I admit I was the SC - But you are BUSTED!!

[Lace Neil Singer]

I also seem to get tons of junk mail for the previous tenants.

Same here. I just save it all up and hand it in to the estate agent to forward on; some of it is for the first people to move into the flat. O_o

[Bluenomi]

I love my yellow pages, it is great for squishing spiders

[Neo_Classic]

I once had this catalogue delivered to me, regardless of the fact that I'd ordered no such catalogue. Countless times, I called up the number printed on the accompanying letter and asked them to take my address and name off the mailing list. The girl said she would... and the next week, the catalogue arrived. -.-

Eventually, I snapped. I picked up all the ones I could find, put them in a padded envelope with a bit of gravel and a few stones, and addressed the envelope to the company but without stamps. I sent it back to them and from that day on never received another catalogue.

Was it Fingerhut? I get that stupid catalogue every friggin’ month and it drives me mad! I called, I wrote a letter, and I called a few more times. No luck. They keep sending those stupid things to me.

[Rahmota]

Yeah the internet goes down, some people are on dial up (me) so using the net to look up numbers is kinda long drawn out and a hassle. I have 4 different current phone directories in my desk so I can look up a number in pretty much entire southwestern ohio region.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Was it Fingerhut? I get that stupid catalogue every friggin’ month and it drives me mad! I called, I wrote a letter, and I called a few more times. No luck. They keep sending those stupid things to me.

Can't remember what it was; I suggest you use my method. O_o

[aurelemsrealm]

I have a friend that placed a trash can on her porch under her mounted mail box . . .labeled it junk mail. For about 3 years she had a great postal delivery person that would sort for her . . .junk went in the trash, the rest in her box (yes, they were acknowledged every holiday) Then the delivery person retired and the new one won't do it . . .places it all in the box. (they are not acknowledged at the holiday, basically you do the bear minimum for your full paying job - no extra for you at the holiday)

Sadly, you can't even get some postal carriers to properly do the bare minium for their jobs. I grew up in a small town in southern Illinois, and we had a crappy post office. My aunt was one of the few exceptions to the horrible postal carriers they employed at our local post office.

We lived within the city limits for years before moving to a place in the country. We had this one postal carrier who refused to take our outgoing mail unless he had mail to deliver to our box. We had a mailbox right by the road, which was very convenient for the postal carriers. We always put the flag up if we had outgoing mail ready for pick up. My parents complained about him to the local postmaster with a perfectly reasonable argument that they shouldn't have to go to the post office to send mail when the postal carrier is passing by that box everyday. There is no valid reason why the carriers can't take a few seconds to pick up mail from a box even if there is no delivery to make so long as the flag is up to indicate outgoing mail is ready and waiting. At worst, it would only be a couple of steps out of his way and a couple of extra seconds spent. Why should anyone have to make a special trip to the post office if it's not necessary? The postmaster's response was that the postal carriers aren't required to pick up outgoing mail from boxes within city limits because people who live in town could just as easily go to the post office to send their outgoing mail. So, that postal carrier really showed his ass then, and the postmaster refused to do anything about it. Our carrier then decided not to pick up outgoing mail even when he had mail to deliver to our box. Eventually, some of our mail was arriving opened or otherwise defaced. My parents decided to go over the local postmaster's head since he still refused to do anything. Finally, that carrier was either let go or transferred to another route, and the postmaster retired.

Years later, my parents decided to move out to the country, so they bought a couple of acres just outside of city limits. The worst complaint they had about the postal carriers was the time of delivery. One day, mail might come in the morning, and the next day, it would come late in the evening. You just never knew. For a while, they had one real lazy carrier who wouldn't bother to deliver packages that didn't fit in the box to the door. He'd just throw them in the ditch by the mailbox. My parents did complain about that one. All the other carriers they had on the rural route were considerate enough to bring oversized packages to the door. After all, most of the time, if we saw the postal vehicle come up the drive, we went out to meet them because we knew they had a package. They rarely ever had to leave the car. We've even told them to honk if they were concerned about the dogs even though our dogs were never prone to attack.

[Tanasi]

I guess I'm one of the few that likes phone books the more the better. Heck I'll even take old ones. I duct tape 5 or 6 together, wet and shoot them to test bullet deformation. Phone books are cheaper than balistic gell, easier to handle and folks are happy to give them to you. At one time the boy scouts were collecting them and recycling but I haven't heard anything of that in quite a while.

BTW they're going to continue to deliver phone books, drop papers and whatnot because the advertizers pay for their ads to be in them and the ad prices are linked to distribution. The more they distribute the more they can charge.

Another use for phone books reminds me of my grandparents and parents thoughts on old Sears & Roebuck catalogs and Almanacs. They sure beat other alternatives.

[chops]

The postmaster's response was that the postal carriers aren't required to pick up outgoing mail from boxes within city limits because people who live in town could just as easily go to the post office to send their outgoing mail.

I knew they didn't have to take mail from a door box if there was no mail to deliver to that box, but I thought the same applied to curbside boxes. I stand corrected:

The United States Postal Service makes every effort to pickup and deliver your mail. Outgoing mail is picked up:

* For curbside delivery if the flag is up or if there is mail to deliver.
* For door delivery if there is mail to deliver.
* From the outgoing mail slot in a Cluster Box.

Note that it doesn't seem to make a distinction between curbside boxes for rural delivery or otherwise.

As for the source, since it appears that I can't link to the FAQ question itself (the URLs are session-specific), the next best thing I can do is to link to the Mail Delivery FAQ on usps.com. Put "outgoing mail" in the search box and it should be the first thing to come up.