Orphaned Coyote Pup

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Another big thanks to the Postal Service

I bet you Sears is just as grateful as I am that the Post Office was able to deliver the store's 24-page tool sale circular to me on this past Friday (April 3). Surprise! The week-long sale for Sears' Craftsman Club members had ended only a week before the bulletin's arrival. I also bet Sears would have liked it a lot more if the sale notice had arrived when it could have done some good, maybe even contributing a little revenue to offsetting the cost of sending out the brocure. I bet you they would. The company even mentioned next to the postage meter stamp on the brochure that it would love it if the document could be delivered between March 17 and 19, a few days before the sale was to begin. I have no idea how much the brochure cost to print and mail, but I am sure it was no little sum.

My household has been going through a recent phase of mail delivery that involves us receiving only one or two pieces of mail each day for most of the week, followed by a day in which the box is stuffed with everything it can hold. I figured all along that this large load was mail that didn't get delivered when it should. My assumption has been that our mail has been handled during this lighter period by carriers who don't like handling heavy loads, or perhaps by newcomers to the profession or others who for some reason can't manage more than a few pieces of mail at a time.

If I were Sears, I would be pretty irked by this kind of service. A lot of marketing money went into preparing the sales brocures and mailing them off to all us tool fanatics. (It would be interesting to ascertain how many Sears sales brochures failed to get to their addressees on time. Maybe mine was an isolated case? Or were they all late?) As a Craftsman-tool-club-card-carrying junkie, I certainly am bothered. Because of this tardiness, I missed one of Sear's larger tool sales this year.

If I were a Post Office official I would be equally irked, in fact so irked that I would make a real serious attempt to find out why this is happening. Then I would make an equally serious attempt to fix it. And I would take those steps before announcing brand new ways the Post Office can do even less work, like cutting out a day of public service while simultaneously raising postage once again.