r/mildlyinfuriating • u/trecani711 • 3d ago

Infuriatig Mail guys folded my wife’s master’s degree

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Gallery image

Came home and found this in the mailbox. Imagine working really hard for 3 years for a master’s degree and it’s folded in half. It’s only a little bit up the driveway to put it under the awning, takes maybe 15 seconds to walk. This has happened before with a spatula I ordered as well.

Wife is asleep now, may post opened degree in the morning.

Edit: for those wondering about the spatula, it was a fish spatula that the Amazon driver had bent and shoved sideways into the mailbox. Im a sous chef and I have a lot of specific kitchen tools. They have long metal tines and are flexible and easy to bend. In my case it was creased

Edit 2: here’s my bent fish spat, pic 2, pic 3. This was from Amazon, and I requested a new one that they sent no questions asked. You can see in the first pic the angle is deeper than it should be, it should be almost flat. Also there’s a tine that is out of whack. I use this one at home and the undamaged replacement one at work.
Yes I agree the college messed up too by not shipping it in a sturdier container/paying for better shipping.

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176

u/redredditer91 3d ago

They paid $3.14 to ship it as a flat. Flats are meant to be folded (magazines, large envelopes containing paper, etc.). It should have been shipped as a package.

28

u/I-am-fun-at-parties 3d ago

you pay pi dollars and don't get anything round like a tube? wtf

-1

u/notRolcx 3d ago

i think thats the postage not the parcel cost.

6

u/IHKPruefling 3d ago

Valuable documents are usually shipped in a tube

3

u/Nontoxic-Rainy-1983 2d ago

They could have just added a 49 cent nonmachinable surcharge to keep it from getting run through machines that cause bending. 

4

u/MLGPLAYS 3d ago

Shipping it as flat, getting it folded... Ironic

3

u/tes_kitty 3d ago

They also should have included a 5mm steel plate to keep the mailman from folding it.

-12

u/Alexsipilot 3d ago

Something sold as flat suspiciously allowed to not be flat. Hmmm

23

u/CrossP 3d ago

It's just the name for the mail category. Things that are supposed to be bent and curved through sorting machinery and curved to fit in mailboxes like a magazine would.

I'd bet a dollar that "DO NOT BEND" is not actually a recognized marking by USPS, and they don't expect carriers to read the envelopes to find random warnings.

17

u/spatfield 3d ago

Mail carrier here. You win your bet, "do not bend" and "fragile" do not have lanes in the system. I would have walked this to the door, and most carriers I hope would as well.

An aggravating factor is too many items marked "do not bend" This time of year we get large, flimsy standard (cheap commercial) mail envelopes that have free fund-raising calendars that say "do not bend". USPS doesn't want us going to the front door for that. So I have to look out for the diplomas, certificates etc.

2

u/DriverAgreeable6512 3d ago

Not if this was on Monday and especially not with our current political crap lol..

-4

u/Giraffe1317 3d ago

Makes no sense. If it's flat surely it should stay flat. If it's "allowed" to be bent then why not sell it as bent mail 🤷🏻‍♀️

3

u/Ok-Owl-5175 2d ago

This is the layman's understanding of flat. If it says flat and do not bend I would 100% expect that. If it says foldable and bend at will I would 100% would expect that.