USPS - The Post Office

[SwampDonkey]

Service has always been great here and it don't get more rural than here. I use a community box, if the parcel is too big via Canada Post they bring it up the road or leave a card to go to post office to pick up. UPS has been good to, except I have to tell the driver sometimes in winter not to attempt to drive to the end of the road and over the hill to the next paved road because it ain't plowed. Nope, you got to go back down the road and make a left at every intersection to get to the Mars Hill Road (Canada side). That will be 4 lefts. Simple. ;D

[DbltreeBelgians]

UPS freight delivery last Thursday August 27th. Order was placed August 12th. Cooks got it right out. Sat in Columbus Ohio, then Toledo Ohio and I finally received it. 8)



 

Apparently the do not double stack doesn't mean anything.


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I think everything is ok. I wasn't home to inspect so my wife took "Bob" out with the forks attached to haul it up the lane from the road to my shop. I gave her instructions to inspect it before she signs for anything.
She said the UPS driver was great and said he'd take it if I didn't want it.
I imagine he would!!

Brent

[Al_Smith]

I've shipped and received packages all over the world .USPS from Ohio to Florida or the west coast is about 3 days.Australia is 4 to 5 .Ont Canada is upwards of two weeks to go 200 miles .There are a lot of differences all over the world but the USPS is the best .
BTW I get what few scripts I need from Canada ordered from India .They ship it through Sweden for some reason and it takes about 1 month from the time I order  them .I've been told the hold up is because of this world wide health thing we are experiencing .Not a big deal because I have about 1 years worth ahead .

[GRANITEstateMP]

worst drivers/deliverys  we have seen has been the brandy new Amazon delivery service.  I can't type the words I want to use to describe them. They will pull into a driveway and then just back on our without looking, even if your driving by in a loaded 10 wheeler!  They have stickers, or magnets with there names and can or route number on them. I enjoy watching them be in the Amazon can one week, see it pick up some dents, then they are in a Budget or Uhaul the next week...

Nice fella came down my drive last Sat.  He tried backing up and turning around 6 times before I could get there and "help" him back up. When I got him turned around and he was driving away that's when I noticed the dag-gum thing had a back-up camera ,

Delivery time on my in stock book via Amazon prime was around 10 days :(

[WDH]

We do not mail checks in the mail anymore for payment of bills.  Too many issues with checks never showing up. 

[Southside]

Oh those new Amazon drivers are a breed of their own. Already had to pull one out when he just kept on driving, past the well marked delivery box, past the house, past the mill building and then the milk house, 100' greenhouse, pretty much right into a pasture.  I think he would have headed into the woods if the mud didn't stop him. 

[sawguy21]

We do not mail checks in the mail anymore for payment of bills.  Too many issues with checks never showing up.

What's a check? I haven't written one for so long I have forgotten how. :D I don't think my bank issues them anymore.

[Sixacresand]

If a mail package doesn't fit in my large mail box, the mail lady usually comes to the house, which I think is great. But for all the home delivery people, if I don't meet you in the driveway,  please don't leave my packages (re-sharps) outside where they will get rained on or leave them where a dog can shred it, especially stuff like my mail order pills. 

I should put up a sign to put them inside the car or truck.  

[pigman]

Where I used to live for 40 years, the mail service was excelent. My house was one mile off the county road, so I had a large box that most packages  would fit. Large packages would be put in a plastic bag behind wooden fence. I moved to the other part of the county eight years ago and the mail service is terrible.  My house is 75 ft from county road. I have found packages in the ditch and if she brings them to the house, they are placed in front of the garage instead of putting them on the front porch out of the rain. I don't complain because the service could get worse. My brother complained a few years ago and he didn't get any mail for a week including his milk check.

