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Post by MikeH on Dec 6, 2012 4:09:13 GMT -5
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Post by templeton on Dec 6, 2012 4:13:50 GMT -5
;D
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Post by 12540dumont on Dec 6, 2012 12:14:50 GMT -5
At my post office there are 2 nice folks and 1 asshole (Pardon me), but it's true.
The two nice folks call me the seed lady and go out of their way to help me. One even pointed out to me that NZ is not good about accepting recycled packaging, so things go through customs easier there in a brand new envelope. These folks think it's great that I send seed around the world at my own cost without asking for payment. They think it's great that I trial different varieties of the same veges. And they regularly try to help me out by suggesting various packaging that can save me money. My postage for last year was $300+ smackers, so savings is good.
The other guy has been at the p.o. for 25 years and is way past retirement age. He lives to reject my shipping. With glee and delight he told me that I cannot ship onions, because I had them in a liquor box. Now, onions smell like onions and roll around. They do not make the distinctive sloshing noise of liquid. Also, you could see the onions through the handles. Nope, I had to take the box home and wrap it in brown paper. This is the kind of thing that makes me swear. I drive to the post office, I wait in line for 20 minutes, then I drive home, re-wrap the same box and drive back to the post office and wait in line again for 20 minutes to get a box of onions shipped 75 miles away.
Meanwhile, the seed company who asked me to send these onions were really anxious to get them, as their greenhouse collapsed and their entire seed crop wiped out. So, who loses?
If I'm in line and it looks like he'll wait on me, I'll let the person behind me take my place. This fellow has made me refill out the customs form because I wrote England instead of "United Kingdom". And it made him very happy to make me do it.
The new rules at our post office require that the postal people have to type in the complete info on the customs form into their computer, even for envelopes. No kidding, I'm a lot of work for them. But they don't look at it like "Hey, this is my job, and this woman is my job security". The rude dude acts like I'm bothering him. He makes me feel bad for sending seeds to Richard or Tim or Joseph or Jennifer. So who loses?
All of us lose when government runs unchecked.
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Post by Drahkk on Dec 6, 2012 15:39:53 GMT -5
Whew! You just made me appreciate my tiny little one room, 300 sq ft postage stamp of a post office. It may only be open 7:30-2:30 M-F, but there's never a line, and both of the ladies who take turns working there are exceptionally helpful.
MB
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Post by raymondo on Dec 6, 2012 15:40:51 GMT -5
Here in Australia all packets for overseas are supposed to carry a customs declaration. Some PO workers are sticklers for the rules, others don't seem bothered. The end result? Some of my parcels have stickers, others don't. So far, all my parcels to the US and Canada have reached their destinations.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Dec 6, 2012 21:19:42 GMT -5
Yes, I love my rural post office. There is never a line, but sometimes you do have to wait and listen to them finish complaining about their sister-in-law or whoever on the phone in the back. Which is about 20 feet from the front. But they never ever give me a problem about sending packages to other countries. Once I forgot to fill out a customs form on some seeds and they called me up to tell me they couldn't mail it. At a big PO that package would have just disappeared into the black.
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Post by steev on Dec 6, 2012 21:21:53 GMT -5
Again, the trouble with bureaucrats is that they're people; some get enough fiber in their diets, others don't. Some want to help, some want to control. For those who need to control: more roughage!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2012 21:23:33 GMT -5
I've got a totally different take - but then I think most people are nice, but flawed. It doesn't matter at all whether people are decent people when they have too much power. Though I am not a hardline anarchist, they do make a good point, that any authority, no matter how small, is ultimately backed up by force. All funding, whether for leftist or rightist causes, is taken under threat of duress. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2012 12:49:36 GMT -5
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 8, 2012 15:01:22 GMT -5
I'm a semi-mod. My permissions are limited to moving, locking, and deleting posts or threads, and sending an occasional private message.
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Post by castanea on Dec 9, 2012 17:03:30 GMT -5
I've got a totally different take - but then I think most people are nice, but flawed. It doesn't matter at all whether people are decent people when they have too much power. Though I am not a hardline anarchist, they do make a good point, that any authority, no matter how small, is ultimately backed up by force. All funding, whether for leftist or rightist causes, is taken under threat of duress. Americans have a tendency to forget that ALL governmental authority is backed up by guys with guns. When they don't see the guys with guns every day they seem to fantasize that the authority of governmental officials in the US is somehow different from the authority of government officials in 3rd world countries. It's not. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2012 13:08:14 GMT -5
IMHO, the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto are inherent to all forms of established government, throughout history. The only major points of difference are their expressed motivations.
Plato's Republic speaks of the noble lie, and Hitler's Mein Kampf speaks of the big lie. So far as I can tell, this is the only thing which changes.
I have studied cults of personality, both from a distance and in person, consider their methods universal.
Some will claim to be agnostic or avowed atheists but have a religion if they conflate citizenship or participation with piety.
Rousas John Rushdoony writes that "the god of a culture can be located by fixing its source of law. If the source of law is the ontological Trinity of Christian revelation, then that Trinity is the God of that culture. If the source of law rests in the people, then the voice of the people is the voice of God (vox populi, vox dei), and that voice finds expression and incarnation either in a leader, a legislative body, or a supreme court, depending on which gains the ascendency. The highest point in the processes of law is the god of that system." (Politics of Guilt and Pity)
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Post by logrus9 on Dec 30, 2012 13:34:11 GMT -5
I just made my second order from Canada, I didn't know anything about the customs rules with the first one but it came through. I hope the second one does also, they aren't large orders so that may help.
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Post by billw on Apr 2, 2013 18:54:32 GMT -5
I just got hit by this for the first time. I have ordered many packages from overseas, including a number that have specified for example "tubers and plant material" on the customs form, that came through without a hitch. So, I was feeling pretty confident when a friend traveling in Peru, Bolivia, and Chile for the past month asked how he should ship the 40+ varieties of oca and ulluco he collected for me. I told him all in one box That was a mistake!  |
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Post by steev on Apr 2, 2013 19:38:10 GMT -5
Bummer!
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