February 2024 by Steven Eisele
Felda is a small town, so we do not have general delivery like the rest of the United States (ie mailbox at our house) we are only furnished PO boxes, with the expectation that we will spend the time and money to deliver and retrieve our own mail on a daily basis. That's fair enough, snail mail is mostly a relic of the past, but for the occasional customer that sends paper checks it's a necessity.The problem arises when you happen to be passing the post office in a nonstandard vehicle without your keys and need your mail. This happens every month or two, and in the past if the post Master knows you, or checks your ID they will retrieve your mail saving significant time.Our normal post master has had need to be absent (hoping it's only temporary) and the replacement was helpful a few weeks ago, but today we were passing and having a great need of the mail but no keys, we stopped by hoping to retrieve our mail as we have done for the last 20+ years, and as the replacement previously did.I was encouraged as i entered to find her messaging on her phone, relieved that my request would not interrupt a busy day. Unfortunately, without prior notice, she said, "No, you need to bring your keys." And as I stood looking at her somewhat surprised, she said, "go get your keys. "I can live with the occasional contract that gets lost or arrives 3 weeks after a customer sent it. There's rarely a single failure point in those circumstances. But if you're going to ask rural citizens to make the sacrifices necessary to only maintain a post office without mail delivery at no discount some tact and indulgence should be expected [in fact if we want additional post office boxes for business etc we have to pay - unlike those who simply walk out to their happy mailboxes free of charge...]To ask this of your loyal rural citizens, and compound it in a capricious way is unacceptable and disappointment. If you have options, at least for now, consider taking your business elsewhere.
