don't get our neighbor's mail was sent to the WRONG ADDRESS.

I called the Postmeister again this morning and explained what happened and clearly told him that I have absolutly no faith that having a sticker on our mailbox is going to solve the problem. However, based on my my most recent coversation with the Postmeister think our mail carrier is going to really get chewed out today. At least I hope so.