US Postal Service

[Sportster]

. . .

 

[Katleya]

I think it's becoming fairly common in many parts of the world: local postal service wants to save money by laying off staff and using a carrier instead, quality and work ethics go down, mail gets lost/stolen/you name it, bit local post service will never put the money again into the service. All for their profit, because the end user certainly doesn't benefit from what the postal services are saving, it ends up costing us more in time, energy, tracking of mail or parcels, etc.

 

[tree]

There has been only one troubled fellow working on this route.
He was a recent vet with PTSD.
He was pretty touchy.
He threw things. Including somebody's mailbox.
He decided delivering mail/packages wasn't his line.

Everybody else on this route is ok.
Miss Sue, Miss Chris, Mr. Jim.....they are all ok.

They are timed on their routes the same way WalMart checkers are.
They try hard and I have no complaints about the mail carriers on
this route.

 

[Benjamin Dover]

It's not a great service for me. Most of it is junk sent by The Koch Brothers, and I'm convinced that this might be the one and only reason why we still have the USPS.

 

[Lula1989]

If you think about how terrible that whole organization is, they are all probably miserable. Working conditions are terrible. We have postal men/women that are working from 6AM-8PM.. sad

 

[Lula1989]

Yep, they work all week long now. All day long too. On the Friday after Thanksgiving they were supposed to deliver 3 packages to my work. Instead of even trying to see if we were open, which we told them the week of that we would be, they marked us as undeliverable at 2AM... obviously they were still at the warehouse and didn't care to put on the truck since it was marked as a business

 

[fairy_girl]

My mail carrier is great, no issues. My main grip is with the UPS and FedEX, they never ring the doorbell at all or they hide them too well where I can't even see them at all.

 

[Ambi]

Today I saw something on the news about President Trump expressing his views of the US Postal Service. Considering my experiences with them over the past month, I'm inclined to agree. If there was an alternative for sending snail-mail, I would use it. Allow me to elaborate.

We have a new carrier on our street. The yutz left a parcel on my steps along with the loose mail. Besides exposing my parcel to the elements, my loose mail ended up out in the yard; I haven't a clue if any of it ended up gone with the wind.

I called the Post Office and was told, "Oh, we'll speak to the carrier." Yeah, a lot of good that did. He also flies down the street and throws the mail into the box without ensuring the door is closed, so the mail falls out. I have found pieces of mail in the gutter next to the box. I had a piece of mail that had tire tracks on it. I don't know if a good Samaritan put the mail in the box or if the carrier saw it fall out, backed up, and ran it over before putting it in the box.

Thus far I have lodged four complaints about the guy, which includes completing two customer service surveys. I'd like to see the guy reassigned and our previous carrier returned, because she was very conscientious about her job. This guy acts as though he doesn't want to be doing it and is in a hurry.

Anyone else have a problem with their mail carrier?

That's terrible! If you can get a video of him doing that on your cell phone maybe that would help. That's really ridiculous.

 

[Ambi]

My mail carrier is great, no issues. My main grip is with the UPS and FedEX, they never ring the doorbell at all or they hide them too well where I can't even see them at all.

Twice I have had UPS update their tracking system to claim that my package was delivered, but they didn't deliver the package until a day or two later.

 

[SusanLR]

Same problem here.
Packages are delivered to porch with mail piled on top outside and they don't even ring the bell.
And they don't shut the mailbox door half the time.

There have been several changes in carriers.
Some are good, some don't care.

 

[Ambi]

Same problem here.
Packages are delivered to porch with mail piled on top outside and they don't even ring the bell.
And they don't shut the mailbox door half the time.

There have been several changes in carriers.
Some are good, some don't care.

Same here. AND the mail carrier wouldn't come close enough to the door to lay the packages down - he literally threw each package at the door. Luckily nothing broke. That made me so uncomfortable that I would try to actually hide from that him when walking the dog, and I'd wait long enough after I heard the thuds for him to drive away before opening the door.

