Thursday, September 06, 2007

Goin postal with 1 update below, and the conclusion

If any of you are mail carriers, married to a mail carrier or even like mail carriers you may as well stop reading right now because I am about to piss you off. I have had issues with mail carriers for a very long time. When we lived in our old house about 3 times a week I got someone elses mail. Our address was 255 and theirs was 225..ok, I can see how a mistake can happen periodically but 3 times a week??c'mon!! When I called the postmaster to see what the problem was he told me, and I AM NOT KIDDING, that sometimes they hire college kids on school breaks..HUH? So he was in essence telling me that college students couldn't read. (and by the way dimwit this isn't limited to times where illiterate students are working) The last time they delivered 225's mail to me it happened to be his tax returns from his accountant...and he is a doctor. SO, I called the beloved postmaster and told him that I am sure Mr. Doctor would not be thrilled to know that all his personal data was delivered to someone else (thankfully me, who would not open it). When he started to give me yet another stupid excuse, I told him that I think from now on I will open all the mail I get without even looking at the address label...after all, it must be mine as it was delivered to MY mailbox. He started ranting that it was illegal blah blah blah and I told him he had better start hiring some carriers that new how to count and could read the alphabet. The problem only slowed down after I talked to Mrs. Doctor and told her how often this was happening and she went ballistic. I love this woman. She ripped the postmaster a new one and after that it rarely happened. Then we moved. We are still "in the city" but not. We now have a rural carrier as we have no sidewalks and the houses are all on about 1 1/2 acres the carrier drives. I thought this would be a much better postal situation until I started getting my credit card bills delivered AFTER they had been opened. Yep, you read that right. They had been opened on the top 1/3 of the envelope, just enough to see the account numbers, amount due or whatever else was in that portion of the bill. The first few times I thought it might be an accident (machine malfunction or whatever) but then I started to get worried. I am obsessive about my personal data and began to get suspicious about our mail carrier "peeking" into my mail. Identity theft is a big concern these days. Well, we have a new postmaster, so when I placed my call about my concern I was sure that it would be met with concern and action from him. Yeah, right. He said he that it was probably an isolated incident (so obviously he wasn't listening to me). I told him that it seemed pretty ironic that NONE of the junk mail was ever delivered partially opened, just the mail with important account numbers or personal data. He had no explanation and chalked it up to "one of those things". And for this we are paying a stupid amount of money for postage. No wonder people don't write any more and are using on line bill paying! Now to get to the reason for my current postal rage. Our character, um, I mean carrier, is an odd duck. He refuses to get out of the truck to deliver a package or anything that won't fit in the standard mailbox. He sits in the driveway honking his horn. This is supposed to bring outside whoever is home to retrieve their mail. (Did I mention that he only has 3 teeth and they aren't even in useful spots--I guess his lack of dentitia shouldn't matter, but it really does round out the whole picture, and I wish I had a picture to share because I cannot adequately describe this individual) Yesterday as I got out of the shower just in time to see him pulling out of the driveway. Usually this would be no big deal but he left a little card telling me he had a certified letter for me ...from a very important client of mine...and I hadn't run out to the driveway naked to get it. Swell. I didn't sleep last night worrying about why on earth this account sent me a certified letter. I am very concerned that they may be changing to EMR and if they are, and I lose that account, I will be asking all of you for donations to fund my chocolate habit. The real kicker though is the standard issue postal service notice he left behind it states, and I quote, "we will redeliver or you or your agent can pick up, available for pickup after 9/6 at 8:30 am". Ok, now bear with me and tell me if I should not be confused. Is my letter on the mail carriers truck for horn honking delivery today, or is it at the local facility for me to pick up? Should I leave or should I stay? I just want to know that the damn letter says!!! I will post an update once I find out where it is and what it says. shit. UPDATE #1 Well I guess now I know the answer of whether it will be redelivered or if I need to drive to the main postal facility to retrieve it. The mail person stopped briefly at the mailbox, deposited two pieces of junk mail and sped off. Now I need to find the main postal facility and retrieve what I hope is not a sweet letter telling me that they love me but don't need me any longer. More to follow. CONCLUSION: I know where 0sam@ is hiding! Or at least I found the perfect spot for him where he would never be found. As it turns out my mysterious, loss of sleep letter, was at the sorting facility (which for those of you that don't know, is not a post office). I had to travel 3 separate deserted roads and finally at the dead end of the last road stood the sorting fortress. After parking I had to ring a buzzer, be checked out through one way glass, and questioned as to my reason for being there, all before the door was buzzed open. (Glad to know that my Targ*t bill is in such secure surroundings. ANYWAY~ after proving I was me I was handed a 9"x6" manila envelope. Since they were waiting to buzz me out of the building I waited till I got to the car to open the envelope. Its contents....two identical booklets outlining the policies and procedures of this care facility along with a letter for me to sign, basically stating that I won't hop online and talk about any of the patients. To really get the irony of this, this facility has been a client for over 3 years and this was never done before. All day long I have access to literally hundreds of patient files and I have never, nor would I ever, talk about anyone to anybody. A good example is when Big D came home and told me his coworker Mr.X had told everyone he has cancer. My response was "what a shame" and not "hey I knew that 2 years ago bucko". This mans cancer had metastasized and he was telling people now. I don't ever discuss any of my work with anyone. In fact many of my friends don't know who my clients are because it is none of their business. I am sure most of you have signed HIPAA papers at your docs offices and that is basically what this states. So, I lost a night of sleep for nothing, they still love me :)

4 comments:

PCOSMama said...

We have problems with getting the wrong mail too - sometimes it's the wrong address, but more often it is because my neighbor and I share the same first name. It doesn't bother me as much when it's the name because she lives right next to me so it's easy enough to get it to her. I can't stand when I get someone down the block's mail or someone on the next street. Seriously, am I supposed to hand deliver it then?

We are lucky that our carrier is very good about packages. Our boxes are all in a central location and there are some bigger boxes that packages are put in and the key is put in your box. If it's too big, they bring it to your door.

Sounds like you got screwed.... wonder if there's a head postmaster above the one at your post office? Maybe if others in your neighborhood are having the same problem with opened mail and such you could all band together to file a complaint?

Good luck with the client!

PCOSMama said...

Wow, they protect the sorting fortress so thoroughly then deliver the highly-protected mail to the wrong people. Nice!

Glad it worked out ok.

Overwhelmed! said...

Hey, thanks for stopping by and commenting on my blog! I'm glad you enjoyed my Adoption story. We're in the midst of trying to adopt a second time, this time through the state's foster-to-adopt program. We're waiting for the final step of the state to approve our application so we can be licensed and begin to receive placement calls. Of course, I blog about that too so you can read all about it if you'd like. :)

Good luck with your mail carrier encounters. They can only get better, right? :)

Anonymous said...

Here I thought my mail carrier tracking over my lawn was a big issue.