The USPS Needs New Stamp Designers (and Employees)

The USPS Needs New Stamp Designers (and Employees)

January 27th, 2011 @ 2:41 pm by Mrs. French Toast
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Take a look at this photo and then bury it far, far into your mind.

The USPS Needs New Stamp Designers (and Employees) : wedding pleasanton postage 19 1

Let’s pretend the 17 cent Ram stamp wasn’t even next to the pair of kumquats, because it’ll make me feel much better. I’ll never understand why USPS doesn’t have nice, neutral looking stamps. I just know that if you plan on getting the wedding rings (44 cents) or wedding cake (61 cents) stamps, you should order it in advance from usps.com. Don’t make the same mistake as I did thinking that you can casually walk in and buy pretty stamps to your heart’s content.

I brought 25 of these babies to the post office yesterday. When I asked the clerk if the invites could be hand-canceled, she gave me an exasperated look and said it would cost an additional $1.00 each.

I’ve never read anywhere that it cost extra for hand-cancelling, let alone that much! She then said to me, “Don’t worry, la. You worry too much, no good for you!” The man in line behind me smirked.. loudly. Since I was already late in sending out the invites, I reluctantly dropped them off and hoped for the best.

The USPS Needs New Stamp Designers (and Employees) : wedding pleasanton postage 24 2

And with that, the French Toast invites were off on their merry way. Once a majority of our guests receive them, I’d be more than happy to do the big reveal and share with the hive what I learned from this stressful and teary-eyed process! (And it wasn’t even DIY!)

Any *fun* USPS stories to share?

Tags: pleasanton, postage |

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24 Responses to “The USPS Needs New Stamp Designers (and Employees)”

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Bee

Miss Giraffe (message) 4,216 posts, Honey bee

Those look amazing, with or without the ram! Don’t even worry about it, guests will be too busy enjoying how lovely your address label is, to even notice those stamps.

1/27/11 @ 3:31 pm (reply)

Member

iRun2004 (message) 223 posts, Helper bee

Oh no! I’m so sorry to hear that! My post office had a zillion of the wedding cake stamps on hand when I walked in. And the woman was so sweet helping me decide what I needed and then told me to just bring the invites in with a note requesting hand cancellation and she would do it no problem. I guess it varies considerably based on which post office (and employee) you come across!

1/27/11 @ 3:41 pm (reply)

Member

eloquence08 (message) 113 posts, Blushing bee

Everything I’ve read says hand cancelling is not extra. I would call them on it.

1/27/11 @ 3:41 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Bacon (message) 656 posts, Busy bee

So did you have to pay an extra $1 for hand cancelling? I can’t imagine doing that for all 135 of my invites… so you’ve got me worried!

1/27/11 @ 3:49 pm (reply)

Member

crazybabyinlove (message) 216 posts, Helper bee

My father works for USPS. There should’ve been no charge. And you should file a formal report with that Post Office’s Manager.

1/27/11 @ 3:53 pm (reply)

Member

ninefivethree (message) 151 posts, Blushing bee

USPS is coming out with some Pixar stamps at some point this year!

1/27/11 @ 4:09 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss French Toast (message) 288 posts, Helper bee

@Bacon - nope, I didn’t fork over the $1 for hand-cancelling. just crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

1/27/11 @ 4:28 pm (reply)

Member

vaness13181 (message) 687 posts, Busy bee

Yeah, they don’t charge for hand cancelling. I hand-cancelled 80 STDs (and that includes a few stragglers I sent a week or two later from a totally different Post Office in another state…no one charged for it). I agree with a PP, you should report that Post Office. Maybe the employee misunderstood what you were asking???

1/27/11 @ 4:32 pm (reply)

Member

justeen (message) 551 posts, Busy bee

I had to use the ram too! I naively thought I could get away with 44 cents, but ended up having to add on that stupid looking ram. And of course, it was the only kind they had. Luckily, they were quite nice about it. The usps guy even said he’ll take care of the hand cancelling himself! How rare… especially in Los Angeles!

1/27/11 @ 4:51 pm (reply)

10.