[dgdrls]

Be careful who you start complaining to
Junk Mail - Seinfeld - YouTube

[SwampDonkey]

I still pay by cheque for some, my health insurance don't except online payment and my life insurance just started. But I have mail cheques for years, always arrived on the other end. But dad's sister mailed a hearing aid from her place in southern NB and was to arrive at dad's. Never did see it. And you know what they cost. Now everything is tracked. 15 years ago you could go to the post office and the only thing modern was the scales. Register would be from the 70's, around the time when the first calculators came out. And rural tracking is only since Amazon came on the scene, they only tracked between the big hubs, once it hit NB it was anywhere you wanted to guess. I've seen packages come from Ontario overnight and sit in Dieppe, N.B. 3 days. :D

Always liked Wilford Brimley characters, such a great actor. :D

[Tacotodd]

My wife is a rural route carrier for USPS (an employee of) and our carrier I've known since 94'. We used to work together before that other company went belly up. Because of our common interests and connections between us three, I have good service from the USPS. FEDEX, UPS, Amazon and other private shippers (whatever they may be) not so much. But my USPS carrier, TOP NOTCH. Her name is Dorothy but goes by Dot. I only wish that everyone could get as good service as she gives.

[Banjo picker]

We had a mail lady named Dorothy that was great, but she retired.  Don't know the name of the new one.  We have one of the big mail boxes, and she throws the mail all the way to the back.  But like pigman I am afraid if I complain things will get worse.  Tim

[Al_Smith]

 i was very surprised today .One of my flea bay  purchases was delivered today by Fedex and it's Sunday.It was  not that big of a deal just a power cord for a Milwaukee drill . I have a lot of power tools by that company and another day or two would not make that that much difference .That said I like to keep all of my power tools up to snuff so to speak .Just the way I am .Too old to change my ways .   

[Brad_bb]

UPS has lost a package coming to me  last week.  Driver notes said it was picked up by me at an access point.  But that access point (ups store) has no record of the tracking number.  Their website wouldn't work to file a claim.   

Last week tuesday morning I sent a check to Wisconsin.  4 business days(not including Tuesday) and a weekend later and still no check/letter there.... 

[Old saw fixer]

We do not mail checks in the mail anymore for payment of bills.  Too many issues with checks never showing up.

What's a check? I haven't written one for so long I have forgotten how. :D I don't think my bank issues them anymore.

I remember going into the bank and each teller window had a pad of counter checks...

[Al_Smith]

I'm pretty much old school and I write checks ,some times called cheques by some .Stick it in a envelope with a postage stamp and send it off .
I guess I'm so far out of the loop I'm not certain how you would pay off a credit card balance if you didn't use a check .Debit card maybe which I do not nor ever will use .
What I find concerning is the fact everything I supposedly own is nothing but a file on a computer some place .It just doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling so to speak .Couple that factor of your very existence  that you even are who you say you are is a computer file .Makes me wonder will it ever end .

[WV Sawmiller]

   I was the office manager for a project in Norway for a couple of years in 2007-2008 and had the only bank account for the project. I never saw a check used over there anywhere. I paid all the project bills by cash, credit card or, mostly, on line. If somebody on the team had a parking ticket to pay or needed to reserve a ski lodge for the weekend they'd bring me the bill and the cash and I'd pay it on line and put the cash in the petty cash box.

   It worked fine for us but it drove the auditors crazy when they came over and checked my books because they were used to seeing dual signature checks used for everything. They also did not like me paying personal team expenses out of the same petty cash account even though I had separate books clearly showing billable and non-billable expenses. My thoughts, which I sold to the project manager, were it was more cost effective for the guys to spend 5 minutes in the office with me rather than having to leave the project in a company vehicle, which was all we had, a couple hours during working hours to go to the bank which was the only other alternative in most cases to pay such things. The auditors spent too much time in an office instead of trying to run a project anyway IMHO.

[sawguy21]

@Al_Smith If you bank online you can enter the credit card number on your account as a payee. You can set it up to to automatically pay the balance or manually enter an amount of your choosing. It works well for me, I check the acccount balance at least once a month for unauthorized transactions which the bank will reverse if notified in time. It has happened to me, the bank takes the hit.

[Al_Smith]

I'm not ready for this"brave new world " ..my goodness not only everything with a computer but now this so called digital currency .Sounds like a suckers game to me .
Whatever happened to gold,silver ,furs , whiskey .At one time a big round rock with a hole in it  in the Pacific islands would buy a wife which would really be a suckers game except if it had a no reason return policy like Lowes on power tools .
Having an attempt at humor in my retirement all my funds are by wire transfer .I get a statement once a month which is fine .Also all my private holdings are listed monthly .Now whatever I did with the milk cans buried in the woods full of money  I'm not certain of,misplaced the metal detector . 

