You want the package? You can't handle the package!

Sometimes, I get packages. Not often, but maybe a few times a year. Sometimes we order something off Amazon, or maybe Newegg. Sometimes my mom sends us something. Some sources are great when it comes to shipping. If we aren't home, UPS (and FedEx too, to their credit) will leave it in our apartment office, which accepts packages for residents who aren't otherwise able to sign for them.

Not so, however, with the United States Postal Service.

Until sometime last year, the USPS was leaving packages at the office. I clearly remember picking up some things there shipped USPS Priority. Around December, that changed. First it was a package from Old Navy. Then, from Amazon. Yesterday, it was a package from my mom. For those who don't know, my husband & I co-host a World of Warcraft podcast, GKick (insert shameless plug here). We'd been holding on to our 2008 Blizzcon goodie bags and we were finally prepared to start offering up our swag as giveaways for our show. So my great awesome fantastic mom found them for us (one of many things left in CA when we moved to MA) and shipped them out.

I knew the package was coming. I had a tracking number and everything. I knew it was out for delivery. When we didn't hear anything as the afternoon went on, we checked the USPS site.

It said they attempted to deliver and we weren't home.

Cue blind rage.

Not only was I home, as I am almost every day in my role as a stay-home wife, but my husband was home as well. Seeing as this is the third offense in four months, I decided it was time to complain. In a slightly related but altogether different story, it's quite difficult to get someone on the phone at 1-800-ASK-USPS who will take a complaint. Once they do, though, they're quite nice. I was told I'd get a call in a day or so from my local branch to talk about the issue.

This morning, I got that call. A brusque and slightly peeved-sounding woman called from a private number (she's lucky I answered, I did it on a whim) and after confirming my identity proceeded to tell me exactly why I was wrong and essentially called me a liar. And I quote: "The carrier knocked on your door and there was no answer. You must have been in the bathroom or something."

Normally, I'd accept this as a possibility. Contrary to popular belief I do in fact use the facilities from time to time. But there were two people home today, and neither of them were in the bathroom at the same time. There was always someone who would have heard if there was a knock at the door - or, if the carrier had the brains God gave a billy goat, a ringing of our very loud buzzer.

Tired of discussing my bathroom habits with a faceless USPS employee, I moved on to Point 2: If the tenant isn't home, packages should be left at the main office. UPS does it. FedEx does it. The USPS used to do it. Her reply? "Even if you request the package be left there, we won't do it. It's not secure, and if something happens we take the blame."

Let's recap, shall we? If I'm not home, I don't get my package. If I am home, the carrier doesn't knock, and I don't get my package. If I know there's a chance I may not be home, and request that packages be left attended and secure at the main office, I don't get my package. I'm unable to figure out a circumstance short of sitting outside waiting for the carrier to show up where I actually do get to receive my package without having a failed delivery attempt and having to just go pick it up myself.

After picking up my package at the local USPS office, I made a call to my mom, and requested that from now on she just send everything FedEx. And people wonder why the USPS is bleeding money.