Post office is officially a joke

For whatever reason there are two Post Offices near me that are within three miles of each other . One of them is so - so , and the other is outstanding . Friendliest young ladies you could ask for . THAT'S the one I use . My mail carrier does a pretty decent job as well .
 
I don’t mean to be rude, my friend, but for short term delivery guarantees, you gotta’ go one step up from regular first class. Post Office is good about 98% of the time, but if that level isn’t good enough, pony up. When I needed to ensure an alimony check was received on time, I went FedEx. Only way to be sure when the stakes were high.

My tenant drops the check off at my place of business, she doesn’t even mail it. Might work for your friend.
Well, she looked online; found there’s FedEx inside a staples. She did this


Thanks Astro14 🍻🇺🇸
 
The reason it's offered FREE is because after the 'anthrax scare' (thru the mail), the govt wanted to photo-copy everybody's mail.
The only way people could be convinced it was a good thing is if the govt also offered those images to each citizen.
So yea, big govt is looking at my mail, but I also know what's delivered that day (which is very helpful).

Discussed once before.
Exactly, very helpful and I will sign up again in our new home.
Makes sense how they can have it free if all mail is scanned. Makes sense!
 
The woman did not mail the rent check “close”. She mailed it out 2-3 days before end of last month as I already spelled it out. 3weeks plus is downright pathetic and uncalled for.

Postal workers in my area walk right by my mailbox and don’t take outgoing mail even

I agree with you that 3 weeks is ridiculous.

I disagree with you that 2 days prior to due date isn't close.

The main point of my post was that if you need something to be somewhere, you need to be more diligent.

I see you've likely worked out a suggestion, which also goes along my suggestion. Upgraded service. First class is not reliable and not guaranteed. Anything upgraded, Priority, UPS, FedEx are generally reliable.
 
We order a number of things on the internet - and seems more are coming from the post office …
Not that long ago - it was always the big 2 private carriers …
Between partnerships and just general use, USPS is usually cheaper, in my experience. Money talks.

Even if they have to deal with periodic unhappy customers, replacing items, etc, it's still probably cheaper to a business than using UPS or FedEx.
 
USPS is a dinosaur. Delivering mail every day except sunday needs to stop. 90% of items are junk mail. For openers make it once3 per week. Raise prices. It will never happen Politian's who supported it would die by the sword.
I wouldn’t say they are a dinosaur. Their hands are tied by Washington DC.
Even though the Postal Service is supposed to be operating without interference you know that doesn’t happen.

It’s been revealed many times by Postal Service management or the postmaster general that they want to go to five day delivery.

With all the above said, I need to reiterate that it’s one of the best functioning institutions we have compared to all the other mess.
I wish people wouldn’t trash the Postal Service so easily, many fine hardworking people some of whom are most likely your neighbors.
 
We had at one time some very nice, helpful, happy and hard working mail carriers in my area. As happens all the time, they retired only to be replaced by folks who seem angry and very unhappy all the time? I dont get it. What is the anger? Why so out of it and unhappy? I always heard from folks I knew who worked for USPS they were well paid with great benefits and retirements? What is the problem with the newbies?
When we first moved into this house 26 years ago, our mail was in the box each day by 09:00am. It was always there and on time placed in the box by these two young women who worked together. You could watch them park 3-4 streets away and they would split up the 4-5 streets and walk it to each house. Of course they retired by now. Each 6-12 mos we seem to have new carriers (if u can still call them that now). Wife had to file formal complaint 3 times last year. We always had a box full of mail (lots of junk I admit) before noon at least. All of a sudden. Missing bills. Zero in mail box for 2-3 days etc? They gave wife every excuse in the book and about new trainees etc... Even tried to blame other USPS locations for their issues! LOL. Well all of a sudden we start getting a few pieces. I watched to see just how. Well not surprised. I see the mail van slowly creep down the street and stop at every single house as this (giant, almost crippled looking) young woman gets out and almost crawls to each mail box! Could not believe it. She looked like she belonged retired and disabled. She is now gone. We are back to different carriers almost every other day? Dont seem like a good system. Yet they too , no matter how young or in shape they seem, have to creep the street driving and then walk up the sidewalk to each mail box. They are not going for that walk the street thing like the older ones did. Another strange thing. Even with driving to each house I can not get my mail in the box before 04:00 to 05:00pm each day. This is just one reason I cringe whenever anyone says "lets get the gov involved in any private businesses! USPS been in operation over 100 years and it only gets more screwed up each year. Did not even mention at least once or twice a week I have someone else's mail placed in my box.
 
Last edited:
I stopped paying the majority of my bills through the mail, years ago. Medical bills are the one exception. I don’t have an expectation of the payments being received on time or even getting there. If I mail something across town or to nearby towns, it has to go to Tallahassee, FL first. Super efficient! 🤣🤣🤣👉🤡🌎
I do all bills and any type of payments online thru credit cards or bank websites. None of that envelope thru the mail. My mother in law refuses to do online and keeps mailing. At least 2-3 times a year she has a mess to clear up when envelopes with her checks simpliy vanish in the mail.
 
Between partnerships and just general use, USPS is usually cheaper, in my experience. Money talks.

Even if they have to deal with periodic unhappy customers, replacing items, etc, it's still probably cheaper to a business than using UPS or FedEx.
Yup - free 3/4 day shipping winds up USPS very often …
 
To be fair, I'm only aware of one time where USPS lost some of my mail. It was a monthly payment for a storage unit in another state. Despite being the only time my payment was late in over a year, the management would not forgive the late fee. So, that set in motion plans to get my stuff out of storage. In a way, USPS losing my payment did me a favor. It's also possible the payment eventually showed up and was thrown away.