[Old Greenhorn]

Old Thread, new gripe. HOLY COW I have never seen such a cluster flock as what the USPS has become now!
 Check this out. I ordered a simple digital thermometer with 3 remotes to monitor my shop, kiln, and trailer temps from the house. It was shipped USPS on 6/17, sat at the local town in NJ for about 3 days. That's 118 miles south of me. Then it showed up at a distribution/sorting center in MA, about 70 miles NE (past) me. Then it goes to Newburgh, NY, about 35 miles SE of me (again, going right past on the thruway). Next it shows up back north in my local sorting facility (Saturday, 6am) about 12 miles east of me. I figure it will be here Monday, but no. It sat there until last night at midnight, when they shipped it to....wait for it........ Flushing NY, about 95 miles south of me.... or about 15 miles from where it started.... 8 days ago!
 SO this little package has traveled over 425 miles in a week+ just to get back to where it started. It still has 100+ more miles to reach me, if it comes straight here and not through, oh, I don't know, maybe Ohio or perhaps NJ again?
 This is ridiculous, and they say this new system they put in a few years back is supposed to be saving them money. Sorry, I am not seeing it. I wonder what percentage of every load they have on the highways are covering redundant and unnecessary miles? Maybe 50%?
ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!

[Old Greenhorn]

Just by contrast, and maybe this is partly why I am SO tweaked, I ordered cat Food, Litter, and some meds from Chewy YESTERDAY AFTERNOON. It showed up today. I hate to rant like this but geez, what else can you do sometimes?

[SwampDonkey]

Well, I,m typing from my playstation 4 because Wifi went out on the laptop. I tried to order by phone at staples, which can be done. Trouble was their headsets don't work. As soon as they talk it goes to noise. The first time I called, we got to the point where she was entering my mailing address, but the address fields weren't  coming up for her to fill in,she said. She put me on hold so she could check if the site was working. After 10 minutes of music I figured she flicked me off like a booger. Second time I called, same thing with her headset. I said I can't hear anything but noise. She hung up. The closest store doesn't do phone orders but I can go in and use a computer to order. So I will order thursday on my way to the docs clinic. Lord love us.

[Southside]

I ordered a couple of chicken deboning cones from Australia earlier this month.  They shipped them through their postal service and they were at US Customs in maybe three days.  They clear customs and enter the local USPS system, of course things go to a crawl.  Well finally they are out for delivery last Tuesday.  The delivery lady pulls into the driveway because 1) it won't fit in the box and we have a package shipping and receiving area and 2) it needs a signature.  So the good for nothing, lazy, over paid, USPS employee who delivers our mail drives up to the shipping and receiving area and blows her horn.  Can't get her 40 overweight lbs out of the car, blows the horn.  There are 6 employees working 100 yards away and one starts to walk towards her, gets within 30 yards and she drives off after looking at him, then proceeds to drop a "signature required" slip in the regular box.  So we call the local PO which is only open from 2:45 - 4:45 Monday through Friday and the girl there tells me the package isn't there.  Guess what the next day was - a Federal holiday - June 19th - so no Post Office, no delivery, etc.  I call the distribution Post Office on Thursday and speak with the Post Master to ask him where my package is and what that was all about, thinking he would want to know of how amazing their customer service is.  The dude tells me, he was also in the car, also saw my employee heading her way, and told me that he told her the employee was heading her way, he was doing her evaluation!!!  I kinda lost it at that point.  I mean to do this is bad enough, to do it when your boss is there, and is conducting your evaluation just shows nobody there cares at all.  So I filed a complaint with the Post Masters boss, of course nothing will come out of it, and I had to wait until 2:45 that day to get the cones that we needed 3 days earlier.  Well when I go to the local PO guess who was there conducing yet another evaluation - yup the Post Master, he didn't say a single word the whole time I was there, just passed over my package.  Yea - that whole system needs to be flushed out, fire each and every one of them, no pension, no nothing - get out and start over.  

[Nebraska]

I am thankful it's not like that here. (Yet) we take care of the mail carriers animals, several other post office employees too, We get taken pretty good care of.