Two post office shops. Prepped and weighed the packages at home, on a new scale. One was 1 lb, 2 oz, the other close to 2 pounds.

Get to the first post office. The clerk offered me first class only. "But it's too heavy, isn't it?" No, it's only 12 oz.

Good grief. "Oh, I'm sorry, that's not the package I was supposed to mail. I hope the other one is in my car." Dash out to car, retrieve 2nd package. Mail it, successfully, using Priority Mail.

Go back to the car, open a small slit in box #1, and stuff everything into the box I can find in my car -- business cards, roll of lifesavers, my keys (all duplicates, of course), a roll of tums -- everything in my car except actual trash. Go back in and ask the very nice clerk if she would be kind enough to weigh the package and tell me how much it will cost to mail.

OMG! 15.6 ounces.

Well, have 45 miles to drive to the second post office, and I know I'm driving right by a Dollar General. Go in and
grab stuff, anything that's a dollar and weighs an ounce.

These rural post office close at 4:30, so I'm running out of time. Stuff two ounces of stuff into the box, off to post office number 2.

Frazzled, I asked the clerk if I had to buy more tape, or if she was allowed to tape up the box for me (I made the slit to stuff things in, remember? ) She was SO NICE! She happily retaped the box for me.

She asks the Hazmat question. Anything liquid? Well, yeah -- what the dollar store had that was 1 ounce and $1 was a personal size hand sanitizer.

Damn my big mouth! I told the clerk about the sanitizer. Nope,can't go priority, only retail ground.

If I was frazzled when I entered the post office, my vocabulary doesn't extend to describe how stunned I was.
Good grief, Holy Cow, honest to goodness! "I'm so sorry, I just won't mail this," and I grabbed the box back and left.

E-mailed the scheduler. And to all who have "been there, done that", yes, I drove back the next day (200 mile round trip, after working all morning!) and mailed the package -- after removing the hand sanitizer.



On the way into the post office the 2nd day, I noticed a large banner prominently posted in the lobby. I've shopped this post office for at least 10 years, and never noticed it before. It proclaimed this post office had won the Customer Service award, the number one store in a 7-state area. I did ask the clerk about it. She said, "Yes, back when we were mystery shopped, we won that. But I guess they ran out of money for that program, or just don't care any more."

Guess I wasn't outed.



And I left the post office chuckling, and still chuckle when I think of it. So the 200 mile drive wasn't a total loss!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2022 06:33AM by ceasesmith.

Lol what a wild ride, glad you got through it and weren't spotted. I've definitely done the "stuff random things from my car into this package" routine before. Sometimes I'll weight it on the self serve machine and then go make adjustments, but a lot of the little rural office don't have those.

Sorry you had to go through all that. I try to make my boxes a minimum of about a pound and a half to take care of any discrepancies, but once I was sending a birthday present to DIL #2 and underestimated how much it weighed. The self-serve scale set me straight, so I walked over to a nearby grocery store and bought a large candy bar. The store had no tape, but a Hallmark store farther down in the strip mall let me use their store roll to tape the envelope back up.

@Cease, you are a real trooper!!!!!!!

I have added tools (wrench, screwdriver), my jumper cables and rocks from the parking lot! Occasionally a scale is not calibrated and the package will weigh in short. This happened most often at the office supply stores.

Reading your story, Cease, I could totally relate and, now, laugh!

Have either a 15 oz. can of vegetables or a one pound bag of very expired dried beans. When you add the weight of the box itself, they end up very close to 1.5 lbs. None of my boxes have ever been weighed at less than one pound since i started doing it this way.

I would like to send you a Hero citation and 5 gold stars for effort above and beyond.

I would like to send you a Hero citation and 5 gold stars for effort above and beyond.

One of my cats is allergic to salmon. So when I buy their food in variety cartons, I take all the canned salmon flavors out. They weigh 5.5 oz for the big cans and 3 oz for the little cans. I put enough cans and padding in a box to weigh a little over 16 oz and seal it before shipping it to the cat's favorite SPCA animal shelter.

Before that I was alternately sending a one pound bag of rice or beans to relatives.

So far I've accidentally gone over the weight twice and just ate the cost, but I like the ideas here of having things of certain weights on hand in the car, plus something to open and re-tape the box if needed. Since I got a new kitchen scale, though, I've managed to get it right each time.

I have to say, for the majority of USPS shops I've done, the clerks have been nailing it and have gotten top marks, but I had a truly terrible one a few weeks ago. Most indifferent, minimalistic service ever!

I have found that cake mixes are usually 15 oz and that is a good start. But I often buy a box of baking soda that weighs 16 oz and I put into a USPS flat rate box and rewrap it and it weighs about 1 poid and 4-6 oz.

I ran short one time and ran to the dollar store and bought a book My friend laughed when she read the note I included. It says something that she did not have t read the book, I knew nothing about it but I bought it for its weight.

