Is the United States Postal Service just lazy?

When dropping off our daily mail run at a local Post Office, I was duly informed by the clerk that I had to change the window envelope style to a landscape stype with the window in the middle of the envelope. (Ours is portrait with the window near the top left of the envelope — pretty common.)

I asked her if this was something new that just started and if she had any flyers or literature that would address this issue. The conversation became quite interesting:

Clerk: “That requirement has been around for years, we use machines to read the address.”

Me: “So do you have any flyers that state that the way I’m doing it is wrong?”

Clerk: “No it’s just we prefer it the other way”

Me: “So you won’t accept my mail if it’s not dead center and landscape oriented?”

Clerk: “We just prefer it as it makes our job easier”

Me: “So what you are saying is since you don’t want to manually sort my mail I need to redo all my envelopes and receipts? If you give me something from the USPS that I have to change it I will but not for convenience sake that’s what I pay for.”

Clerk: “I don’t want to have this conversation anymore”

You can probably deduct my opinion, without me ranting.