Member

soonerpsych (message) 1,898 posts, Buzzing bee

I didn’t have a very good invitation experience with USPS either. Come to think of it, I rarely have good USPS experiences. But I did hand-cancel our invites for free, although the employees had a pretty negative attitude about it.

1/27/11 @ 5:30 pm (reply)

11.

Guest

Elizabeth

Anyone around Westwood should come to the UCLA USPS store in the Wilshire Building. They let you hand cancel, always have great stamps and your mail goes out almost instantaneously. Seriously- it’s right next to the federal building, so mail only makes one stop…

I mailed things out on Friday from LA, invites reached NY on Saturday!

1/27/11 @ 5:33 pm (reply)

12.

Member

AMFELTS (message) 60 posts, Worker bee

If I had only read hns before I went to post office today. USPS workers, I have experienced, do not care one iota. I ended up with the “gold band” for the ivitiations and the kumquats for the announcements. You could tell she could care less about my interests or questions. But they are off & in the mail.

1/27/11 @ 5:48 pm (reply)

13.

Bee

Miss Elephant (message) 6,182 posts, Bee Keeper

Can’t wait to see your invites!

When I was going to get my invite mailed the guy continued to ask what was inside. Sorry man, the contents did not change in the 30 seconds from the last time you asked.

1/27/11 @ 5:53 pm (reply)

14.

Bee

Mrs. Husky (message) 1,754 posts, Buzzing bee

I can’t believe they tried to charge you to hand-cancel! I’m inclined to agree with others that you should report it.

1/27/11 @ 6:14 pm (reply)

15.

Bee

Miss Hippo (message) 1,008 posts, Bumble bee

Don’t worry, French Toast. I got the same run-around about the hand canceling and was told some ridiculous price too (depending on which post office I went to and which postal worker I talked to… annoying!) and I didn’t worry about it. They got to their destinations just fine and the marks on them are not even that noticeable!

Can’t wait to see them!!!!

1/27/11 @ 6:38 pm (reply)

16.

Member

BeautifulKatastrofie (message) 189 posts, Blushing bee

When I first tried to mail mine, I couldn’t. My rural small town post office only had 44 cent stamps on hand and there was no way I was paying for two stamps when the invitations didn’t need that much. They did have a couple random smaller stamps but not enough on hand to even do a quarter of my invitations. So we had to wait until we visited my FIL’s in a larger area. Then we ended up having to pay an additional 20 cents to have them hand canceled & hand sorted. We sent one to my dad even though he lives with us and even though they made us pay the extra 20 cents they sent them through the machine anyways. Oh well not much I can do about it now.

1/27/11 @ 10:43 pm (reply)

17.

Guest

sara

I don’t even remember what stamps were used on my STD’s I sent a couple months ago (hence, it’s not that big of a deal). So don’t even worry about it, no one will even notice!

1/27/11 @ 11:32 pm (reply)

18.

Member

mebless (message) 512 posts, Busy bee

the only reason they would charge for hand cancellation is if it’s a bulky package, which judging by your picture, your invites obviously aren’t! can’t wait to see your invites!!!

1/27/11 @ 11:43 pm (reply)

19.

Bee

Mrs. Hamster (message) 4,046 posts, Honey bee

I don’t know what the “official” policy is, but I do know the NYC post office wanted 50 cents per each hand cancel (50 cents, a dollar, seems quite arbitrary, doesn’t it?). I sent them back to NJ with Mama Hamster, and a very nice post office lady in my hometown office hand-canceled them gladly. Depends on the office, I guess!

1/28/11 @ 12:40 am (reply)

20.

Bee

Miss Jam (message) 309 posts, Helper bee

We decided to skip the hand canceling and sorting & everything turned out just peachy! Honestly, the worst part of it all were the smears all over the pretty envelopes, but that happens with all mail.

And don’t worry at all about the stamps…people are going to rip them open so excitedly, they won’t notice them for even one second. : ) Love your wraparounds, by the way, that bike is presh!

1/28/11 @ 12:57 am (reply)

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