 

[Nitro]

I am very satisfied with the job the USPS does in my area.Their tracking is unmatched and my home delivery is to my personal mailbox in a very timely manner.
Larger packages are delivered to my doorstep with care and thought.
My carriers are both friendly and professional IMHO.
Now get this part,one of them tosses dog treats from her vehicle to any dogs that are outside of the area homes.

UPS,fair,but restrictive. Mostly delivered later in the day.
I love to rib my rural carriers about the company policy of avoiding left turns in traffic

FedEx on time,maybe.
I'm still waiting for Tom Hanks to deliver a package of mine lost on that island

DHL has some of the worst logistics I have ever experienced.
Packages delivered from New Jersey are sent two hundred miles west of me,or roughly three times as far away as they would have to travel had they been shipped directly to me.

The best part is after they get to Columbus Ohio by air travel,they are handed off to the USPS to finish their way to their final destination.
Understanding how they actually make any money and why some choose to ship with them is something beyond my comprehension.

 

[pjcnet]

In the UK the Post Office was a monopoly for sending normal letters, then quite a few years ago the government controversially allowed free competition meaning that private companies could also compete by offering their own letter sending services. People thought it could destroy the Post Office and we'd see different post boxes next to each-other on the streets with different competing companies wanting to send our letters, but it didn't happen, you can use other services if you really want to and there are drop off locations (there's no alternative street level post boxes or stamps however), but they're mainly used as parcel courier services as they were before and they're very expensive compared to the Post Office just to send a small letter so they're barely ever used for that purpose. Also the UK Post Office is far from perfect, but when I've used other courier services for parcel deliveries to my address I've more often had issues than with Post Office parcel deliveries, for instance I had an Amazon parcel left at the wrong address just before Christmas with someone I didn't even know even though I was in all day because they said they couldn't find us. I've had other couriers say I wasn't in when I was in all day without a card being posted through the letter box proving they never turned up at all. The cheaper private courier services that many companies use often seem to be the worst, the more expensive, but well known established companies like UPS or FedEx for instance can be better, but the Post Office still provides a competitive service at a reasonable price. The customer service you receive when trying to contact a cheaper courier service about an issue is normally terrible, often you struggle to even talk to a real person on the phone for instance, let alone get the issue dealt with and it can make you want to hit your head against the wall.

In other words things might not change too much if Trump introduces competition and people may realise that the current US Postal Service wasn't as bad as they first thought when they start testing the competition, it could however kick the US Postal Service into improving when they realise they have to compete.

 

[Butterfly88]

I haven't had problems with my mail carrier. Any delivery service is going to have some problems, whether it be private or government owned. I've seen people complain about UPS too. Do you have a link to what Trump said?

 

[WildCat]

I haven't had any major problems with USPS or even UPS. I don't know too much about what goes on behind the scenes, but I'm willing to bet carriers like them are under pressure on the daily with millions of packages to sort through and only so many people handling the task.

Something unfortunate is always bound to happen to someone from time to time, assuming the employees aren't soulless robots. Mistakes here and there, but that's just human nature isn't it?

 

[Judge]

One thing for sure, next year's ever-expanding peak retail season should be quite interesting relative to how the USPS performs against their private sector counterparts. While the USPS systematically drones, "Raise the price of stamps", next year they'll be competing against private sector shippers who will be anticipating a 40% reduction of corporate income taxes.

Where most of them will have the investment capital if they choose, to pay for not only more personnel, but more aircraft and more trucks if they choose in a market that you either aggressively pursue or simply walk away from. Certainly there is focus on pacifying/rewarding shareholders, but this market is simply too lucrative for them to ignore when it comes to excess capital.

With dramatically increased online sales coupled with tax reductions, next year as likely to set yet another record for retail sales which obviously translates into even greater distribution and shipping concerns and demands as has this year has.

Which eventually could put the USPS into an increasingly awkward position in the marketplace, not only relative to shipping and distribution of packages, but perhaps even mainstream mail. I'm not saying this is absolutely going to happen, but that it could happen.