As far as shipping anything, USPS is the nearest option for me. If's it really important, I pay for tracking.
 
I had a Priority USPS letter take 6 months to show up, I thought it was lost. This was during the height of the pandemic and an extreme case. The mail has been very reliable otherwise. I can't remember the last time the mail in the box did not match up with the informed delivery email.

If your mail is having issues i.e. packages left at the street, mixed up mail, delays, it's probably a casual carrier, aka temp employee. Could be their first day on your route and they aren't accustomed to a right hand drive vehicle lol. Stuff happens but for $.60 it's not a bad deal. Sending the same letter via UPS or FedEx is like $17.

BTW, when I saw the mail mail as a child, I always thought it was Mr. McFeely. He even wore a hat and pushed a mail cart!
 
Stuff happens. I had a pretty good size pile of "trash" dumped on a rural road in front of my ranch. I thought nothing of it for a week or so because it happens on a regular basis before the county comes by to pick stuff up. A wind stork kicked up and started blowing the pile across my driveway so I started picking it up. It was hundreds of unopened mail with bank statements, credit card bills, every other bill you can imagine, etc. I called the local postal inspector and he send someone out immediately. Now, if I was a crook I would have credit card info on dozens of people. View attachment 140813
Same thing at my place. I will put flag up for them to pick up mail and ifs it more than 2 letters I am guaranteed to find one of them on the ground. He must drop them between the mailbox and his truck. I see my neighbors stuff blowing around also. I used the priority mail for a letter to Baltimore once(I live in Harrisburg) it took 15 days for them to get it and that is only 80 miles away. Checked tracking and it was sitting at the Harrisburg Main PO for 11 days! I uses Express Scripts for my Meds and had to get 2 prescriptions refilled because it took over 2 weeks to come to my place. Got the replacements in 2 days then the original orders about 2 weeks later at my cost. Called and put in a complaint and the reasoning is that they are understaffed and my mailman- I was told that if the parcel or letter is written in cursive he will take back because he can't read it. I told them unacceptable and all I got was a chuckle with the apology.

When I had my "older" mailman never had a problem till he retired about 1 1/2yrs ago.

I get the same response at times for packages, they say mail box is blocked or No access to driveway -- BS''

The poor service in made the local news and all they said it was due to manpower shortages. NO apologies given on the news. So much for expedited service.
 
I do all bills and any type of payments online thru credit cards or bank websites. None of that envelope thru the mail.
Yes. If I use a handful of checks in a year that is a lot.
As well as many Americans now. considering the population is growing and mail volume falling that speaks volumes about the direction. I dont know why so much resistance in Washington to not let the USPS operate efficiently and go to 5 day delivery. Just crazy. They would save over 3 billion dollars a year.
Screenshot 2023-02-17 at 1.20.03 PM.png
 
I don't use USPS much, but for work I have had countless items go missing in the black hole that is the FedEx Memphis facility. I'm talking thousands of dollars of parts, and I know for a fact I am not the only Ford dealer with this problem. Usually it is the 6.7 diesel fuel contamination kits, but also catalytic converters, body panels, engines, transmissions, bumpers, or doors are lost never to be found.
 
I have a couple of stories about the post office that I think is mildly entertaining.
The first one is about a Christmas card that I got about two years ago from friends of mind who live just a few miles down the road. Now this was during the scare during the big, bad virus, but we got their card 2 1/2 months after it had been postmarked. Did somebody else get it and finally put it back in their mail box to get delivered to the right address? Who knows?
The second story I have is that a buddy of mine is the postmaster of the post office that is (as the crow flies) nearest to me, even though it is not my official zip code. However, on occasion, I'll go there to mail a package. Now get this: This post office is in a town with the population of 20. Not 20,000, 2,000 or even 200. No, TWENTY. It is the only business in town, open exactly two hours a day and he might go for WEEKS without selling even a single postage stamp. The post office hierarchy wanted to close it down a few years ago and put up the notice for closure. A few people showed up at the evening meeting to discuss the closure, complained that it would shut down their town and the post office relented. The last time I mailed a package from there, it took exactly 30 minutes to do so even though I was the only customer. His scale wouldn't weigh my package and it hadn't been used for so long so he didn't know what to do. He finally called the head post office in the state to ask for advice and they told him to unplug it, let it sit a couple of minutes and then plug it back in. Problem solved!
The third story I have that is mildly humorous is that the post office still delivers baby chicks from hatcheries. First off, I live in the very northern part of Kansas. Now when my kids were in 4H and they were enrolled in poultry projects, we would ordered baby chicks through the mail. Most of the (good) chick hatcheries are up in the northern part of the United States. However, most of my mail goes through Wichita, which is in the far southern part of the state of Kansas. So the chicks would spend an extra day being handled by the post office because they went all the way across the state to Wichita and then back to my town which is in the very far northern part of the state. (Yea, that's post office efficiency) To guarantee a better survival rate, I would have my baby chicks sent to a post office in southern Nebraska and when they'd arrive there, the Nebraska postmaster would call me so that I could cross the Kansas/Nebraska state line to pick up by baby chicks.
My local post office is okay. My mail delivery guy has my phone number and will text me if an arriving package is too big to fit in my mail box and wants me to know how to handle it. My local postmaster will also go out of her way to do her job.
 
BTW, when I saw the mailman as a child, I always thought it was Mr. McFeely. He even wore a hat and pushed a mail cart!
Summer times, as a little kid, we use to see the mailman walking down the street with his big leather bag over his shoulder.
We would follow him house to house .... I could only follow him to the third house and have to go back home.
His name was Frank.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top