People put things in the mail and don't really think about what they are doing.

2 separate bananas - each with a written address on the peel and postage. Did they NOT expect these to get squashed under the ton of mail during shipping? They did not by some miracle

Fedex/UPS - Everyday I find atleast 6 packages of the wrong carrier in the 60,000 pieces of mail that I handle. It makes me laugh to think that the odd are that there are 1 in 1000 people who do not know the difference between USPS, UPS, and FEDEX.

Fake grenades - one day a box opened us containing a grenade and the building was evacuated while the item was analyzed. Turned out to be a plaque that said "Pull Pin When All Else Fails"

Human Blood, Feces, Body Parts - If not properly wrapped, these items create a real hazard for us employees and we are not allowed to be informed dur to HIPPA laws as to why it was being tested. One of my co-workers was slashed with feces and needed to be tested to EVERYTHING every month for 6 mos then every 3 mos after that.

that is just some stuff thought you would laugh

Good Grief!!!!

Someone once mailed a coconut that exploded in the machine and shut it down for hours... the milk was everywhere!

people mail live animals that get loose too.... not cool.

wants2laugh wrote:

Someone once mailed a coconut that exploded in the machine and shut it down for hours... the milk was everywhere!

people mail live animals that get loose too.... not cool.

Thats pretty sick mailing a live animal.

Universities mail snakes, baby chicks, ducks, crickets, lizards all overnight express mail... but if they do not ship them correctly, the crate CAN break open and then crickets are all over the floor getting squished by the forklifts and equipment. We are told to pick them up cause they are federal property and we can be charged for destruction of federal property if they are damaged! lol

Wow, you have seen some interesting things in the mail!

Now, I so want to mail someone a banana!!

When I saw the subject line the first time I thought it was "Funny things I see in the mall." I'm reading it and thinking WTF does Fed Ex/UPS have to do with the mall????!

LOL

LOL...Red, you should see what people use to ship things in: cereal boxes, tupperware (actually a great idea nothing gets crushed or lost), soda bottles, and of course some people dont wrap the item at all, just place the postage on it--- like inflated beach balls! LOL why not deflate it and mail it in a box???

wants2laugh wrote:

LOL...Red, you should see what people use to ship things in: cereal boxes, tupperware (actually a great idea nothing gets crushed or lost), soda bottles, and of course some people dont wrap the item at all, just place the postage on it--- like inflated beach balls! LOL why not deflate it and mail it in a box???

I am going to read this thread to my guy. He got totally bent out of shape one time that I was mailing a box and did not have packing tape, so I used duct tape. He told me it was so tacky and embarrassing. Well, now I don't think that my box was bad at all!

Can I ask you a question about something I always wondered....What percentage of households tip mail carriers at the holidays?

That question I can't answer because i am not a carrier, but I CAN tell you that many carriers miss the envelope with the tip money that says "dear mr mailman" and accidentally puts it in the mail stream.

As far as embarrassing goes, I have seen people fasten envelopes with shoe strings, and put envelope seals on the corner as postage, believing we won't catch it. Guess what we do. We go through all of the christmas mail by hand and pull out TONS and TONS of mail that people used christmas seals instead of stamps.

Once a couple of 4ft long iguanas got loose and the guys bet on them in races like horses! no lie. The post office is a crazy place to work for a reason.

I once saw EBOLA sample come thru going to the CDC. I tried to explain to my supervisor what it was, that it could kill us all, and that we needed to contain it someplace. He literally threw it on a shelf where people had their purses and lunches. I flipped, called hazmat and went home! I'm not staying in a place like that!

Should ask Shale if that is how the disease spread in Contagion! lol

wants2laugh wrote:

... Should ask Shale if that is how the disease spread in Contagion! lol

Nope, just a new virus (cross between bat & pig virus) using the old fashioned transmission by touching objects then touching your face or exposed to close breathing contact - just like flu.

wants2laugh wrote:

That question I can't answer because i am not a carrier, but I CAN tell you that many carriers miss the envelope with the tip money that says "dear mr mailman" and accidentally puts it in the mail stream.

As far as embarrassing goes, I have seen people fasten envelopes with shoe strings, and put envelope seals on the corner as postage, believing we won't catch it. Guess what we do. We go through all of the Christmas mail by hand and pull out TONS and TONS of mail that people used Christmas seals instead of stamps.

Once a couple of 4ft long iguanas got loose and the guys bet on them in races like horses! no lie. The post office is a crazy place to work for a reason.

I once saw EBOLA sample come thru going to the CDC. I tried to explain to my supervisor what it was, that it could kill us all, and that we needed to contain it someplace. He literally threw it on a shelf where people had their purses and lunches. I flipped, called hazmat and went home! I'm not staying in a place like that!

Should ask Shale if that is how the disease spread in Contagion! lol

Somebody once told me that their little brother put a stamp in the area where the return address goes and that it sent but wasn't post marked, so the stamp could be reused. I always wondered if that was true.

Our mail delivery person sucks so bad that we had to file a complaint (that went nowhere)when we stopped getting any sort of personal mail like letters. We have lived here seven years and he has been shit the whole time. Everyone who lives around here talks about it. We get the wrong mail at least twice per week but have no clue how much we are missing out on.

Even though he really sucks, I do feel bad that I get about seven catalogues in the mail for the last couple years as I do marketing tracking or a company as an odd job. So, I do feel bad that he has to deliver all of those every day, so have been thinking about giving him a little something. But he sucks so bad that I don't want him to feel like I am happy with his service otherwise. So, that is why I was curious how many people actually tip their carrier.

Wants2 will probably be able to comment more on this, but one night at a bar I met a retired mail carrier and he said that complaints are usually taken very seriously. But my guy had gone in to the main hub for mail here in our city to complain when a high dollar check was lost and then delivered, open and taped shut, months after it was sent. Had we not gotten so much wrong mail and missed other stuff, we wouldn't have blamed our carrier.

Like I said, I get a ton of catalogues due to the odd job and I get duplicates of the same catalogue all the time, addressed to someone else. He must just lump them together.

Also, for 18 months, my son's uncle was in prison (not something I brag about..trust!) and when we had a block party last summer, the neighbor who has lived here for years, and knows the carrier personally, told me that the carrier told her that we had a family member (same last name on return address) in prison.

as far as complaints go they are taken very seriously. But people have no idea HOW many people actually touch your one letter to get it from A to B. Sometimes it is the machines and not the people. For instance, the machines for some reason read a barcode on the phone bill of a company in north jersey as my address. It is NOT a postal barcode, it is some verizon barcode on the outside of the envelope that the postal machines read and send to my address. The only recourse is for me to tell the PO to tell verizon to change the envelopes.

It is possible that whoever is sorting the carrier's route is the one causing the mayhem, not the actual carrier. Not sticking up for him if he is that bad, but could be the problem. People forget that the weather/temps affect the seals of the envelopes too. We often have to tape envelopes/packages to make sure the contents do not fall out. Sometimes we have to run around machines the size of football fields trying to put back together the mound of papers that the machine either ate, or the customer did not properly secure. It is not as easy as people think.

I can tell you first hand that if a production of Dr. Zhivago ever comes to Broadway, it made it there only because the diligence and persistence of the team I work with.