I just send the package to myself. I wrap the box in a paper bag so I can remove it and all stickers and use the same box for the next job. I have 2 boxes in rotation.

@Susan L. wrote:

One of my cats is allergic to salmon. So when I buy their food in variety cartons, I take all the canned salmon flavors out. They weigh 5.5 oz for the big cans and 3 oz for the little cans. I put enough cans and padding in a box to weigh a little over 16 oz and seal it before shipping it to the cat's favorite SPCA animal shelter.

Before that I was alternately sending a one pound bag of rice or beans to relatives.

I'm curious Jasper. How can you send the package to yourself? Do you live in two different zip codes?

You can send the packages to yourself if you are mailing from a different city than your home. I do this all the time.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2022 02:58PM by mjt9598.

@AZwolfman wrote:

I'm curious Jasper. How can you send the package to yourself? Do you live in two different zip codes?

I use the zip code of the post office I'm shopping to search realtor .com for abandonned houses for sale. I use the name of the daughter I never had (any other persons name will work) with that address as the return address on the package, and I send it to myself at home.

I also do this on packages I send to my mailing partners, except i use my own name. Because I don't want a USPS employee to be suspicious about someone sending mail with a return address from halfway across the state, and I don'twant my mailing partners to be confused about who is sending the packages.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2022 06:26PM by Morledzep.

I've used my home address as a return for shops a substantial distance from my house, and the clerk never said a word, but if I shopped those locations on a regular basis I could see it might become an issue.

@Morledzep wrote:

I use the zip code of the post office I'm shopping to search realtor .com for abandonned houses for sale. I use the name of the daughter I never had (any other persons name will work) with that address as the return address on the package, and I send it to myself at home.

I also do this on packages I send to my mailing partners, except i use my own name. Because I don't want a USPS employee to be suspicious about someone sending mail with a return address from halfway across the state, and I don'twant my mailing partners to be confused about who is sending the packages.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2022 07:00PM by KathyG.

Since my PO shops are often in another state (KS, CO, WY, SD), I always make a route to make it worthwhile. I just use the address of my shop in the same town as a return address, and mail the package to myself.

Since I have paperwork with me with the address & zip of my shops, beats looking up a vacant house for sale, LOL.

It's never been questioned.

I am seeking feedback from postal shoppers on my scenario...since this thread is a postal topic.

City A destination city, City B a stop along the way City C my city where the package was mailed from
Priority mail.

I mailed a package to another state on May 11. It went city A , out for delivery, back to city A post office, on to City B in that same state, back to city A and then the package was returned city C. I checked tracking part way thru this event as the package had never arrived at my recipients house in city A. Tracking said there was missing info on the destination address The recipient lives in a condo building with locked mailboxes in a city on a major city street. I have mailed many boxes there successfully.
I called my home post office in city C two weeks after the package had been mailed and they said the package was there. They said my personal post delivery guy was out on his route but they would have him find the package for me the following day. I waited a few more days and checked tracking again. I had not heard from anyone. Tracking was gone. It was around three weeks after I had mailed the package. There was a note under tracking that the package was being held in a north post office in city A and I had to pick it up in person. I had to call to find out which of the many post offices in city A the package was at. It so happened I was visiting city A during that time. So I went over to the post office where the package was being held until June 8. It was the end of May. At 3:00 in the afternoon the nice postal worker told me the package person was gone for the day and I should come back the next day. But then she looked it up on her computer and showed me a photo of how the package looked with the address rubbed mostly off. But right next to that she also had a photo of the package when it was mailed with a complete and legible address on it. When I called my local post office in City C on the phone they were also able to see the package when it was mailed and assured me the address could easily be read.
Why none of the post offices could just correct the address and deliver it I do not know. It took the post mistress about 30 seconds to look up the photo of the package with address intact.
I was ready to go back to the post office in City A the following day when I got an email from City A telling me they had sent the package back again to city C. I flew back to city C the following day and found the package on my doorstep...
So this might have been the most well traveled package in the history of the Post Office since Pony Express days.
I looked up to see if I could get any compensation. Not only was my package not delivered but was sent on a wild goose chase and then returned to me almost a month later. I did not even get a return of my postage. It seems the only claims are if the package contents are damaged or missing.
I have always thought the post office mystery shop jobs should have a question regarding issues with delivery.

That's hilarious. All the photos in the world are worthless if no one looks at them!

I sometimes wonder if any of my packages have been returned back to my return addresses....which are basically just fake addresses.

But to answer your question, Sandy,I think they are just testing the customer experience, not the qualify of the actual mail delivery system, LOL.

MY GOD CAN I RELATE TO THIS POST!

These shops are great for someone who runs a small business or sells on eBay to ship their items. They can literally get paid twice to ship something! :-o