I won’t bore you with all the stories of ballot “deliveries” as you probably know them or can find about faster. Those are just the last straw on my endless frustration with postal bureaucratic stupidity.
I got a mailbox at a somewhat near mail facility in order to get mail and packages without actually having to share my real address. The process was mostly done online and the problem started at the office when I was told that nobody but me could get mail in that box. Since I am married and it would be a tragical mistake not to do so, I explained that I needed to add my wife to the box in case she wanted to use it. I was demanded proof that she lived with me, basically asking that she would come personally to show her ID. I retorted that me, as the renter of the box, was willing to grant permission to my wife and I was the one providing the name, so there was little chance of “fraud.” And to assuage his fears, I produced our car insurance card which has both our names at the same address. The Postal Minion was unconvinced, but I was more ornery so the supervisor was called and my request was granted. Even though I was a bit pissed about the ordeal, I left feeling good about the fact that our mailbox would only receive mail for me or the missus.
Guess what? We are getting mail for everybody else that uses out box number. I was dutiful and informed them that I was getting mail not mine in the box and even went to the expense of getting a RETURN TO SENDER stamp and decorate the crap out of the mail just to have it put back in my box again.
I actually logged a formal complain with the USPS who got me a formal interview with the facility supervisor to address the issue. He was polite and promised he would take care of it. And of course, I am still getting the effing envelopes.
The last one was a simple light envelope with an American flag on it. I caught a good discount and ordered it almost a month ago.
And I waited…and waited and checked the tracking and apparently a black postal hole was created in NJ:
It took the envelope 2 weeks to go from the Garden State to the Gunshine State. And then finally delivered 2 days later.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Pony Express on frigging horseback did not take this long. In fact, it could have made the trip back and forth NY to SF three times in the same amount of time in 1861 that it took my flag to make it one way in the 21st Century and with modern vehicles and flying machines.
160 years later, the USPS can’t beat delivery on horseback. So, other than fucking around with mail-in ballots, why are they needed for?
To provide graft to politicians, of course.
I probably have 20 stories like this on my blog where the PO has just royally messed up. A few have cost me customers as they didn’t deliver what they promised. An EDDM mailing is supposed to go right from the counter to the mail carriers route, no processing, no need to bundle or bin ( you already do that as the customer), and they promise next day delivery on those. I always tell my customers two days. I have had them take up to 5 days to get out. That doesn’t work when you have a 7 day sale and you trying to time the mailer to arrive a day or two before it starts. People getting it when the sale half over? Results in a customer blaming ME for their incompetence and demanding money back. While I HAVE found a few people in the system that know what they are doing and provide good service, they are few and far between.
The goddamn USPS has been a “trigger word” for me this year. Some of my exploits in 2020:
– Parents sent a package for the wee one from central IL to north Alabama. Instead of taking a 3 days as promised, it took a week and a half because the dummies in Champaign, IL thought the box would like to see Billings, MT before going to Birmingham, AL.
– My car payment was sent out on 12/15 from North AL to Memphis (yes, I mailed it because the lien holder charges a $15 “convenience fee” to make online payments . . . in 20-fucking-20). As of this writing, my check has not been processed.
– A mishap occurred at the house and a contractor’s insurance company had to cut us a check for damages/repairs. The check was mailed from Birmingham on 12/10 and took 23 days to go less than 100 miles in the same state.
– The grand finale, I sent a package to a buddy down around Tallahassee. It’s a 6 hour drive, door to door, and priority mail said 3-day delivery. It went out on 12/2, it wasn’t marked as “delivered” until 12/23. My buddy didn’t actually get it until a week after that.
To say I’m over the USPS would be a gross understatement.
“So, other than fucking around with mail-in ballots, why are they needed for?”
To provide the (most expensive comparatively) last mile services for Fedexes, USPSes and all the other ‘connected’ private businesses, that would be operating at a huge loss otherwise.
Is that so? I know UPS does this, a fairly recent innovation. Before then they’d just deliver all the way, and they still do for any large package. I don’t remember any FedEx->USPS deliveries.
Similar thing happened on my end. Although, with a prescription. Yeah, my drugs got picked up by the USPS, but not entered into the tracking system for 11 days. Yeah, my drugs sat somewhere in the Chicago mail system for almost two weeks before they got put in the system.
Thankfully, I could wait that long.
But, what if they were medically necessary, and missing a dose was dangerous?
And as some drugs are temperature sensitive … Where were they sitting, one would wonder?
Perhaps not so much of an issue in winter, but in summer…?
I have a package that is stuck in USPS purgatory at the Jersey City distribution center since 24Dec2020. It’s final delivery location is on Long Island, NY. Still waiting.
I’m beginning to suspect the awfulness that is the Jets has inadvertently created a gravity well some along the Hackensack river. Neither NASA or the JPL will reply to my emails.
I purchased a barrelled upper from a place in Florida. They ask for 15 days to make and test it before shipping. No problems. I called at the end of the 2nd week to find out when it would be shipped. 15 days is not equal to 2 weeks, it is 15 business days. Oh well.
They shipped it that day. I didn’t ask them to, I just asked for a status.
So it went onto a skid which was delivered to the local PO that evening and the manifest was dutifully processed by the local PO. So the tracking said that the label had been created and that the package had been received but not accepted.
The local PO then moved that skid to a PO truck and moved it to the regional processing center. Where if vanished.
So it seems that real companies scan the barcodes at every chance they get so they can track a package inside a facility, not just when it moves in or out of a facility.
After a week and no updates, I tried to contact the USPS customer service, no luck. I tried to contact the USPS IG, the phone hell redirected me to USPS customer service that wouldn’t let me talk to a person.
I finally called the local PO that had accepted the package and the next day I got a low down, on my call back.
