The Post Office is one of those government entities that people love to hold up as models of bureaucracy, inefficiency and incompetence. Historically, I’ve been a contrarian about this, because except for one letter that arrived late about 20 years ago, I had never had a single problem with postal delivery.

Then I moved to Durham.

I stopped leaving mail for the delivery person to pick up, after hearing tales of such mail being dropped in neighbors’ mailboxes, or simply disappearing. Likewise, I stopped leaving mail in the outgoing box at my office, because mail simply never made it to its destination on a couple of occasions. I’d walk to the neighborhood mailbox, but there isn’t one. A large check from a client—whose office was across the street—took three weeks to arrive once. But the latest really takes the cake.

I submitted a change of address form for my business in December. Delivery to my business stopped immediately, but no forwarded mail appeared at my new home office. A couple of weeks later, I got a confirmation for the change of address for my surname, but not my business name. I called the post office and was told that if I want business mail forwarded, I have to leave the name fields blank—although there was no indication on the form that this was an either/or choice. So I filled out the second form, was given about two days worth of mail that was being held, and was told that somewhere in their facility was a big pile of mail with my name on it, but the clerk couldn’t get it for me and I’d have to wait a couple more weeks, at which point this big pile of mail would suddenly appear.

I’m still waiting.

In the meantime, I’ve heard from a couple of people that mail is being returned to sender, which the post office said was not being done. And apparently the local office can’t forward the mail until they get the little yellow stickers from some office in Raleigh, and no, there’s nobody I can call there to find out why filling out this form caused an immediate cessation of my postal delivery with no end in sight.

Because, you know, who needs all those checks from clients anyway? They’re only my sole source of income.

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