I ran over to the post office today to mail out two boxes with Christmas presents, one for my brother in Hawaii and the other to my friend and her husband in Nevada. I don’t go to the post office that is assigned to where we live (the one you have to go to to pick up packages when they leave a pink slip in your box) because it’s usually a mess. It’s a large post office and services a rather large suburb. Instead, I drive over to a small post office in the little town adjacent to where we live. It’s more of a “small town” kind of post office where the workers actually recognize you and the people are much friendlier. I was able to mail my packages without waiting too long in line but when I got back in my car, I looked at my receipt and realized the postal worker helping me had inputed the wrong zip code. I’m not sure how many times that actually happens but I didn’t want anything to prolong my package to my brother. I ran back in and he realized he inverted two number making the package head to Washington state instead of the Hawaiian islands; disaster promptly averted.
The other thing I learned today and maybe I’m just not keeping up with the news is that the postage prices will once again go up in January. As of January 8th, it’ll cost another .02 cents to mail a letter. While I’m not faulting the US postal service for raising their prices, I hope they raise their standard of service. I’ve had a few gripes with the postal service over the years including missing mail, returned mail, and lost mail. But I suppose when you have to compete with the age of emails and the competitive cost of using services like UPS or FedEx, you need every little penny you can get. Make no mistake, it is still cheap to mail a letter and I rather receive a letter or card rather than an email.