(www.inkthinkerblog.com) — Last night I made a late-night foray to the post office to pick up my mail so I could head straight to the bank this morning with any checks. I put my key in the lock and, lo and behold, the box wouldn’t open. I tried again. No luck. “Maybe it’s the wrong key,” I thought. I tried my husband’s box key. No dice. And then it occurred to me: It’s the beginning of the month. What if I missed a box renewal notice? What if they rented my box to someone else???
After a night of restless sleep and thoughts of having to print all new business cards because my box had been assigned to someone new, I was at the post office when they opened at 8 this morning. “My box wouldn’t open last night. Did I miss a renewal notice or something?” Yes, yes I had. It’s no wonder with the volume of mail I get. But maybe they forgot to give it to me. I’ll never know.
Here’s where the love comes in, though: “We knew you’d never just leave without closing your box, so we saved it for you. Oh, and here’s all your mail. We didn’t want to send anything back without checking with you first.”
See, it pays to go to the post office every day and become BFF with all the employees. :) They save your butt when you misplace important pieces of mail.
But this is the lesson: If you use a post office box or other “rented” service, make a note on your calendar of renewal dates so you don’t miss them, even if your notice goes missing, gets misplaced, or otherwise vanishes. When you’re running a business, you can’t risk not knowing where your mail and packages are going.
Contents Copyright © 2006-2014 Kristen King
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Kristen, glad to hear they saved your butt. I used to have a PO box, too, but I had packages on occasion that couldn’t be delivered to a PO box, so I’d have to give out my home address anyway. Plus, since I’m home writing during the day, it’s easy to run downstairs and check the mail instead of racing across town before they close. But maybe it would be a good idea to get a PO box again, so I’d get out more…
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You sure did luck out. Don’t know if my post office back home would do the same (though it was small enough, so they might). I’m sure here in China no one would care.
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I’m surprised they didn’t send you some sort of renewal notice to remind you that your box was expiring!
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Hi Kristen- I think that the best lesson is in your second to last paragraph. I do think the human element is irreplaceable.