Today's visit to the Post Office - VF

Today I went off to the Post Office, armed with several packages, a couple with Jamie's god-chldren's birthday presents in them, some wedding pics for his Mom and 'The Package'.... more information for the Dept of Homeland Security that I am hoping will be sufficient information to assist them in correcting their typing error on my green card (and hopefully in less than the 'current processing time of between 200 and 365 days as I had to send them the card back and now I dont have one which is all a little bit scary....)

I might have mentioned before that it seems that I can NEVER have a trip to the post office without being told that I have done something incorrectly. Eg "No that's not the correct form, this package weighs 4 pounds and one quarter of an ounce and so you need the white form for packages over 4 pounds, not the green form for packages under 4 pounds" (thankfully Craig and Cheryl gave us some kitchen scales a few weeks ago for our wedding that converts from metrics that I am used to into pounds so I wont make that mistake again).

Today was no exception. There was "this one really should be in an padded envelope padded that has bubble wrap inside the envelope in case it rips open" - these were wedding photos for Jamie's Mom, to which I replied "It is packaged in a cardboard package inside the envelope and if it is damaged we will get more printed but I will try and remember for next time" and immediately following this with the Dep of Homeland Security parcel "Oh, no, registered mail CANNOT be in a padded envelope. You will have to go home and put it in a cardboard box". So off I went, carefully removed the special Dept HS label, wrapped the book of information in bubble wrap so that it wouldnt roll around, and put it in a cardboard box which I taped up well. On return to the post office I was then told "oh, no; you can't use clear packaging tape, you have to use brown tape". Huh????? Did I hear correctly???? Why the heck to you sell clear packaging tape???? I wanted to yell out loud. But because I had the nice lady (as opposed to Bob the difficult man last week or one of the other two really arrogant ones), I restrained. She commenced to cut open the box to which I politely suggested I might do it at the counter over the other side so that she could serve other people (as per usual there were about 15 people in a long line with only her and Bob serving them). Plus, I didnt want her to see the jumbo-sized bubble wrap in case there really was a huge issue with bubble wrap - after all I'm sure that it is the same as what is in the padded envelopes - who knows why they are an issue and I really didnt want to have to find out and then go and puchase a million sheets of tissue paper instead. So she handed me a large pair of scissors, some 1950's looking brown tape and The Sponge. The Sponge was one of those things you see in cartoons of archaic offices, a small glass bowl with a wet (read: slimy) red sponge sitting in it that you put the dry tape on to make it wet and thus sticky. The sponge was dry on top but slimy-wet when I turned it over (complete with dead spider - YES I am not making this up, there was a dead spider on top of the icky sponge!). So I taped around the outside of the box yet again and then returned it to her. She gave me copies of all my completed forms and a computerised registered mail number. 'Can I track this on-line?' I asked expectantly? (I know with UPS and FEdEx you can so I assumed that the US Postal Service was no exception). "No dear, you should get this postcard you completed back in the mail in a couple of weeks. If it doesn't come, you can come in and we can track it on-line for you, but you should wait at least a couple of weeks." Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Last week I got Bob who told me that I must NOT write the address to whom the parcel was going to on both sides of the envelope. When I told him that I was told last month that I MUST write it on both sides, and that now I was quite confused as there do not seem to be any rules.; he told me that I must have heard wrong because no-one would say that. But indeed they had - why on earth would I go to the trouble of doing it otherwise????? So Mother, you have a parcel coming to you with a huge black X through your name/address on one side....

Then there is the issue of where to put our address - apparently top left is most correct, but bottom left is ok (obviously not all that ok as I had a card and photos I sent to Rochelle returned to me once and I assumed that was why, since then I have used the top left rule) and on the back is supposedly ok too but I have been told by one of the nastier post office ladies I should not put it on the back. (So NZ places like the Tax Dept and the bank and anything I send for work are probably really confused as I put my NZ PO Box label on the back and a US street address on the front. Reason being that as if they were returned I would far rather they are returned to my NZ PO Box for Christine to collect and let me know than entrust them to the US postal service to return to me!)

A couple of weeks before Christmas when I not only had the green label vs white label issue with a parcel, I had been told regarding another one taht I must not write the value as $120=00; it must be written as $120:00 (and thus the green label was corrected for me). On this same small label was written the contents of Jacqueline's Christmas present "Women's Clothing". I paid a not insignificant sum of money to ensure that it would be delivered in time for Christmas. I was pretty annoyed that the parcel was delivered back to our door 3 days before Christmas with a sticker saying "Insufficient Description of Contents". Jamie came with me to the post office as he had seen me so frustrated over the preceeding 3 months after every visit there and could see that I was yet again on the verge of tears and possibly about to refuse to cross their threshold ever again. We waiting in line to get the same $120:00 ie 'dot-dot' not 'dash-dash' woman. When we got there and asked about how much more specific we needed to be she said "we need to know what type of clothing it is - is it a blouse or a sweater or a skirt or what?" (There was no point in having a discussion about the fact that presents are usually surprises) I pointed out that she had corrected the way I wrote the value as well as entering in the weight and it was mere millimetres away from said description "Oh, I guess I didnt read it. There's no way it will be there for Christmas now".

Unfortunately it seems that there are no rules. It seems to depend entirely on who is serving (they even seem to have the authority to contradict their web-site information, but there is no way I was going to go there with the person in question at the time!).

Watch this space to see if the registered mail 'recieved postcard' gets returned or if I have to go and get the post office people to check on-line for me as to it's status. In the meantime, we will hope and pray that it gets there and that the person it is addressed to does indeed exisit (other times letters from the immigration people come signed with names such as RG769 or CR263) but this time there was an actual name on the letter that came. We also hope that they have the English comprehension of at least an 8 year old as the information I sent was laid out with rather simplistic explainations as to why they should realise my surname is Finch (as previously notified to them) and certified copies of several official documents as well as one of our many official wedding certificates that we ended up with. I restrained myself from letting them know that besides completing everything "more than correctly" for the US Consultate in Auckland who cannot see that there could possibly be a problem but can do nothing about what is going on; I have had no less than 15 phone calls to their 'service center' ranging from being on hold for between 12 and 52 minutes, (including being hung up on approx 6 times), had my fingerprints done three times, have given them 4 photos as well as having another one taken, sent them all information requested both on-line as well as via post, sent 10 e-mails to them with not one reply, stood in three different lines in two different buildings at the very scary downtown Detroit office, filed on-line as directed to.... all with no success. So having sent everything that was been requested and even more, we cannot think of anything more that needs doing besides praying for this to be all over and done with swiftly and easily.