Results tagged “usps”

The post office is a storefront that we'd never expect to see shut down, but because of recent hard times the U.S. Postal Service is dealing with a $7 billion potential loss this fiscal year. Not even the 2-cent price increase for stamps can save the day. Curse you, online bill pay (shaking fist!). Thousands of post offices nationwide are getting the once over, even Seattle's Federal Station, which is one of six Washington offices on the list of 700 expected to close.

This time there is no holding back for the City of Newcastle, as they (again) petition the United States Postal Service to get their very own zip code. Since the creation of Newcastle in 1994, homeowners and businesses had to identify themselves with one of Renton's two zip codes (98056 and 98059). After 15 years of confusion, Newcastle wants to hear the zip code rants to support their petition for postal independence. They hope this will prevent further zip code headaches that include the loss of sales tax dollars based off of zip codes and the directional hot mess where most addresses in Newcastle are considered an "unknown location" by most computers and even delivery drivers.

Some Montlake residents had fetch their mail from the Union Street post office early this week because of a dog with mail issues. Turns out, the USPS stopped delivering the mail to the entire block due one family's dog on the loose. The carrier, who has warned the family about their dog's behavior several times over the past two years--and fined them--finally went postal nuclear by alerting the postmaster, who promptly put the whole block on “Dog Hold.” It's a draconian response to the timeless battle between dogs and mailmen--is the assumption that the mail-less neighbors will grab the pitchforks and torches and rush over to ensure compliance? We're not sure, but since no one on the block knew why their mail had stopped coming, we think we see a flaw in this strategy.

The other day we popped into the Broadway post office looking for some stamps. But the stamp vending machine was gone, so we had to stand in a 12-person line to buy $1-ish of stamps. We hear that--in addition to uprooting friendly neighborhood mailboxes--the USPS is saving money by removing stamp vending machines from post offices across Washington. You can buy stamps at USPS.com, and they will mail them to you. Sometimes we hate this stupid new online world. We can still get stamps on a whim at Wells Fargo ATMs--maybe they'll move into delivering mail too. God knows the USPS hasn't impressed us there, either.

Untitled by Cody Cobb

Last month we were trying to mail a check to San Francisco. First we tried the usual snail-mail way, dropped in a box on East Pike. Three weeks later, no dice. So then we tried Priority Mail, and handed it to the postal truck driver ourselves. 2-3 days later, nothing. We called USPS. They said, "Oh wow, we'll look into that." A week went by. We arranged a money transfer by email. We called USPS again. "Yeah, we'll call you," they said. "How did you get this number again?"

We were sweating it for a while there. It was obvious the Seattle-o-sphere was popping rivets under the stress of, well, whatever would stress us. We can't think of anything. Nevermind, our Great Hope has returned and apparently Capitol Hill Seattle Blog isn't one to waste any time jumping back into things after a vacation. They're currently asking for the person who left the following comment on their site, or anyone with related information to email jseattle@gmail.com.

Seattlest made it to the opening night of the new Negativland show at Consolidated Works Friday, February 17th. The email invite promised "wine and hors d'oeuvres," but all we could find were these tiny nut bowls of asian cracker mix with wasabi peas (yuck), and the wine was sparkling white (blech), but it was free so who's complaining?

-No more pesky polling places for King County voters - Come 2007 we'll be voting by mail. Well, we pay our bills online, correspond online and turn down countless offers of credit online. In 2007 voting and Netflix will be our only two interactions with the USPS.

Had a bloated, doped-up Elvis not died on his bathroom’s shag carpet, gold pajama bottoms around his ankles, face-down in his own vomit, he would’ve turned 71 this Sunday. Though Seattle is a long way from Graceland, the King rolled through town during each of his three distinct career phases: ‘50s rock ‘n’ roller, ’60 movie star, and ‘70s touring machine.