The Mighty Mailroom. You have been formally introduced to the mighty mailroom.

We had a good run; you have been sending books for how many months and no problems, and all of a sudden BOP!

While B.O.P. may be the initials for Bureau of Prisons, a few of us here have come to realize the only way to describe why some things happen around here is to simply say BOP! If it is a really boneheaded, stone-cold fucking idiot type of occurrence, it is a BOP.

Now, your books were not rejected by the official paperwork route, since when that occurs, we would each get an official form with the official reason for rejection. So, since we have not been told the official reason, and thus been able to argue the point, we are forced to surmise what happened.

The lack of a "Reading Material" label could be enough for them to return to sender and not have to fill out any paperwork. The problem with this is if the package is a bomb or some other type of "bad" mail, and you actually labeled it "Reading Material", would they open it?

This seems to have been my week to get BOP’ed by the mailroom. Dad also ordered me a music book to be sent direct from the publisher, and it seems it may have been returned, since when I got his letter today, he said I should have received the music.

Now, since he ordered it direct and the mailroom may have refused it without telling me, is the company probably sitting with this package of something ordered but refused?

Confusing is just the tip of the iceberg.

I told Dad to have the book sent to him and then make sure it does not have spiral bindings, which he would need to remove and then send me only loose pages.

Well, ours is not to question, so let us be sure to have the words "Authorized Reading Material" and "Paperback Books" clearly labeled on each package. Next, let us just use eight to ten as the maximum number of books if there are some thinner books included, and less if they are all 500-pages plus.

Yes, this seems to be a waste of postage, but the return to sender and reship is costly too!

As far as the packaging, it has not been a problem so far. I usually get the part of the wrapper with my address and sometimes the return address. Boxing the books is unnecessary and should actually be avoided.

So I know doing nice things for me can be fraught with unforeseeable problems, but keep the faith, do not give up, and know as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, that you will be BOP’ed again when you least expect it.

  ¶ 8:22 AM