#1
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I love my local post office
I have read so many threads and complaints about the US Postal Service that I have to stand up say something great about my post office.
You guys know one of the nay sayers of the USPS is right here on ye old but honestly..he would complain if they hung him with a brand new rope. My local post office has an all women staff. My Postmistress (gawd, I just love calling her that. ) helped me get an emergency passport renewel when my sisters husband died suddenly while she was living in London, UK. The counter girl (I'm not sure what her real title is) is the daughter of the late proprieter of the only gas station/hobby shop in my home town. I purchased my first model rocket (A Model Missiles launch set circa 1958 or 59) from him. For the money, the us postal service is the best bargain around but my local post office is run by absolute Angels! My main reason for posting is what happened yesterday. I sent an Alps printer to Japan via the US Postal Service. My postmistress took care of the shipping details since she works the counter when everyone is at lunch. About 3:30PM my repaired printer arrived at my local post office. My local postmistress knew I was waiting for it so...she jumped into one of those Amercan General postal trucks with my printer and hand delivered it to my door personally. Oh...they also have a new girl working the counter and she is a knockout! I love my post office!
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"I'm a sandman. I've never killed anyone. I terminate runners when their time is up." Logan from "Logan's Run" http://sandmandecals.com/ |
#2
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When I was stationed on Guam, I had a lot of RC stuff shipped to me via USPS Priority mail. The Postal Service never damaged a package and their service was prompt, about a week from the East Coast to Guam. USPS service is great!
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Friends Don't let Friends Do TRF |
#3
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I agree--even at twice the rates, USPS delivery would still be a bargain. I've pointed out the distances that locals' letters and packages travel to reach us here in Alaska for the prices that they do, which usually quiets the complainers. Also:
Being one who wears clothes only to avoid thermal discomfort or being arrested, I'm seldom able to open my apartment door for the latter reason when someone knocks, but our Post Office personnel kindly leave parcels at my door, even when they're not supposed to do so. (I explain that we building residents watch out for each other's mail and courier parcels so that they don't "walk away.") When I hear a knock at my door and learn who it is, I explain the situation, and I thank the "parcel carrier" profusely for leaving the parcel at the door.
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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185 http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050 http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511 All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com. NAR #54895 SR |
#4
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Quote:
When my late friend Gary Moore was leaving Thule Air Force Base to return to Miami in the summer of 1969 (after having worked there for Federal Electric since late 1967), he was expecting a Sony reel-to-reel tape recorder/player. Gary's hadn't yet arrived, but on the day he left an identical unit that someone else had ordered had just come in. Because forwarding Gary's unit from Thule AFB to Miami would have taken weeks (waiting for the ship's cargo hold to fill up before leaving to head south), the Danish base Postmaster peeled off the arrived unit's address label and held it to exchange for the label on Gary's tape machine when his came in; then he filled in a fresh address label with Gary's address, affixed it to the other man's parcel, and gave it to Gary!
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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185 http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050 http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511 All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com. NAR #54895 SR |
#5
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Quote:
One thing most people probably don't know is that it costs no more to ship a package by USPS to Alaska or Hawaii (or even the Northern Mariana Islands near Guam) than it does to ship to the farthest point within the continental US. So, for example, our packages to you cost us the same to ship as packages to Washington state. -- Roger |
#6
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Quote:
FedEx (and other such couriers) are a different story, however. It costs more to ship -to- than -from- Alaska, because they don't want their planes to fly back on jet fuel that they paid 100% for--any defraying of the return fuel's cost by paid parcels is to their advantage, so they offer us attractive "south-bound" rates.
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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185 http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050 http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511 All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com. NAR #54895 SR |
#7
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My post office of choice is in a small strip mall.
The first time I went there I found they didn't take debit or credit cards. As it turns out, there isn't a phone line to the store. They do take checks and cash. At first I thought it wasn't worth my time. Then I noticed there wasn't any lines. I specifically go there now and simply bring my checkbook. I'd rather write a check than wait in a long line.
