September 26, 2002 - 9:33 p.m.
The United States Postal Service never fails to amaze me.
Some of you may remember the Herculean labor involved in making a change to my forwarding request last summer. this was not nearly the same caliber of headache but I thought I'd share it anyway.
Planning ahead for our trip to ladysusanna and jdl's wedding last weekend, I downloaded, printed, and filled out an authorization to hold mail from usps.com and stuck it in the mailbox for my letter carrier. It's a simple process - fill out your name and address, dates you want the mail held, and then check one of two boxes which read:
- Please deliver all accumulated mail and resume normal delivery on the ending date shown below.
- I will pick up all accumulated mail when I return and understand that mail delivery will not resume until I do.
Considering two small children and no knowledge of which post office would be holding my mail, I opted for delivery "on the ending date shown below" and filled in Tuesday's date since I would still be out on Monday. Seems pretty straight forward, yes?
Well, Tuesday came and no mail. But the mail carrier rang the bell on Wednesday with a pile of junk and catalogs (even the phone and power companies are offering ebilling now) and commented that he had seen my car in the drive the day before so he brought some "new" hold mail forms for me that eliminate some of the "confusion" about resuming mail delivery.
The new form is slightly smaller and yellow but in every other way identical to the old, confusing form with one exception. Instead of an "Ending Date," the form now requires a "Resume Delivery Date."
Ah yes. It's so much clearer now...
*What Would Ben Franklin Do?
