I was going to forget the entire thing until my roommate informed me that she used to work for the post office. She told me that it was free to change your address and could be done easily online. The words "free" and "do not have to stand in line at the post office" had a certain appeal. As a responsible adult who did not want any future Christmas and Birthday checks lost, I decided to take action.
I fired up my Toshiba laptop using the free WIFI at the library and logged onto the USPS website. It was a pretty straight forward process to fill out the forms which took about 3 minutes to complete. Everything went smoothly until the very end. After expending 3 minutes of precious time, the USPS wanted my credit card number. I assumed this was a way to verify my identity but I was mistaken. The dirty jackals that run the post office were demanding that I fork over $1 to change my address. After suppressing a wave of indignant rage, I looked at the fine print. If you filled out the form at a post office it was free, but to make the change online it would cost $1.
Now I was truly at a loss. Was I willing to pack up my computer. Get in my car. Drive to the nearest post office. Wait in line for an unknown length of time. Explain my situation to a postal worker. Fill out a form. Then possibly wait in line again for an unknown amount of time. All for one dollar?
You're Damn right I did.
It was 4pm on a Thursday in downtown Austin. It was grid lock traffic the minute I pulled out of they library. If you have never driven in Austin, try to avoid it between 3:30pm and 7pm if at all possible. My GPS told me that the closest post office was normally 20 minutes away, but because of road construction, it would take 45 minutes. Of course the place would be closing at 5pm.
As I entered the run down building with 15 minutes to spare, there was a short line. No problem, behind the counter there were 4 employees. Apparently they were all on break because no one was being helped. Eventually it was my turn. I was informed that the form I needed was on the back wall behind the line I had been uselessly waiting in. I opened the packet, filled out the post card and handed it to the clerk. Mission accomplished.
Economists would call my decision to forgo spending the $1 "irrational behavior" and "inefficient". I ended up spending much more than $1 in effort if you consider all the wasted time and stress induced by this process. So why did I do it anyways? I ended up expending more than $1 worth of opportunity costs. Primarily it was because I felt it was unjust. Its the principle of the thing, right?
A few weeks later I received a letter from the USPS. It said: Important information enclosed. I opened this letter and it was FULL OF ADVERTISEMENTS. There must have been 20 different adds, Which means the post office made a profit off my decision to change my address. They also enclosed a letter asking me to verify my new address. If the letter arrived in my mail box, why would I need to verify anything? Its about enough to give me heart burn.
Did I learn anything?
Sadly, No.
