Postal addendum

[altivo]

I was joking yesterday about the connection between Homeland Security and Pitney-Bowes (makers of postage metering equipment, for those who don't know) but it's no joke.

Today I happened to be the one who answered the door when the letter carrier came. He explained it to me and gave me a little printed notice that they are pasting onto packages and returning them to the sender.

The actual weight limit is 14 ounces. Anything 14 ounces or under can be mailed in a mailbox or handed to the carrier with stamps on it for the postage. Anything over 14 ounces must be taken to the post office in person in order to mail it... [Why 14 ounces instead of a pound? Who knows?]

UNLESS...

You use a postage meter to put the postage on. If the postage consists of a meter label instead of stamps, then the old rules apply and you can put it into the mailbox or give it to the carrier. So terrorists can't use postage meters? Or steal them? Or use them illicitly at their cover job? What a crock of you-know-what.

(Yes, I know, postage meters have registered serial numbers on them. I also know it isn't hard to obscure or damage the serial number impression, and that postage meters can be stolen and at least used until the cash recorded in them runs out. I'm still not impressed with the "effectiveness" of this measure.)

Comments

[hrrunka]

It's the little inconveniences that, bit by bit, wear folks down... :(

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Not so much the inconvenience as the pure stupidity.

Why 14 ounces? That's no magic number. When Ted Kosinski (the infamous "Unabomber") was still at large, he was blowing people's fingers off and doing worse damage than that with stuff that fit into an ordinary letter sized envelope.

Why postage meters? What about people who use that web site the post office has been promoting where you print postage labels to a laser printer instead of buying or renting a postage meter? And if that is allowed, how does this measure protect against terrorists at all? (Answer: it doesn't. I doesn't even if only Pitney-Bowes meters are acceptable.)

[hrrunka]

I suppose 14 ounces might be a round number of grammes, but the whole thing is some so-called security expert's Good Idea(tm). Won't prevent anything. Will inconvenience a huge number of innocent people...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

14 ounces might be a round number of grams, I didn't check. But the post office here still weighs everything in pounds and ounces. ;p That's how they set rates, too.

[hrrunka]

I think most of our post is now metric, but stuff in the shops is often sold in strange metric quantities which suddenly look a lot less strange when they're converted to Imperial measures. ;)

[schnee.livejournal.com]

It's 396.893324 grams, according to Google - close enough to 400 to qualify as "a round number", I'd guess.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

But even in metric, 400 isn't a meaningful number. Why not 500? That would be far more logical except that it's slightly more than a pound. Anyway this whole business is a prime example of bureaucratic stupidity inspired by brainless politics and the (all too often true) assumption that voters are morons and will believe anything they are told, especially if it is repeated loudly and often enough.

"We're doing this to protect you (never mind from what)"

or

"It's for your own good (don't ask why)"

[schnee.livejournal.com]

*noddles* Probably, yes. I'm not defending the whole thing - far from it. c.c

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I was surprised when I read that the library there was still able to send stamped parcels at all. It's been a postal policy for some time not to accept stamped parcels. I'm not sure if it was put into place before 2001 or not, but it might well have been. It is yet another of the Security Theater pieces being performed, as you note. Now there is a Policy and someone can claim to have Done Something.

I recall when I worked at a post office that we'd occasionally be told the alleged warning signs of a "package bomb" and about half of all parcels met a couple of the criteria. Anyone who gave it some thought could easily conceal pretty much anything by simply following the postal guidelines.

Another example was that when I started all supervisors wore ties and nobody else was to wear a tie. One fellow was told not to wear a t-shirt that had a suit pattern on it due to the similarity(!). Then there was a shooting at a post office several states away and that policy was changed. No more ties. I (and many others) found the change laughable: the supervisors still stood out as they were the only ones wearing dress shirts. The change was superficial and useless, but it was Policy and Something Had Been Done.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*snicker*

And they wonder why postal employees run amok...

I suspect they got rid of the ties lest someone use them to strangle a supervisor. I know I've been tempted even without working for the post offal.

