The only thing more annoying than Christmas shopping itself is Christmas shipping. You all know what I mean. This, my dears, is the Christmas Post Office Rules of Conduct Rant. Enjoy.
Rule #1: Complaining does NOT make the line move faster. Hello, have you BEEN to the post office in the last fifty years? Have you EVER seen anyone who works there move with any speed? If you have, I’m going to need some empirical proof, because frankly I don’t believe you. That said, bitching to anyone who will listen is not going to speed up the process. All it’s going to do is annoy the fuck out of the people who had the misfortune to stand next to you in line. Shut up, already.
Rule #2: Have your packages ready. Spend ten minutes at home addressing the box, INCLUDING zip code, and make sure you seal and label the box correctly. If this is too difficult for you, perhaps you should just go see a matinee of whatever Disney movie is playing at the moment and give up. Clearly you are an idiot.
Rule #3: Leave your kids home. Again, you know damn well you’re going to be spending an hour standing in line during the holiday season, and the thought bores YOU out of your mind. Imagine what your active three-year-old is experiencing. Spare all of us the toddler meltdown and either leave the kid home or make daddy take the package to the post office already.
Rule #4: You’ve been in line for an hour. An HOUR. By now you should have been able to read all the helpful signs posted ALL OVER THE POST OFFICE about different services and their cost. DO NOT spend twenty minutes quizzing the postal clerk as to how best ship your package as if these signs did not exist, or I cannot be responsible for what gets thrown at your head. Just sayin’.
Rule #5: DO NOT come into the post office during the holiday season with one of those orange package pickup slips and expect not to wait your turn. Huffing and sighing in line behind me is going to get you nowhere. Eventually some postal worker will have pity on you and call you all up front to get your stuff; until then, STFU and wait your turn. I’ve been standing here longer than you have, and no, the reason for your visit does not matter.
Rule #6: Don’t be an asshole to the postal workers. If you had to watch 40% of your customers agonize over what color stamps they want (seriously, people? Does it REALLY matter? A stamp is a stamp is a stamp, FFS) you’d be crazy too. They don’t call it going postal for nothing. Say please, and thank you, and make their day a little bit better. You’ve been there an hour; they’ve been there ALL DAY.
Those of us who have learned our lesson the hard way shop online. Seriously, check it out. It’s totally worth it to go click, click, insert VISA card number here, and have a gift purchased, wrapped and shipped in ten minutes. Trust me, you won’t be sorry. And you won’t have to wait in line at the post office.
martinisforbreakfast.com 
I hope you don’t mind if I tag onto your christmas Post Office posting….I just HAD to find a spot to blog my 2010 Christmas P.O. rant……
Does anyone still send out Christmas cards to friends and family? I may be dating myself, but I have always sent out cards during this season – colorful wonderful Hallmark cards that come in all different sizes and sometimes even weights. Usually I’m spot on and get the cards out in early December, but 2010 had a busy fourth quarter for me at work, so I finally got the cards out on Dec. 20.
Unfortunately, the cards started returning to me marked “returned for postage”. Excuse me? I weighed each returned card and they only weighed .5 ounces. Way under the 1 ounce limit. {As a retired Navy postal clerk, I have a scale to weigh things…}
I went to my local post office, which I appreciate a lot and
inquired why the cards were returned for additional postage. The clerk was nice, but showed me that the cards were “over sized” and “not machine cancelable” and therefore needed additional postage. I asked how much additional and was told $.20 each.
I asked if I purchased a $.20 stamp and put it on the envelope how the stamp would get cancelled. The clerk advised he would then hand cancel the envelope. I then asked if he has to hand cancel the new stamp, why wouldn’t he just hand cancel the $.44 stamp and mail the cards? Why go through all this crap?
He could not answer me. I declined the additional postage and as I walked out of the post office I realized that now I’m going to have to start sending out my own version of that dredded Christmas letter that we get from some of our friends. I have steadfastly refused to do a ‘Chrsitmas letter’….it always seemed to “much” to me, but I’ll be in better christmas spirits by not spending $0.64 to send out each Christmas card. Too bad most of my yearly Card List don’t use email; I could save a bundle then.
This is what the post office has become. A money grubbing ediface without a soul – even at Christmas. Too lazy to pick up the hand cancel stamp and do their jobs. What are we coming to in this country?
Oh, feel free. I love a good pile-on, especially when it’s well-deserved, as in the case of the post office.
The topper on the cake of the “oversized” envelopes is that they didn’t bother to advertise it at all, as far as I can tell. They just waited until everyone burned a .44 stamp to tell them that they needed more postage. I did the mail where I worked at the time and had a similar thing happen with about 30 pieces of mail. Let’s just say I was less than happy about that. I mean, you don’t even tell your business customers? We had a postage machine, so I didn’t even have the “add a stamp” option. Grrrr.