Barbara, your package arrived Tuesday, thank you!!! And that baby butterfly bush was a big surprise! Thanks! I'm going to be tackling George (yes, I named the cereus plant, he's too big to not have a name) tonight, repotting and taking cuttings. I'll have yours out in tomorrows mail. Lady_6 and Retsec, you've got yourselves a trade! E-mail me for my address and we'll do some swapping! Everyone have a great day! -Dan

Oh My goodness...She is so clueless and doesn't know how to do her job and (imho) should be fired! If you mail a Bubble Envelope, regardless of the size or the thickness, it will be charged at the Parcel Rate of $1.22 and up. She said they don't use the device at the counter for measuring a Bubble envelope for thickness, it automatically gets charged the parcel rate. If the Bubble envelope of any size, even empty goes through their machines, it comes out ruined, so they have to put all the bubble envelopes through a different system. She is so wrong! She has been wrong ever since Shape Based pricing went into effect in May 2007...so those employees have ALL been OVERCHARGING now for going on to 4 YEARS! When will this madness end? In order to attempt to get her properly trained (isn't it sad the customers are trying to train USPS supervisors?) I suggest you print out this bulletin...First-Class Mail Fact Sheet At the bottom of it under First-Class Mail Quick Tips, it says"For padded bags (e.g., ReadyPost "cushion mailer"), when the thickness is 3/4" or less and the item is flat-size and somewhat flexible, the item should be classified and priced as a large envelope." Why is that so hard for postal employees to understand? I think even a caveman could understand that! She said that if you put the seeds in a long white envelope, with a small amount of padding in it, and if it is under an ounce, you can put a $.44 cent stamp on it and ask for the 'non machinable' rate. They would charge you another $.20 for that and so the total cost of your envelope would be $.64. hmmm...and we ALL know how well seeds do in regular envelopes with bubble wrap in them. The envelopes end up torn up and the seeds destroyed, if the envelope and seeds even make it to their destination and aren't totally destroyed. What about those who live in the rural and don't have the convenience of getting into the PO very often? What about those that get dropped into the blue mailboxes? Does she think that every envelope is read and sorted by hand so marking something Hand Stamp will be seen? Give me a break. I asked about the little gadget to measure the thickness of the envelope and she said they don't give them out, but they keep one at the counter, but they don't use it to measure bubble envelopes. It seems strange that some of were able to get them from our post offices without any problems. Would you mind posting her name and telephone number here along with her address? I will personally contact her superior from the list at the link below that lists all Vice Presidents and District Managers. It shows the zip code areas that are covered by each one. Imho, she needs to be reported littleonefb, Fran I really don't think anyone associated with the PO is reading this or is attempting to get anything done. I sure wish I could get NBC, CBS, or one of the major networks to pick up on this stealing that has been going on for almost 4 years. A lot of folks should be fired for not knowing how to do their job correctly. In the private sector, a lot of these employees would have been fired long ago. Here is a link that might be useful: USPS Management-it is an 11 page pdf file that will need to load

Rob, they were doing their job, so be glad that they were around, be glad that perhaps they were over-reacting, it is much better than ignoring a threat. There appears to be so much anger around and so much acting out on that anger. The tragedy in Oakland, where a five police officers got shot, four of them are dead, makes me glad that I am not living in any densely populated area. I am sure that Law-Enforcement is getting paranoid also, don't blame them, wish it were different. Just "be careful out there"

When we lived in town we got to meet everyone in a three block radius, giving them the mail we had erronelously received. Of course, they got to meet us while giving us our mail, too! We had mail delivered to our driveway, complete with tire marks; one who always delivered the mail slightly damp (he had a sweaty palm problem, to put it mildly); packages delivered to the wrong address and when we complained, "someone from the post office went and picked it up and we don't know where it is". When we confronted the Postmaster and the mail deliverer about the missing packages and mail delivered anywhere to anyone, the deliverer said, "Well, I'm just human" and the postmaster backed her up! Now we are on a rural delivery route, and the difference is amazing! When we moved in, Bobby, who delivers our mail, stopped and introduced himself and asked the names of the people living here so he wouldn't be delivering the previous owners mail to us. If he has a package he honks his horn, and if we don't come out, he puts it in the mailbox if it fits, and on the porch if it doesn't. He is definitely on my "cookies at Christmas" list!