Post Office Confusion

For lack of a better place, I'll post this here. So has anyone else noticed odd trends with the post office in shipping coins?

Here's a few zingers I've seen in the last few months:

Coins I ship back east from California often take 2+ weeks to arrive. JBuck--have you ever received your contest prize?

However, the same package I send to Canada will often take less time--and always for less postage! Now I'm advised that after May 12, postage to Canada will roughly double.

The self-service kiosk is confusing and often calculates the wrong rate from lack of shipping parameters. I say this because packages have been returned with "postage due"

At the desk, I've had to correct clerks on postage--either charging too much or too little.

All the rates have been removed from signage at the post office, which makes it impossible to confirm the rates clerks quote you.

Today, a clerk actually charged me more on a bubble mailer because it was "too thin". However, just the other day...they charged me an extra 0.50 because it was 1/8" "too thick". The differences have been negligible.

Yep, this is a rant. What an opaque, byzantine process! Not the way I would run a business, and if this continues it does not bode well for shipping coins to other collectors.