Oh, Post Office Lady

I should've known better than to call the post office on a Monday. This week, the invitations go out (yea!) and, in the interest of not seeing one of the little guys mangled or mushed up, I'd like to get them hand canceled at the post office.

Thankfully, there are two other girls in my office (of about 15) that are getting married in May, so we're all tackling these little hurdles together. It's like a support group, or co-dependency, depending on the day.

One took her invitations on Saturday to get the hand canceled, finding a rogue lady that offered to help her, but only because they weren't busy. Call me crazy, but I thought that post offices services were included in the cost of the purchased products (in this case, stamps). No complaints, as they helped her, but I wanted to make sure I could get my (sizeable) stack taken care of this week. And I wanted to be nice about (and not needlessly haul around two huge boxes without success), so I called ahead to see who could do it and when was the best time to come.

I called the first post office, the one closest to work, and Debra answered. I'd heard not-so-great things about this post office, despite being in a great part of town that looks super friendly to fluffy and unnecessary requests. They have a local coffee shop located less than a block from Starbucks that's still not only in business, but thriving! These are not people bent on the get-in-get-out mindset of efficiency.

Debra confirmed my fears. "Well, sure we hand cancel, but there's an extra charge of $.17 per piece of mail." Color me flabbergasted, "On top of the price of the upgraded stamp?" She confirmed. I press on, "but my friend just had this done at another post office and there was no extra charge." Debra was nonplussed, "Well, there should've been."

Disheartened and envisioning my sweet, lovingly-lettered babies being mushed and mangled into little bits of confetti in a processor-gone-wild moment, I called the biggest post office in town. After a few transfers, I got to the manager, who said, "Sure we hand cancel. How many?" I low-balled, "Um, about 350." He didn't miss a beat, "No problem. Come at 5pm any day this week." Then I got suspicious. Seriously, Enricho? Come at 5pm? If I show up at 5pm carting those heavy boxes up the stairs, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be all by my lonesome, save the tumbleweeds and the bits of wedding-invitation 'fetti drifting around the grand staircase.

He assured me I was wrong, and we sat there on the phone both flabbergasted at each other. He that I would think the post office closed at 5 and me in thinking anyone would be there after 4:59.

So, I have a promise and two huge boxes full of invitations that I'll somehow wrangle into the post office on Thursday with the biggest hopes that Enricho comes through for me. Then I'll write a nice, grateful letter for Enricho and a nice, formal complaint letter to the other post office's manager. Honest mistake or just trying to get out of providing a somewhat standard (if a little tiresome) service? One thing's for sure, the invites are staying fare away from that post office.