amybjorge's Profile

I'm a former postal employee. My job (in SLC) was to read the most exasperating and unreadable mail in the country. The post office will deliver a lot of things because they are required by federal law to make their best effort. That they are required to deliver crap like this doesn't make it preferable or cost efficient. Mailing a pail would be a particularly bad idea because other pieces of mail could get trapped inside it. Those mail pieces could then be sent to the wrong city, state, or even country. Lots of people like to get creative with their mail. Doodles. Stickers. Crazy fonts. Those "cute" little return stamps that go in a circle. (How can a machine read something that goes around in a circle?) If you want your mail to be cute, make it cute on the inside of the package. The outside should be plain and boring as can be. (No stickers or doodles or additional messages please.) The destination address should be neatly printed or printed using a good sized font (Arial or Times New Roman are good) that isn't smudged. Not too small or too large. The return address goes on the top left hand corner. Not the bottom. Not the back. Not anywhere else. The envelope or box shouldn't contain unsealed crevices where other mail can get trapped and rerouted to the wrong location. People learn how to address mail in the 3rd grade (or at least I did) and then they seem to forget. Or they feel that they have to let their creative juices flow. The post office is struggling to stay solvent and ideas like this don't help. Not to be a party pooper, but if you do stuff like this, please don't complain the next time the price of postage goes up.