Seems that the regional PO was “overwhelmed” and they scanners weren’t available or were to busy. So instead of scanning each package on the skid as it came in, the workers manually took the packages off and “processed them.” No scan means that the PO has no officially accepted the package. Therefore if the package was actually lost, it would be the shippers responsibility to replace, regardless of the insurance they/I had paid.
At that regional office, instead of putting the package in the priority mail to New England, they put it in the “packages heading north” pile. The priority pile gets shipped out every night, even if it isn’t full. The “packages” pile only goes out when it is full. So it sat in a pile in the regional office until they had enough low priority packages to fill a north bound truck.
The package then showed up at a regional sorting facility someplace in NY. But it was still not accepted. It stayed in the “low priority” system because that’s where it had been put to begin with. The package then showed up as accepted at my local PO.
Total time from Florida to my local PO was 4 weeks on a 3 day priority package with 3 scans and 5 updates. “created”, “received”, “arrived ny”, “Arrived local” and “Out for Delivery”
I’ve had the USPS loose more Amazon packages than all other delivery methods combined.
One of the things you can consider is getting a PO box at a private provider. When you have a PO box then you are limited in what you can receive at that address and they have all sorts of rules and are generally a pain in the rump.
IF, on the other hand you get a private PO box, the address will read something like:
Miguel G
Apartment 232
123 Main St,
Some Town, FL, 00000
Those private mail providers will be able to receive any package sent via the USPS and will often also accept FedEx and UPS shipments as well.
Have you ever heard the story of the cookies that went to Guam?
It’s not a story the USPS will tell you.
I have been having issues with packages for months, but this Christmas rush is over the top and should be the death of the USPS as it currently operates. I sent a Christmas package 2-Day Priority to my father-in-law on December 18th. It was scheduled to be delivered on the 21st, but is now still stuck in the USPS system for 21 days. Here is a link to my blog post detailing it.
https://tfbel.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-usps-is-still-at-it-from-christmas.html
The tracking is exactly as it is in my blog post from two days ago. I called my local post office to report the package as lost, and the woman on the phone asked if it still showed in Springfield? I told her it did and she said that to be patient, because the Christmas rush is going to be in process to Valentine’s Day. I have until 60 days from delivery to make an insurance claim, but will be filing the claim at day 30. $50 for a quart of maple syrup.
and this one is for the packages I finally received from eBay.
https://tfbel.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-usps-is-in-deep-shit-and-theyre.html
Backstory: I’ve worked for my employer for over 17 years now, first for 5.5 years before there was a reduction-in-force, then when another job ended, my previous reopened and I’ve been back for more than 12 years.
When I returned, our Facilities department had taken over a location across the street from out main buildings, which (when I worked her prior) had been a completely different business. So, 17+ years of being a valid mailing address.
Except, back in May/June, I suddenly started having my packages (sent to the work address for secure delivery) being returned for “no delivery address” or similar.
Contacted the US Snail, with some difficulty because their phone tree is shite, and had someone claiming to be a postal inspector call back. Apparently, the USPS uses a *physical book* of delivery addresses, and the previous employee in the sorting room (who had bid out and left for another position) had not been keeping it updated.
This also explained the very very many misdelivered items for:
addresses on the other side of the N/S street from our main campus
addresses that were on the west side of said N/S street, where we are east
addresses on the east side, but across the E/W street
addresses that are blocks away in various directions
addresses that *are* on the correct side of whatever street, and the correct block, but that are not ours
addresses as per the last entry, but do not physically exist
and finally, a certain business several miles away regularly has a check being delivered here – nothing even resembling our address, only that one check, and it’s been happening for nearly a year now. Topping it off, we got some misdelivered mail that they’d received, and apparently they too were getting enough to have a stamp maid.
So, I get started on correcting some of this… and am quashed by a c-level administrator here.
Side note: all our main-center-address mail is held at the post office, for pickup by a local courier service. Any trackable mail will not be actually delivered (by the courier) until the next business day, but USPS *requires* a delivery resolution be filed when it hits the final USPS “delivery” location.
Except… it’s not really delivered. And thus a constant stream of “delivery attempted, business closed”, “delivered, left at door”, “no mail receptacle”, et cetera. Which I finally figured out.
Unfortunately, our staff and some clients also receive mail here. And tracking their packages, they see this assorted yivshish and panic.
And make freakout calls to the poor sonofabitch who actually handles the mail.
Wonder if I can get Labor & Industries to approve a work-stress-related alcohol prescription…
I get a fair amount of stuff online (who doesn’t these days?) and have reached the point that I will refuse to purchase from ANYONE who uses USPS for delivery. A lot of the 3rd party sellers on Amazon use USPS because it’s supposedly cheaper.
I’m currently awaiting a package from someone who lied to me about who they ship with; it’s been in “label created, awaiting acceptance by the post office” status for the last 17 days with no way to tell when, if ever, whare it is or if it will ever arrive. I will not spend a penny with that supplier ever again.
It’s a public service explicitly authorized by the Constitution.
If you’ve had problems with it, perhaps look to the war that has been waged on it by Congress for decades, particularly first the 2003 decision to make the USPS, rather than the Treasury, entirely responsible for postal worker’s pensions, and then the 2006 requirement that the USPS set money aside, over the course of just a decade, to pre-fund health pensions out to 75 years in advance. SEVENTY-FIVE. The USPS was deliberately sabotaged by being required to butcher its finances to fund hypothetical people who aren’t even born yet.
https://www.dcreport.org/2020/06/01/inside-the-radical-republican-war-on-the-post-office/
And there you have it folks. The USPS was a model of efficiency prior to 2003.
I note your complete lack of an actual substantive response.