Post Post Office

At one point, the government employee had me pick up my package of broken materials - quite heavy one at that - and re-weigh it. This was because she wasn't sure if the postage they charged actually amounted to $1,000. Naturally, it actually was. Earlier in the day, she had also tried to inform that she might not file the claim because the package was improperly packed, because I had used PayPal and because the box had not been marked fragile.

The last one I'll grant her. The box indeed had not been marked fragile. It also had not been marked "Please do not drop from extreme height". Or "Despite appearances, this is not a soccer ball". Or "Guess what, big boxes might be heavy. Get a friend." I explained to her that plexiglass was, well, relatively sturdy stuff and not prone to ripping in half on it's own. Nor had I ever seen such damage to a motherboard in all my years of working with computing and added something to the effect that for the most part, heat sinks are designed to "stay attached".

In the end, this woman really had no business debating any of this. It's not her job. She's not the claims officer. She's got nothing to do with the insurance side of the mail, save from filling out a form properly. Which would have taken one hour and forty minutes less time if she had just been polite about it. In the end, she filled out the form anyway.

I just wonder when it became OK in society to argue with someone about something you just broke. She never denied it was the Post Office's fault. In fact, it says it right on the form. If a normal, well-adjusted, person went into a china store and broke a plate ... I don't think they would argue for two hours about the kind of stand the plate used and that they should consider a sign next to it saying "Be careful. China plates are susceptible to gravity."

Mike in Hawaii has been a champ about all this. Apparently the rig cost him about four grand to build originally. I honestly have never seen a computer put together more thoroughly with so much quality, he just put the best into everything. Thanks to some carelessness, it's essentially rubble. Instead of a sorry, the USPS offers an argument. Government can be fun sometimes.