Monica L Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> spaketh thusly: >Wayne Turville wrote about his frustration with the USDA >and problems mailing orchids to the US. While I know >nothing about dealing with the USDA, I can offer some sad >comments on the postal service. My father once sent a card >from St Louis to California that took 2 full weeks to get >here, but the present I sent last Saturday arrived at his >house on Monday!!!! In other words, travel times can vary >greatly between the same 2 points....
Was your parcel shipped by Priority Mail? If so, then the actual carrier was FedEx, who is contracted by the USPS to ship most (all?) Priority Mail packages. While I find that most postal employees do work very hard (I was grunt labor at the USPS some years ago, non-union stuff with no benefits, but at least I got a look behind the scenes), there are several issues that stymies them. That most employees are union labor, and that service representatives have no quota for the number of customers they must serve in a given time period, means interminable lines. As a result, I go to a contract store with an individual who cheerfully tears into his job in the most efficient manner possible because it behooves him to do so. Best of all, our local post office runs hours from 9 to 5, such that I have to skip work if I'm going to get anything too large to fit in my box. Government oversight at its best. Moreover, your mail (i.e., the *very* cheap $.37 postage on each letter) subsidizes cheaper, bulk "junk" mail that nobody in their right mind reads. AOL CD's. "Val-Pak" coupons. Local supermarkets. Credit card applications. Rates on bulk mail drop to as little as 6.3 cents per letter for non-profit "saturation" mail: http://pe.usps.gov/text/dmm/R600.htm Help fight to get rid of junk mail. Dial 1-888-5 OPT OUT (or 1-888-567-8688) 24 hours a day to reduce credit card offers. See also: http://www.obviously.com/junkmail/ http://www.junkbusters.com/ You can also write the Direct Marketing Association to get MORE junk mail. Some people help heat their houses in this manner. http://www.the-dma.org/ Unfortunately, you can't burn spam. However, you CAN save the fliers you find lodged under your windshield wipers, in your door, thrown on your driveway, etc. and use these data to fill out "mortgage application" offers you get via spam. Wouldn't it be nice if Bob from Bob's Porn Shack was harassed by some internet mortgage company after one of his stooges wedged some explicit advertising in your door? Sure it would! The gloves are off. Spam the spammers. No holds barred. -AJHicks Chandler, AZ _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids
