USPS - The Post Office

[Larry]

My mail service has been terrible for years but in the last year it has gotten even worse.

I live on a good private drive about a 1,000 feet from my mailbox at the road.  If I understand the rules correctly the mail carrier should bring packages to my house if they won't fit in my box.  Only happens about a fourth of the time.  I have found my packages in the ditch at the road.  Lately I have started to document how my packages are delivered.













I live on a fairly busy road so packages are in plain view. Doesn't matter if rain is forecast or not, they plop the box on top.

In the last couple of months its reached the intolerable point.  Two weeks ago I had a package with a tracking number.  It showed delivered to my front porch.  The mail carrier didn't come down my drive as I was outside close to the driveway all day.  Filed the lost package form and after about 5 days the post office local supervisor called and said my package had been lost.

Today another package with tracking showed delivered to my mailbox at 4:55PM.  I was there at 5:05 and no package.

I would get a post office box but the post office is in town 12 miles away. 

My post office has a phone but they don't answer it.  If I go to the post office and ask for a supervisor he/she are in a meeting.  I have filed lost package forms and complaint forms through the internet.  Always get a nice response but no resolution.

I know what the problem is, gross mismanagement at the top for years.  I can't fix that, but I would like to improve my mail service.  Maybe the solution is only to have packages delivered by UPS.  I've never had a problem with them or Fedex.

Think its time to start playing real hardball.  Maybe a facebook group, would 60 Minutes be interested?  A letter writing campaign to my Senators and Representatives?  I'm *pithed!  Open to suggestions.

[chet]

I'd comment on the USPS and also one of the drivers for UPS that services my area, but this thread would get an instant trip ta da restricted area.  :(

[Southside]

It's everywhere, they are horrible.  We get the same "service" here.  Had a shipment of live chicks put into a very cold room one time, A/C on blast, because "they were peeping and this made it stop" - well no kidding, they killed a pile of them.  Another time a local post master went and changed our address as a way to show more business in their sector so they could get more money.  It caused an issue with me voting, so I went a little ballistic and by the time it was all said and done I had some high up from DC standing at the end of my driveway - which is in the middle of no where - apologizing and telling me that things would be corrected right away - to his credit they were, but it never should have come to that.  

[Walnut Beast]

Larry raise enough heck and maybe you will have a big wheel at the end of your drive apologizing like SouthSide 😂😂

[thecfarm]

Probably the only way it will ever work, get a bigger mailbox.  :  ;D

[Ianab]

Probably the only way it will ever work, get a bigger mailbox.  :  ;D

Disclaimer. I have a part time job helping a friend with her Rural Mail run. While it's not perfect, NZ Post is run a a commercial company (although it's Govt owned). But they have competition, and the ability to adjust their business model as times change. Most of the local Post Offices are closed, with "Post Agents" in bookshops etc. A lot of the delivery folks are now independent contractors, and the Rural Delivery folks all are,  and free to deliver for both NZ post, and competing couriers. USPS / DHL / etc,  it all goes in the same van.
I'd also suggest a larger mailbox. Back in the day we had a "mail box" that would have made a decent dog kennel, about 3ft cube with a tin roof and a door.   Couple of our folks have an old fridge just inside their gate. Others have a box that barely fits a letter, then wonder why their parcels get a "card to collect". 

[47sawdust]

I think it is a matter of poor attitude on the part of the driver.We live on a dirt road and have the same mail carrier for 15 years.He is top notch. His substitute not so much.
 We have had terrible experiences with Fedex. Once again it is an attitude problem. In this instance it was the tone set by the manager of the local distribution center. I'm talking home delivery,Fedex freight is not a problem in my experience.
 UPS is usually pretty good.Christmas time both Fedex and UPS more or less toss the parcels in the snow bank at the end of our well maintained 1/2 mile drive. The driver's are under a lot pressure from there bosses to perform so in all fairness to them I am sympathetic.

[Don P]

We get the "card to collect" and go visit Dale down at the PO, great guy, no worries. UPS, Bubba knows everyone, he'll drop off stuff at the job if he's seen us there, or at a friends house who he knows I'll be seeing, or at the sawmill if I haven't been seen about. I finally realized these guys are all talking to one another so if I pass one I've been geo located and they know which driver has what and where you are. FedEx, I'm not sure they have ever really successfully delivered anything on the first try. Our driveway sucks, it even keeps the Jehovah's away. A little FedEx truck comes in one day, the driver is white knuckled and bug eyed. He's telling me our driveway is impassible for his rig, he had really taken his life into his hands to deliver. I'm standing beside the knuckleboom and a load of logs. I dunno, I guess a blimp dropped them off :D.

[WDH]

Nice to have your own blimp ;D. 

[Banjo picker]

I was having trouble with my primer bulb so I ordered a new one along with a new fuel pump, just to have on hand.  Ordered Aug 12.

Priority 2 day stamped Aug 12.    You would need to cut and past to see where all it went but it wouldn't all fit on one picture.

Post office was in possession Aug 12.   It then goes on a sight seeing tour.

Delivered to my mail box on Aug 24.   In good condition I might add for all the handling it got.  It must have liked Memphis as it went there twice.  Tim

[petefrom bearswamp]

All good here in the swamp as regards USPS

[Banjo picker]

Once it gets to Iuka all is good here as well,  but between point a and b anything is possible. I use to sell on eBay, I dreaded any time something went to the big Apple.  Tim

[dgdrls]

We're fortunate,  good service here by all the carriers,

Have to agree with
@thecfarm

D

[mike_belben]

Post office has been awful lately.  Lost a wedding gift i made for best bud with 2 day delivery and tracking. Have had letters take 3 weeks.  


Dont trust them with anything.

[Magicman]

Maybe the solution is only to have packages delivered by UPS.

Many packages that start off with UPS are passed off to USPS for final delivery.  

I have no problem with UPS nor USPS.  

[chet]

In defense of those institutions, most but not all problems I've had, have been with drivers. I think I live on da training route, 'cause a good driver gets transferred to a different route real quick.  :  This is especially true with UPS.

[Iwawoodwork]

We are not having any issues with the  post office deliveries on our rural route, however do have issues with some of the Fed Ex-UPS deliveries at different locations along our driveway. on a side note, here in Oregon we have been voting by  mail for about 20 years with great success.

[Nebraska]

I have a driveway that has a loop at the top so they can pull in and never put the car in reverse and back up. The local carriers  have said they are pretty much banned from ever backing up. My packages are usually sitting inside my garage entry door  or on the front porch. Sometimes they hand them off early if they see me at the office too. They still have to drive by the place to log the delivery. Route must be done as they are dictated. Fed ex and ups say the same.  I have to say we get taken care of pretty well, most of them have pets.

[Ron Wenrich]

My lane is about a half mile long.  Its off a main highway.  The post office gets my stuff back to the house whenever necessary with no problem.  If they can stuff it in the mailbox, they'll do that.  UPS has been pretty good.  My zip code makes only rural deliveries.  The town is by PO Box.

Fed-Ex is absolutely terrible.  They can't find our house.  I had something I bought that they were to deliver.  They said they delivered it.  It wasn't here, so I had the seller send another at their expense.  When Fed-Ex decided to actually deliver, there was 2 of them.  They have also botched another delivery in the past month.  They said it was delivered, then that it was delivered to another address, then it was lost.  Its still not resolved.  They don't like coming back my lane, I guess.  It slows them down.  Its to the point that if Fed-Ex is going to deliver it, I won't buy it.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Sorry for your bad experiences.

   Our carrier is a contractor for the post office. It is an HC route which means it is a Highway Contract Route. Our  carrier is a young lady name LuAnn and does a great job. If we are going to town and meet her before she gets to our box we stop and she digs through her box and hands us our mail while we talk about how her 101 y/o grandfather is doing. She ran over a rattlesnake on the route a few years back and brought it to me to skin it for her. That is how I met her grandfather when he killed one in his hay field about 29 years ago. No complaints about service on our route.

    I replaced our small mailbox with a big one many years back and very few packages we get through the mail will not fit in it.

    Our UPS drivers routinely pick up or drop off packages on my front porch. I'll get home and find a box of re-sharp bands or repair parts or my wife's photo supplies there waiting for us. No issues with them either.

[farmfromkansas]

Didn't realize what great service we get.  Once in a while the neighbors drop off a piece of mail that was delivered to their box, but not so bad.  Once in a while I just don't get a piece of mail because they dropped it off to the wrong box, of someone we don't know and they must just drop it in the trash. Have yet to miss getting a delivery of something we ordered.

[SunnyHillFarm]

We have great service from UPS and USPS. If it doesn't fit in the box it is brought down a 1/4 mile drive to the house. A little maple syrup as a gift at Christmas may have something to do with the good service. Fed Ex has a problem finding my house. Packages have been left at a nearby abandoned home at times. I find the service is directly related to the attitude of the driver.

[Tom the Sawyer]

A retired (but much younger) officer that used to work for me now lives in Arizona and he asked if I might have a small piece of walnut laying around... of course.  He has a friend who was making a knife for him and he wanted a walnut handle and about the only thing his friend had available was mesquite.  I looked around a bit  and sent him a box of handle-sized blanks from about 10 different, local to us, woods.  It was a 12x12x6 box, sent it by USPS to Arizona, well south of Tucson, arrived in 1.5 days.  

Some time later, my friend asked how I like the knife.  I said, "what knife".  He said that his friend appreciated all of the blanks and had sent me a camp knife as a thank you.  A week later he asked if I got it, nope.  The package was about 2x2x10", sent by USPS - 22 day delivery time.  I didn't have the tracking info but it was "First Class" and only moved an average of 53 miles a day.   ???

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

   So are you saying it is much faster to get out of Kansas than it is to get in? :D

[sawguy21]

I ordered something from California, it was shipped UPS to Canada Customs in Vancouver then Canada Post to my home. FOUR WEEKS!  I should have driven to LA to pick it up. Another package arrived from Boulder CO via Fedex in four days.