Mimi’s Card Shop

I went in here looking for an express mail envelope for USPS. While not an actual post office, it’s one of those «approved postal providers,» so this post office is just in the corner of Mimi’s Card Shop. The rest of the shop sells a variety of cards to mail.
I wasn’t too familiar with sending things via express mail, and the only cardboard envelope I could find was too big for what I needed. Unsure if there were smaller sizes, I queued up in line to ask. There were two others in front of me, and the shop clerk seemed very friendly and kind to the both of them.
However, the instant she saw me, her smile turned into a scowl and she just glanced at me without acknowledging my presence. I’m not sure if she noticed me, so I asked if I could ask a question about express mail, to which she answered by giving a curt nod. I asked if she had any other express mail envelopes and she just replied «Flat rate.» I clarified by asking I wanted a smaller envelope and she just shook her head.
I had only wanted to ask a question about envelopes but she made me feel like a nuisance in her shop. I understand when people have bad days but given that she was so sweet to the other two people in front of me in line, I’m led to think she was rude to me just because I was a bit younger than the other two. Won’t be going back because of her attitude.

I have not used the post office services from Mimi’s, but I have stopped in the store to pick up stamps or a last minute card on my way home from the metro. The Rite Aide in the same building has an awful mix of birthday cards, so I am grateful for this little store.

It’s worth noting that I have full faith in the USPS. I have always had good experiences there and have always preferred them to FedEx and especially UPS. Mimi’s has a kind of satelite USPS in it — not the same thing as a full service post office but generally offers most of the same features and advertises itself as a post office. It’s super convenient to my apartment so I’ve been using it as my post office for the past year. No more.
My first bad experience occurred when it took an inordinately long amount of time for something I dropped off there to be delivered, to such an extent that I thought it was lost in the mail and contacted USPS directly for an intervention. It was finally delivered 2 weeks after I mailed it.
Since then I have always made a point of getting a tracking number from this location. Second bad experience, I go to drop off a package that’s barely a package — some earrings wrapped in bubble wrap inside of an envelope. I had always been charged $ 2 and change in the past for similar envelopes. I asked for delivery confirmation. The lady (same lady as usual) pulls out this sheet of cardboard with a slit in it and drops the envelope through to see if it will fit. It does. She then tells me that it’s almost $ 6 to ship. She explains to me in broken English that because it fits through the slit it’s first class mail and that I have to pay special charges because delivery confirmation is only for priority mail. And I said, «You mean to tell me that you’re charging me extra because my package is too SMALL? I could go home and re-​wrap this with extra paper or bubble wrap, bring it back, and you would charge me less.» Her response was to hand me my package back and tell me to go do it. Nice. Not worth it, so I paid the extra money. After my third bad experience, below, I went and dropped off 2 similar packages at an actual USPS location in Georgetown where I was charged $ 2 and change for each. The woman said that if it’s over 13 ounces then it has to be priority mail to receive tracking, but if it’s under 13 ounces then it’s the first class rate for that weight plus an additional 70 cents flat for delivery confirmation. So not only was the Mimis lady wrong, she insists on standing her very wrong ground in the face of, you know, LOGIC.
Third bad experience. I had one of those pre-​paid, flat fee priority mail boxes and dropped it off at Mimi’s. When I originally bought the box at Mimi’s, the lady told me priority mail is delivered within 2 to 3 days. It had delivery confirmation. She didn’t scan it into her system at all, which I found disconcerting. I asked the lady if she was supposed to scan it and she said no, that it would be scanned when it was picked up. I called USPS, now wary after bad experience number 1, and was told that it doesn’t necessarily have to be scanned at drop-​off. Fine. This was on Monday. It’s now Sunday — 6 days later. I just inputted my tracking number, expecting my package to have been delivered already because
indicates priority mail is delivered within 2 days in most cases and it’s only being sent to a residence in Colorado. What does it tell me? The package wasn’t even processed until Friday — in Virginia. Not only had my package not been delivered within 2 days; It hadn’t even left my home state within 2 days! Furthermore, Mimi’s obviously has a history of packages not being delivered on time so the lady there had no right to tell me that it would be 2 to 3 day delivery. If, because it’s not a standard post office, things don’t get picked up and processed as frequently that’s fine, but that’s something that needs to be disclosed.
Safe to say, I am no longer giving this place my business. I went out of my way to go to a less convenient location yesterday in order to avoid it. In fact, I think I might call USPS to make a formal complaint.
UPDATE: That pre-​paid priority box (full of hand-​knitted baby gifts I spent hours and hours on) that I dropped up July 25? It’s August 7 and according to my delivery confirmation number it hasn’t been delivered. It looks like they tried to deliver it in Arlington… where I live, so maybe I messed up the label — which begs the question: why did the Mimi’s lady accept the box in the first place? Obviously the Colorado address belonged in the «to» section. The last date in the delivery confirmation notes was on August 1, too, so my package has been lost in a quagmire for the last week, apparently.
UPDATE 2: Box from update 1 was eventually delivered to Colorado. Or, rather, return to sendered in Colorado. Meanwhile I recently dropped off another package at a real USPS asking for delivery confirmation and they pulled the same extra charge for priority mail crap because it was too thin. But USPS lady explained that that only matters if it’s under ¾ of an inch thick. The packages I dropped off at Mimi’s were way thicker than ¾ inch, so she was still wrong.