General Forum

 Reentering the hobby I've been hesitant to shortchange traders by having postage due so I've been having clerks weigh and then tell me what postage is required. Today I took in a pwe which is "normally " a 2 oz stamp, a debate amongst the clerks whether it was a 2 oz letter (.75) or whether it should be charged as a parcel at almost 4 bucks and was told it is different depending on the clerks opinion? Im aware that people unfairly/fairly bash the po, but it appears that based on weight and thickness the postage is set across the country and the opinion of the clerk isn't really relevent in determining postage. (In the end they asked ne what it should be???) Lol in another recent encounter I was told that a 2 oz stamp is incorrect and that it should be .55 + .20 non machinable surcharge, where I come from .75 is the same whether its a 2 oz stamp or 2 separate charges. Yet some people wonder why there's a negative perception about the PO.

I've been told that a 2 oz. stamp will get a letter treated like a non-machinable letter.  However, as your post suggests, it varies from one clerk to the next.  If I have a PWE that isn't too thick (1/4" maximum for a 'letter') and weighs, for instance, 2.2 ounces.  I will use a non-machinable stamp (butterfly - 75 cents each, 55 cents + 20 cent non-machine surcharge), plus an additional 2 x additional ounce stamps (20 cents each).  The total for the 2+ ounce 'letter' of which I do NOT want machined is $1.15.  If 1.01-2oz., you can get away with one butterfly + one addt'l oz. ($0.95), or if </= 1oz., you can use just the butterfly (or whatever may be pictured on the non-machinable surcharge stamp at the time, right now, my PO has California Dogface butterflies, so when my wife asks me if I need anything from the PO, I tell her a sheet of butterflies).  2 ounce stamps are also 75 cents each, which is where there may lie some confusion between clerks.  The post office definition is: A nonmachinable mailpiece is a mailpiece that must be sorted outside of the standard, automated mail process.  One example where a stamp of this nature would be needed (i.e. cards in a 9-pocket page), it is too rigid or contains items such as pens, keys or coins that cause the thickness of the mailpiece to be uneven.  This doesn't necessarily include any old letter that would require a 2 oz. stamp.  This is the reason why I pay the regular postage necessary for the ounces of the PWE + the nonmachinable surcharge, which is, of course included with the first stamp placed on the envelope.  

I could be totally wrong but things have been working so far.  I may even be putting too much postage ($0.20) on each PWE I send out, but I'd rather put on too much than not enough.  However, paying $4.00 for a parcel rate for a 2 oz. letter, I think that clerk is way off base. 

Side note: funny story, well 2 related stories actually about my old man.  He retired about 15 years ago from the USPS, he was a letter carrier in a small town (~15-20,000 pop.) for about 30 years.  I have great respect for the man, mainly 5 different walking routes (rotating) in NWPA, enduring the 4 wonderful seasons we had living just south of Erie, almost winter, winter, still winter, and construction.  I used to get the old telephone book out, (remember those?), and pick out a name or an address in the city and he could tell me the address if I gave him the name or he could give me the name if I gave him an address.  He was like Raymond Babbitt.  Second story, recently I was prepping some PWE to ship while he was visiting, we were shootin' the sh!t, and I handed him the envelope and said, "what'd ya think, is that an ounce or less?"  He holds it in his hand and kind of lifts it up and down, guaging it on his mental scale, and says, "no way, that's 1.2 I'd say."  I break out the scale and well, I'm sure you can guess what it weighed.  With a cool grin, he says, "I thought so."

I've said this many times before, but I always use USPS for shipping.  As for the exact specs in this thread, humans have perceptions, both to the product they are dealing with AND the "rules" they are supposed to follow. USPS fails to train the clerks correctly to those rules and any given clerk can perceive something differently than the clerk that worked the day before or the one that works the day after. Machines rarely fail and have no perceptions to the rules. If your scale at home (digital OR old-school hanger weight) says the package weighs THIS amount, you know what the postage should be for that shipment (PWE, bubble mailer or box). Eliminate the extra people and be your own mail clerk! USPS.com clearly explains how things are supposed to be shipped and the prices to be paid for them.

One thing people always say about PWE is the non-machinable stamp or rate. If you ship in a bubble mailer, it is automatically not machinable! You can still send it as a letter, but knowing that it can not possibly go through a sorting machine. ALL bubble mailers get hand sorted. I don't do PWE at all for the perception of these in all North American mailing systems.

I have a non-mailing comparison for this. If you go to a "fast-food" restaurant (say Subway) and you ask for a specific item on the menu... They build it the way they were trained to do when they started. It doesn't account for any changes you make while they are doing it. If I ask for a Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyake Sub at Subway, it might be done right by one person. But if I go in the same shop the next week and ask for the same thing from a different person, they miss the Sweet Onion Teriyake sauce OR they smother it with the sauce OR they completely miss several other things. Sadly, online orders for restaurants has become garbage in the past year. Every single time I order food online, it gets messed up in some way. The computer got it right, but the people failed in one way or several others.

Just tonight, my Mom stopped at a Bojangle's drive-thru (a chicken place for those of you not in the southeast US) and ordered a $30 family meal deal. As she pulled away, she decided to stop and count the items after they completely forgot to give her biscuits the last time she stopped there a month ago. Once again, there were no biscuits in the package and they even forgot to add the gravy for the mashed potatoes. So she went back and complained about it and got the biscuits and the missing gravy. But when she got home, the chicken box was 60% chicken wings with 20% legs and 20% thighs. Not a single chicken breast in the box. That is just horrible collation as it is usually 25% of each of the 4 types in any given box. That is a 3rd different company that she now has an issue with that never had a problem with before the pandemic started. Subway is the worst of all as it doesn't matter which location we use, they ALL suck in satisfaction and the corporation claims it is the fault of the franchisee (even though we tried several different locations). That can't possibly be true if there are 3 different owners for the 3 shops we have tried in the past year. And national chains without franchises are not doing much better. It's surprising how crappy service has gotten when those companies to be at their best with the pandemic.

I printed the USPS rules and specifications directly from their website and carry them with me when I have to deal with postal clerks.

I choose to use bubble mailers for trades. Overall it's a little more money but for a much higher quality trade. All I have to do is print the label online and it's drop it off @ a USPS mail box. Tracking number included. Just simply team sleeve the cards and send them off. Easier and safer.