I went to the post office today to mail a couple things, and while I was there a woman made three trips from her car to bring in three large packages -- picture a 24-roll package of toilet paper. Each one was covered in Christmas wrapping paper and had ribbons around them tied in an elaborate bow on top. The name and address of the recipient was taped on the top also, just south of the bow.
The clerk said to her, "Are you going to ship these like this?" The woman said, "Sure, I don't care if the bows get squished."
Squished? The bows and ribbon and that flimsy Christmas paper will be torn off of them before they get halfway there. I've seen how the post office handles packages.
A long time ago I worked at a place that had a huge, empty warehouse. At Christmas time they leased this space to the post office for sorting packages. Two guys took the packages off a truck and threw them into (or, more precisely, in the direction of) one of a couple dozen big canvas bins. They frequently missed, especially with the bins farthest away from them, of course. Another postal worker walked around picking the packages up off the floor and throwing or dropping them, if they were lucky, into the correct bin. Sometimes one of the guys would shout, "Hey, Bill -- this one says fragile," and Bill would make an attempt to catch that one as it came flying through the air.
Those bows don't stand a chance.
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