Post Office Pains

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A few weeks ago, I failed to respond in time to my book club selection of the month.  Consequently, I received an order that I did not want.  I contacted the book club, and asked them if I could return them since they were not open.  They told me that I could return the books in the unopened package and pay the return postage using the book rate.  That was the first time I ever had any club, record or book, ask me to pay for return postage, but a few bucks for postage beats paying $30 for books I did not want.

Last Saturday, I took the package to a nearby post office.  I told the clerk that I wanted to return them and offered to pay the return postage.  Since I had not opened the package, he said that I did not have to pay the return postage.  I offered one more time to pay, saying that the book club had said I needed to pay the return postage.  He again said no and that they would bill the company for the return postage.  Needless to say, the package showed up at my house a few days later marked "Customer must pay return postage."

So this morning I headed up to the post office closest to my house.  I walked up to the window, handed the clerk the package, told her what happened, and told her I wanted to pay for book rate postage to return the package.  The conversation then went something like this:

Postal Clerk: Did you open the package?

Me-No.

Postal Clerk-You do not have to pay for return postage.

Again, I showed her where the box was marked "Customer must pay return postage." I then told her, "Just let me pay the postage.  I do not want the package to come back a third time."  Finally, she weighed the package, took my $3, and applied the postage to the package.  With this type of efficiency, it is no wonder the postal service is losing money hand over fist. 

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