Does this package weigh 0.98 lb or 1.02 lb?

[bitsofsiliconvalley]

It's not a common occurrence but it's a recurring one: a package weighs in so close to a boundary between rates that I have to wonder whether it's really over the limit... or whether a slightly miscalibrated USPS scale will make the package handlers think it's over.

I don't have a specific question here. I wonder what your experiences have been, and how you deal with the problem.

I sometimes note the weight of a package that's close to a limit, and re-weigh it at the post office for comparison. The idea is to collect the information required to calculate a package's "real" weight from my measured weight. But I use two different scales and mail at two different post offices, so there are four possibilities to account for, and I've never gotten it together enough to prepare tables of weights.

[bitsofsiliconvalley]

swappart, I'm not sure I understand that. Your link just displays my "ready to ship" page or something like it, so it isn't informative.

I looked up the USPS description of the SCAN form and got a pretty good idea what it is, but the description didn't mention "weigh" or "weight" at all. Are you saying that if I submit this form, USPS will take my word for what a package weighs? For example, if it weighs 2 lb 3 oz and I say it weighs 1 lb 15 oz, they'll let it go through? (Not that I'd do that; I'm proposing it to show why the assertion seems unlikely to me.)

Actually this is moot for me, because the SCAN form procedure assumes that I will give my packages to a person. I normally put my packages in a post office's drop box on my way to work, long before the start of business. To give them to a person I'd have to make a special trip to the post office in the middle of the day, stand in line, and hike a block to my workplace on my return, because the parking space I originally had would be gone.

I do that every week or two when the drop box fills up and won't open. I roundly curse the USPS every time, because it adds about 45 minutes to my working day. But even then I don't stand in line. Why add more delay on top of the delay they've imposed on me?