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Hans "Chris" Michielssen Old/New NAR # 19086 SR www.oddlrockets.com www.modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com http://www.nar.org/educational-reso...ing-techniques/ Your results may vary "Nose cones roll, be careful with that." Every spaceman needs a ray gun. Look out - I'm the Meister Shyster! |
#8
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I'm in a hinterland between two large towns. Both have good real full-service post offices whose only fault is being too busy. But they're both miles and miles away.
I do what I can at a contract station that's just a little but out of the way of my way to work. I was kind of shocked and disgusted by what UPS charges for shipping via its commercial storefronts. Last Xmas I wanted to ship a few "Munchkin" card games to college friends. The boxes were not heavy or especially large, but they wanted something like $28 to ship them by ground. I used to be able to take advantage of the mail room at work, which would ship employee parcels via FedEx ground or UPS. We had to pay, but in retrospect it was an incredible bargain. Thank goodness for Priority Mail. The flat rate boxes remain a bargain.
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NAR #27085 - Oregon Rocketry - SAM |
#9
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I wonder, Chris, if the strip mall Post Office that you use is--like stephanj's--a contract one? I fairly often mail parcels at a contract mail facility (they're called "Contract Postal Units" [CPUs, see: https://about.usps.com/suppliers/be...postal-unit.htm ]) near a disabled friend's trailer park when we go out in his car to take care of our errands. They don't take credit cards or debit cards, either (but they do accept payments via check and cash). CPUs are to Post Offices what credit unions are to banks--they offer the same basic services as Post Offices and banks, respectively, but they don't offer the "extras" such as (for Post Offices) passport photographs, postal money orders (some CPUs *might* offer these, but my friend's local one doesn't seem to, as postal money orders aren't included on their services list), etc. The services that are offered can vary from one CPU to another. Also:
The Rohloff Street CPU's only disadvantage for me is that they no longer process international parcels (besides letters going to other countries, but I can send international letters directly from my apartment building's indoor mailbox), which I sometimes send to friends in France and the United Kingdom. This CPU stopped processing outgoing international parcels about two years ago. BUT: I'm not complaining, though, as I don't have to mail parcels overseas very often, and the folks at the Rohloff Street CPU bend over backwards to help my friend and I carry his often-numerous and often-heavy & bulky received parcels to his car. They know both of us by name and appearance, and on cold, snowy & icy days (when my friend is hurting too much to get out of his car [he uses two crutches] and/or is afraid of slipping and falling on ice), they give his Veterans Administration-mailed medications to me instead, when I go inside to pick up his mail (I sign for his mail myself and take his ID inside to show them). Now, *THAT's* service! In addition: This winter, when they had no electricity for several days after a groppel storm (that's a German term for snow that half-melts after passing through a warm air layer on its way to the ground--it looks like [and is] snowflakes inside drops of water, which fall slowly and gently like snow but form continuous, heavy sheaths of ice on everything they land on, including trees and power lines), the CPU's window-less building was as dark as night inside even as the Sun shone brightly through the afternoon overcast outside. The staff members and the tables were virtually invisible inside, and their three small spot-beam flashlights didn't illuminate the gloom at all--they only made three small illuminated spots on the walls. (The main source of [very dim] light was a gas heater in the back, and the building was very cold--at or below freezing!--except immediately around the heater, and they were huddling around it between customer transactions.) After my friend and I left and he dropped me off at home, I ordered several solar rechargeable LED keychain flashlights and a C. Crane Company solar/hand crank rechargeable "pop-up" LED lantern for them, which they used and keep ready for use during future power outages. They thanked me profusely, and I told them I was, as G. Harry Stine said, "Paying it forward" in thanks for *their* kind help to my friend and I.
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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185 http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050 http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511 All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com. NAR #54895 SR |
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