For the past month or so when I try to mail a box given to me by someone else the clerk tries to convince me to say there is nothing bad in the box. This has happened several times already. Then other customers and clerks nearby chime in and tell me to call the person. Today and the other day the clerk asked me, "What do you want the post office to do?" I wish I could say I want them to do their job correctly but I cannot say that.I just keep repeating that I cannot answer this yes or no question because I do not know. I never even had a chance to tell them I wanted to send my box my airplane so they simply could have offered me a way to ship it. Today it was my local post office with 3 really nice clerks and two of them were getting really ticked off that I refused to hit the no button on their machine. I think I have to lay off these shops for a while esp at my local po where I do not want them to get mad at me.
Venting done...

@sandyf wrote:

Today and the other day the clerk asked me, "What do you want the post office to do?"

Just say, "You asked me a question and I told you want I know. I don't lie. Why's is it important what's in it anyway?

When I've told them I do not know what's in the package, I've had them lie for me saying it's a gift or something of that nature..household items etc. and off the package went. One time the clerk shook the package and said, "Doesn't sound like anything fragile, hazardous, liquid etc." I've also had them tell me to answer YES on the screen and proceed to accept the package...not my problem



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2017 12:57AM by MsJudi.

I guess it depends on the scenario.

I have had them tell me plenty of times to just push yes and that does not bother me as I am following their instructions but when they do not tell me that but just tell me to answer the question I hate it. I wonder how possible it is for these things to cause an issue on the plane. If it is a high probability, which I doubt, they are really doing a disservice. And now I would think with the new change to the rules they are emphasizing to the clerks to offer ground (although I am pretty sure ground is also sent by airplane these days to the far away zones) I have only had one job so far where ground was offered. I might ,as Rousseau suggests ,ask next time this happens why they need to know in a nice tone of voice.

When the clerk tells me they cannot proceed without me pressing "yes" or "no", I say, "Well, since I cannot press no, what would happen if I pressed yes?" They usually say something like, "Press yes and then the computer will tell me your options." It will then offer ground as an option.
I would tell the clerk I am not pressing no when I do not know what's inside. If they persuaded me to call my "mom", I would say that I cannot get a hold of my mom, she's got disabilities, that's why I'm doing this errand for her. If they try to get me to push the no button anyway, I say I am not comfortable telling the USPS that what is inside is safe when it could possibly not be. My indirect way of telling them they are doing something against policy

I am beginning to dislike these scenarios as well. I get the, "Can you call your Mom to find out what's inside?" quite often and I accept this as a refusal to mail the package without confirming the contents first. I politely tell the clerk that I will give her a call, buy my stamps, and head on out the door.

The ones that bother me are when the clerk answers 'no' for you or directs you to 'just answer no' on the screen.

Funny! Yep, they should do their job.

To Sandy F. Please remember that you are working with the government when you go to the post office. They are trained by their supervisors to get these answers so they can move on to the next customer. I have done retirement planning in my other life (career) with some of them. They are all held to very high standards and many rules. Understand their side because it will get you out the door much faster and your shop will count well for you..

@gbarnes wrote:

To Sandy F. Please remember that you are working with the government when you go to the post office. They are trained by their supervisors to get these answers so they can move on to the next customer. I have done retirement planning in my other life (career) with some of them. They are all held to very high standards and many rules. Understand their side because it will get you out the door much faster and your shop will count well for you..

What are you suggesting as a response in this situation? It seems if this is so their supervisors have trained them to just take any package no matter the danger of explosion in the plane. These clerks are not suggesting to me to find out what is in the package or to ship by ground which evidently would be acceptable. They are not using a simple sentence answer that will fit the situation and end the encounter. They are suggesting to ignore the rules and and have me lie about the contents. The only thing this seems to do is to keep the mystery program in place until the mystery shoppers discover every clerk that is doing this incorrectly for them so they can be retrained individually. Can you imagine if this was the way TSA checked baggage? I was at the counter 5 minutes yesterday before they finally advised me to make a call or go home and check. To move on they could have just said that upfront or advised I could ship by ground or even told me why they have this rule in place and I might have suggested contacting the sender to find out. When they handle this correctly as has happened to me many times in the past, my counter encounter is 4 minutes shorter. Yes, I could have made that offer but that would have been leading them and not giving them a chance to tell me whether or not they could take the package.They never said they could not take it.

What happens when they let our packages through? I see the same postal people still working. Do they review their cameras? Do they go over the footage and show them where they went wrong? Do they get a training session? Less hours? Anything at all happening to the clerks and employees who let this go on through? I have a toss up of what has happened with post masters hitting the button for me,hitting it on their screen, never asking at all, to telling me to call and find out, and one who was ready to just cut it open and seal it back up if I gave the A-okay. Seriously, are there any ramifications/training for them after we report this?

Now, often enough they refuse it but plenty of times it heads on out with the mail too.

This is one reason why: ValuJet Flight 592

[www.miamiherald.com]

My (laptop battery) went off Priority Mail today with only a nod.

