It all started when Son No. 2 (in birth order only), who lives about 90 miles away, mailed my husband a card for Father’s Day. About a week after the day passed without delivery, he called with the following message, “Hey, I got Dad’s card returned. It says, “Moved—No Forwarding Address.’”
Since we’ve lived in this house since 2009, and believe me,
hubby still lives here, it was perplexing. We theorized it was a glitch in “the
system” since our son had moved out about six months earlier; maybe “the system” got
their names mixed up. (Yeah, we didn’t believe it either, but we like to give the
benefit of the doubt.)
So our son mailed it again, only this time he used his fiancee’s
name, which has no similarity to ours. About ten days passed, still no card in
the mail, when our son texted that the card had been returned again, marked “Moved—No
Forwarding Address.”
The next day at work, when I had about five minutes of
breathing room, I called USPS customer service. I was met with the opening spiel
of a pre-recorded message—press 1 for this, 2 for that, and so on.
Unfortunately,
none of the numerous presets addressed the problem of: “You’re returning my
husband’s mail to sender and telling everyone he’s moved with no forwarding address!!!”
So I tried, “Operator.”
The line
went dead.
I called back, waited for the script to end and tried, “Agent.”
Response from the robo-system: “You want to speak with an agent, is that
correct?”
Me: “Yes.” (Or maybe,
“Yes, you moronic....”)
The response was that it would be a “21- to 31-minute wait.”
I could hang on, or I could leave my number and wait for a call back. I would
not lose my place in line.
Not very trusting of “the system” at this point, I decided
to wait it out, but after about 15 minutes on hold, I had to take an incoming
call and hung up.
About an hour later, I had another window of opportunity and
called back, worked my way through the phone maze and got the exact same
response. This time I left my number, rushed to the ladies’ room and ran a few
other office errands to make sure I’d be free in “21 to 31” minutes.
I got back to my desk with a few minutes to spare, but it
wasn’t for another 20 minutes that my phone rang. I picked up.
Me: “Hello?
Robo-Voice: “This
is the callback that was requested. When ‘Leah’ is on the line, press 1.”
Grumbling, I pressed “1” and was placed
on hold for another minute before a real, live person came on the line.
Filled with relief, I spilled my guts
to the agent. She took notes, gave me a reference number and told me it would
be up to 48 hours for a response. I tamped down my impatience; at least we were
making progress.
The next day, I was running around at
work, came back to my desk, and there was a message on my cell. You guessed it,
I had missed the return call from USPS. Thankfully the caller had left a direct
number for the local supervisor. I was to call to get it straightened out.
With fingers and toes crossed, I pressed
the numbers into my cell. My call was answered by yet another robo-voice:
“You have been forwarded to a voicemail system; however, the person at this number does not subscribe to this service. A valid attendance member (number?) has not been specified. Your session cannot be continued at this time. Please try again later. Goodbye.” CLICK.
“You have been forwarded to a voicemail system; however, the person at this number does not subscribe to this service. A valid attendance member (number?) has not been specified. Your session cannot be continued at this time. Please try again later. Goodbye.” CLICK.
And we wonder why our government is so
messed up? Even its voicemail system can’t speak English. The bureaucrats
probably don’t have a clue what the others are saying! (Yes, I know USPS isn’t
exactly “the government,” but it’s close enough.)
A couple days went by during which I
was too frustrated to take up the fight. Then hubby got a call from his
dentist’s office that a statement had been returned marked “Moved—No Forwarding
Address.”
Obviously the problem wasn’t going to
fix itself. I returned to battle.
Eventually I got the correct number to
the local office and spoke to a supervisor who promised to delete the
forwarding order from “the system.” When I reiterated that we hadn't submitted any
forwarding order for my husband, he said,
“It doesn’t matter that you didn’t do it, it’s
there,
and the system will pull your husband’s mail
before it even gets to our facility.”
before it even gets to our facility.”
That was five days ago, and so far so
good. He's actually received mail! I just know if I have to do business with “the system” again, I might go
postal.
(Next month: Everything you didn’t want to know about tracking
a delivery from the FedEx Home Delivery service.)
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Leah writes stories of mystery and
romance, good and evil and the power of love. Please visit her on her Facebook page where she’s been known to post goofy photos of Hercules the Kitten.
