Over the past few months, I’ve been trying to find the USPS’s “Star Ribbon” stamp designed by Aaron Draplin. I looked for it in multiple local post offices, and when I was traveling, I’d check in at their post office as well. Each and every time I was met with blank stares and a complete lack of knowledge about this product.
Eventually, I decided to place an order via the USPS website.1 This process was fast and easy, and I didn’t have to talk to anyone at all. To top it off, the shipping rate was a measly $1.30, and I’d easily pay much more than that to avoid another trip to the post office. I ordered on August 1st and quickly got an email receipt with a status of “Order Placed”. Just four days later, on August 5th, I received my stamps. They actually shipped via Priority Mail, which should cost about $7, so the Post Office is cutting themselves some kind of deal on shipping. I suppose they can get away with that.
Hey, Good Lookin’
[Photo courtesy of P. Kafasis]
As you can see, I had my stamps, and I was pleased. I also assumed our transaction was complete. As such, I was quite surprised to wake up a full 12 days later to email from the USPS:
Yes, on August 17th, I received a notice via email that my order had shipped. I was very much aware of that, as I’d received the package almost two weeks prior.
I really can’t fathom what happened here. Is this how their system always works? That would be preposterous, and yet, not out of the realm of possibility. Worth mentioning, I actually received two identical copies of this email. That may point to a server issue which got overzealously corrected days later. Regardless of how or why this email was sent, though, it was more than a little confusing.
Perhaps because of this sort of thing, the email includes this footer:
That’s quite a catch-all at the end there:
Any other use of the email by you is prohibited.
I imagine “sharing this email to mock the post office’s bizarre handling of online ordering” might fall under that prohibited use, huh? Well, I hope you’ll all visit me in mail jail.
Previously in strange USPS status tracking: Make a Copy for Yourselves Too
Footnotes:
As I write this, only coils of 3,000 or 10,000 stamps are available, for thousands of dollars each. Fortunately, when I ordered, it was possible to buy sheets of 20.↩︎