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

It looks like that rule has been around over there for some while now, but just recently they've begun to enforce it. Maybe they're just trying to push it through under the guise of added security. There's always the usual reasons, keeping the the weight load lower for those carrying the mail around, pushing their "upgraded" services to the customers...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well the load isn't much for our carrier because he drives one of those little jeep like things. Mailboxes in Harvard are still at the curb like rural delivery. It's possible that he was just being nice and bending the rules for us, but I suspect not. The old rule, first imposed during the Unabomber reign of terror back in the 90s, was for packages over two pounds (a kilogram) and said nothing about stamps vs. meters. Rule enforcement and interpretation in the post office has always been erratic here. I'm sure Homeland Security goons were involved in this. They are people with neither souls nor any sense of humor, and frankly, no real interest in protection or security, other than maybe job security, and a lot of interest in politics.

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

The USPS hasn't accepted packages over x ounces for quite a while now. I recall driving to the post office in Vista and dropping a package in the drop box outside and having it returned the next day because it was over 1 pound. If I'd parked and walked inside to drop it off, it would have been OK.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That older policy dates to the Unabomber era. However, it was not enforced much in recent years, and certainly there was no prohibition with respect to using stamps on packages. What are stamps for if not to be put on mail, after all? The actual policy on parcels over a pound used to be that you couldn't put them in an unattended mailbox. It didn't say that you couldn't prepay with stamps, or that you couldn't hand them to the letter carrier in person, which is what we commonly did here.

[hrrunka]

The cynic in me wonders whether the "don't use stamps" thing is so that they can employ people with lower-level numeracy skills. No need to work out whether the combination of stamps adds up to the appropriate value, just read the number on the label.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Could be, though what I often see is the window clerk using a calculator to add up multiple stamps in that situation. Probably a good idea to avoid errors anyway.

I think this whole thing is just a political move, like so much of what the current admin does, to make things "look good" and let them say "See, we're doing stuff to protect you." Never mind from what. We actually need protection from wealthy crooks with designs on even more wealth and no scruples at all about what they destroy or who they crush in order to get it.

[hrrunka]

...and the chief of them probably lives at 1, Observatory Circle...

If it makes you feel safe....

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

...it can't be that baaaaaaad, if it makes you feel saaaafe, then you won't ever get mad.

"You use a postage meter to put the postage on. If the postage consists of a meter label instead of stamps, then the old rules apply and you can put it into the mailbox or give it to the carrier. So terrorists can't use postage meters? Or steal them? Or use them illicitly at their cover job? What a crock of you-know-what."

All of our safety precautions are to make the public behave, nothing more. It's the answer to all those old alien invasion movies from the fifties where the military general says something to the effect of, "If we tell the people about the creature's existence, there will mass panic"... so the solution is to make about a trillion tiny, annoyingly pointless and complicated steps and instructions to numb people's brains and distract them enough so they don't notice UFO's hovering over the White House ;) I think it says we ware wide open to an attack right now- hell, Canada could take over if they wanted to (although who in the world would want this country as it is right now?)

Re: If it makes you feel safe....

[altivo.livejournal.com]

who in the world would want this country as it is right now?

Well, yes, that's a good point. But of course all the red herrings and distractions keep anyone from thinking that through. It's one of the goals of the distraction process.

Re: If it makes you feel safe....

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

*chuckles* I'm tempted to do a facepalm, for after posting a response, I read as much in about three previous people's comments :P BTW I was trying to channel Sheryl Crow in the beginning of that last comment, in case you were wondering :P

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Interesting, we can't give any mail to the Postie (Postman) any mail must be dropped off in a postbox or at the post office.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You live in an urban or suburban environment though. How does mail work for people who live way out in the countryside?

Here it has been delivered even in rural areas, to letter boxes on posts along the nearest road. And outgoing mail is picked up from the box at the same time. There's a little red flag you tilt up on the side of the box to tell the carrier that there is outgoing mail, so that she will stop and take it from the box even if there is nothing to leave there. That's been the normal mode in the US for a century or so. This business about no mail can be sent except from a post office is a recent paranoid development of some kind.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I think they still have to drive to the nearest post office or box.