My boss ordered something to be delivered to work. I am at the front desk, so I handle all of the incoming and outgoing mail.

Delivery Driver: “Hey, you have a package here for [Boss].”

Me: “I can take that. His office is right there—” *points fifteen feet away* “—but he’s out for lunch.”

Delivery Driver: “But it’s for [Company]?”

Me: “Yes, he is our supervisor.”

Delivery Driver: “I can’t give this to anyone but [Boss] or [Company].”

Me: “Okay… Can you leave it at his office?”

Delivery Driver: “No. It has to go right to him.”

Me: “Okay, I will tell him. I guess he’ll have to go to the post office to pick it up, then?”

Delivery Driver: “Yeah, just tell him to bring his ID and this slip.”

He hands me a “Sorry We Missed You!” delivery slip. I give it to the boss when he returns. He is just as baffled about this interaction; we have ordered hundreds of deliveries just like that over the years and never had an issue. The next morning, he comes in, clearly upset.

Boss: “You will never believe the f****** circus I just went through.”

Me: “Oh, do tell.”

Long story short, [Boss] could not get his package. The person at the post office refused to release the mail, despite [Boss] having an ID matching the name on the package, a work ID showing the address, AND the pickup slip. Apparently, having every piece of identifiable information requested was not good enough for this zealous postal employee. [Boss] did go back and get someone else who just could not understand what the issue was from the delivery and apologized for the other employees.

Have you ever heard about a piece of mail that showed up years, sometimes decades, after being sent — and nobody knows why? Well, this might help explain that.

I worked at the post office for twenty months, and I fed my kids, paid rent, bought beer, and all that with the money I made there. The branch where I worked had a machine to cancel letters — you’ve seen the imprint across the stamp.

That machine would run thousands of pieces of mail a week; I have no idea exactly how much. But it was decided to move that operation to another branch, and several of us newbies who had some mechanical ability got to help dismantle the huge machine and move it.

We were disassembling it under the guidance of the maintenance crew, and I found a piece of mail that had somehow fallen down a crack in the conveyor. It looked like a birthday card and had already been canceled, including the date.

The date was nearly eight — EIGHT — years earlier. It had sat inside that machine, hidden by all the guards and panels, for that long, gathering dust from the other mail.

I asked my boss what to do with it.

Boss: “That’s First-Class letter mail. Put it in outgoing mail where it belongs and make sure it gets on the next truck.”

Me: “What about what happened to it? Why it took so long?”

Boss: “It got found. It’s just late. Send it where it’s supposed to go.”

Okay, Boss.

The post office where the letter went (somewhere in Minnesota) would have absolutely no idea what had happened. They would just get it with the rest of their mail like it was regular mail.

And that’s how a letter can show up years later and nobody knows how it was delayed.

I live in a rural area, and while I’ve never had my mailbox smashed, I did have a very lazy postal worker. I’m 99.9% positive she’d open our Netflix DVDs and watch them before we got them back when we first moved in. She’d bend people’s mailboxes back so she could more easily put in the mail from her car, but it would also let rain get in.

A few years ago, someone stole our mailbox. It was one of those plastic Rubbermaid ones,  and they pried it up and made off with it, leaving nails just sticking up from the base. For the new mailbox, we put rebar a good foot or so into the ground and whatever else my husband did. The end result was it gave the mailbox a nice recoil.

The postal worker tried bending back our mailbox, and it bounced right back — WHAMMO! — right into her car. She tried complaining, but our box was totally compliant with PO standards.

No more soaking wet mail.

I went into the post office some years ago, needing stamps.

Me: “I’d like to buy half a dozen stamps, please.”

Clerk: “We don’t sell things in dozens or half-dozens. Your choices are six or twelve.”

Me: “…Six.”

The clerk gave me the requested stamps.

Clerk: “I don’t know why you people make weird and stupid requests like that.”

Me: “A dozen is twelve. Half a dozen is six.”

Clerk: “Now you’re just lying to seem smarter than me.”

Me: “No, ma’am, I would never try to seem smarter than you.”

I left, shaking my head and wondering if maybe, just maybe, we made one too many budget cuts to our education system.

I am closing up the post office with my coworker when a man strolls in and casually places a small package on the counter.

Customer: “I need this to get to Oregon by midnight. It’s important.”

Me: “I’m afraid the fastest we could do is [super expensive third-party rate] overnight, and that would get there by tomorrow.” 

Customer: “No! This is America! You will do this for me!”

Me: “I’m afraid I cannot, sir. It is physically impossible.”

Customer: “It is! This is America! Anything is possible!”

Me: “Sir, you’re asking me to send this package from here in Florida, where it is currently 4:55 pm on a Friday, and get it to Oregon by midnight. Even if I got it onto a plane right now, it would still need to go through multiple sorting offices when it arrives. It’s not possible unless you took it yourself.” 

Customer: “But… This is America!” 

Me: “Sir, what exactly are you expecting to happen when you say that?”

Customer: “To get my own way, d*** it!” 

Me: “Does it usually work?”

Customer: “Yes! Because this is America!” 

Me: “Yes, it is, and I still can’t do what you ask.” 

Customer: *Storming out* “You’re a bad American!”

Coworker: “Please, God, no one tell him you’re Canadian. He’ll use that to justify his personal brand of madness!”