@gukka wrote:

This is one reason why: ValuJet Flight 592

[www.miamiherald.com]

Horrible. Glad I did not allow them to convince me to allow my box. I read on a military blog a year or so ago when I was researching Hazmat at the post office several threads telling military spouses to just go ahead and tell the post office that what they were shipping overseas had no Hazmat although often it did. These were in response to spouses wishes to send all sorts of aerosols, liquids, perfumes etc and how they could manage it. It seemed many military people agreed. Just say no they said.

Twice in the same day I was told by P.O. clerks to choose YES on the display then promptly offered Express/Priority.

@MountainCacher88 wrote:

What happens when they let our packages through? I see the same postal people still working. Do they review their cameras? Do they go over the footage and show them where they went wrong? Do they get a training session? Less hours? Anything at all happening to the clerks and employees who let this go on through? I have a toss up of what has happened with post masters hitting the button for me,hitting it on their screen, never asking at all, to telling me to call and find out, and one who was ready to just cut it open and seal it back up if I gave the A-okay. Seriously, are there any ramifications/training for them after we report this?

Now, often enough they refuse it but plenty of times it heads on out with the mail too.

I asked my husband (he works for USPS, but in safety not as a clerk) - he said "no ramifications to craft, only EAS gets chewed out" - so management gets in trouble not the clerks. And they're not allowed to write up employees based on the mystery shopping report.

Aynur, does that mean no ramifications to (Air) craft? So is it actually safe to send these things? or does craft mean something else? I would think a few random batteries/perfume botles would not cause the same issues as the 50 large containers in the airplane that crashed in Florida. But then it could be a day when lots of people chose to send hazmat stuff on the same plane pushing it over the edge. What are the odds?

@sandyf wrote:

Aynur, does that mean no ramifications to (Air) craft? So is it actually safe to send these things? or does craft mean something else? I would think a few random batteries/perfume botles would not cause the same issues as the 50 large containers in the airplane that crashed in Florida. But then it could be a day when lots of people chose to send hazmat stuff on the same plane pushing it over the edge. What are the odds?

Craft = normal employees like the clerks. They don't get in trouble or given letters of warning, etc. for failing to ask the hazmat questions with the mystery shoppers.

My perfume was mailed, no issues today. I even hit yes on the screen like she told me to. It was actually a box of baking soda, though. They cost $0.49 for 1lb.

This sounds scary to me. I don't do these shops so I'm not familiar with the scenario. If the Post office is not doing their job there could be serious consequences, this does not make me feel safe. I guess you could send a bomb. Although if someone was sending a bomb I doubt they would tell the postal clerk.

gbarnes, the USPS is not the government. They are a private entity paid for by US dollars, via a contract with the US government to provide services to the citizenry. Congress does not run the post office. There is not a Secretary of the Postal System.


ETA: This has been discussed for eons. Y'all need to understand how the USPS relationship works if you're going to report on it accurately. Correct interpretation of the language is important. I stand by my position, having researched this thoroughly over the years and having spoken with reps of Congress. Believe what you will, no skin off my back. Wikipedia has been wrong and slanted in its so-called facts, btw, so when that is cited as a source, due diligence is needed. Also, all caps is yelling, still, so please don't yell at me that I'm wrong. You're being toggled.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2017 12:37PM by LGRM.

@shopper8 wrote:

This sounds scary to me. I don't do these shops so I'm not familiar with the scenario. If the Post office is not doing their job there could be serious consequences, this does not make me feel safe. I guess you could send a bomb. Although if someone was sending a bomb I doubt they would tell the postal clerk.

They have a few scenarios. Some are mailing perfume, some are mailing a battery, and some are a mystery package for mom. You can mail perfume and batteries but they gotta go ground shipping, you have to mark the hazmat question, etc. etc. There's also a whole slew of rules for batteries to get them on their way. My perfume, although marked as hazardous, selected as perfume, etc. shipped off priority mail -- 3 day to zone 5.

I like the mystery package ones because I can usually bank on getting some packing tape or other items But sometimes they ship it on anyway so no supplies.

The post office is an independent agency, but my understanding is it is part of the government because there have been discussions over the years of privatization. The President appoints the board of the post office and for at least 150 years the Postmaster General was a cabinet position.

@LGRM wrote:

gbarnes, the USPS is not the government. They are a private entity paid for by US dollars, via a contract with the US government to provide services to the citizenry. Congress does not run the post office. There is not a Secretary of the Postal System.

WRONG: The USPS is an establishment of the executive branch of the government of the United States, (39 U.S.C. § 201) as it is controlled by Presidential appointees and the Postmaster General.

[www.law.cornell.edu]

[en.wikipedia.org]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2017 11:10PM by gukka.

I just was trying to match my credit card receipts to bills and found 2 post office charges that were never billed to me. One was an APC(?) so perhaps the post office got paid by the APC who never collected from me. In any case I heard yesterday that the Post office requested permission to raise the regular stamps to 60 cents. Hang onto all those stamps we buy on Hazmats...soon they will be worth a lot more if this raise is approved. And if my missing charges are any indication perhaps they need to clean up their credit card charging act too.