I have never had an experience quite like this at a USPS. I waited to write this review so that I could to go to another post office and confirm the arbitrary issues the postal worker was creating were indeed him not knowing how to do his job. I wouldn't have given this place a single star but the three stars are partially in the hope that he will learn and partially because i didn't know which forms to fill out and naively thought the workers would be more helpful than they were.
I went into the Beacon St. post office four days ago on Monday to mail a package to Canada. I admittedly do not have any experience mailing international packages and did not know what to fill out so I assumed that the postal worker would tell me as they have in the past at other post offices for domestic packages.
Got a box off the wall to purchase. Glad they have the stickers on the box itself now to secure the package without having to purchase more tape. I packed it up, wrote the address and just didn't tape the top yet. One of the workers was watching me the entire time but waited until it was my turn to tell me "no no go back, the box has to be fully taped and ready by the time you get to the front." But still nothing about a form.
Fully taped up the box, back in line. This time I got the other postal worker. He curtly tells me, you have to fill out the customs declaration form "go back, no no, everybody has to go back in line." I said sure, went back, filled out the form and got back in line. I left the weight blank because I did not know how much it weighs and thought the postal worker would weigh the package. He weighs it and tells me 1 lb 3 oz, which I wrote down. And then he says you wrote that there's three items in the box so write the weight of each item and it has to equal 1 lb 3 oz. I thought that was a bit strange as not everyone comes in knowing how much each item in their package weighs, especially since they expect you to have it all taped up by the time you get to the counter but Okie dokie. Back to the counter. I figured since it was not possible to weigh each item at that point i would just divide the total number of ounces by 3.
I know 1 LB = 16 ozs, so it's 19 ozs total, and 19/3 = 6.3 ozs. I mean that was more math than I was expecting to do to mail a simple package but I did it. Anyway I wrote down 6.3 ounces per item and 1 Lb 3 Ozs for the total and got back in line. At this point I have been back in line a number of times and I am running late to pick up my kiddo from school. When it's my turn, the worker again tells me the computer is not letting him enter 6.3 for each item to make it total 1 lb 3 ozs so go back in line and figure it out again. Now I had a sense that he was entering it wrong but he was starting to yell at me "I'm just doing my job, you go back and figure it out, you people don't come back and tell me if customs sends the package back!" And so on and so forth.
At this point I was ready to give up on customer service and call it a day because I was running late to pick up my son from school. So I told him "you know what you don't have to be rude, I am out of time now so I will have to go to another post office to figure it out. Goodbye." He shrugs and I leave. I got into my car and he comes out and bangs on my window "you have to pay for the box." I was really running late at this point so I gave him cash and explained I really have to go. He yelled "no you have to come back in, i have to ring up THIS box."
So once again, I went back in stood in line for the fourth time paid for the box and ultimately wasted 40 minutes because the package did not get mailed. Today I went to the little post office on Lincoln st. and, as I suspected, the worker there confirmed that I did not have to write the weight of each item, it was enough to just write the total and list the items.
TL;DR: do not go here to mail things if you think you might have any questions because the workers at the beacon st. P.O. will not help and will likely make it harder for you. read more