USPS: "We can't" culture at its finest. How to restore mail service?

I am finding the whole "I can't" "we can't" culture that has notched up since the big C extremely frustrating. I have lived at my property for 11 years now and have never had a legit disruption in mail delivery. The state plow has broken my mailbox post twice. I always rebuilt it from scratch, to the letter, to the specs provided from our municipality. They have taken the state regulations and township regulations and put it in an easy to read homeowner drawing so that you can get your mailbox perfect to their requirments.

Each year that has gone by, the snow level and mound height has always been the same, it builds up, it melts down, it has always required the mailman to use a device out their window to reach all of the mailboxes due to the state highway and the snow loads. I have never in the past had issues getting mail delivered, and to be quite frank they actually delivered mail to my broken mailbox when it was a few inches from the ground. What has changed now other than terrible employees?

I have not been getting any mail since shortly after Christmas. They are unable to deliver as a result of too much snow, making it unsafe for their drivers. They recommended me to get an app / sign up on their website and I can have my mail held at my request. They will not restore service until the state gets the snow mounds reduced. I called our local penndot and they have never heard of this and said they do not control the snow buildup on the side of the roads and re-iterated that nothing has changed on their end.


Any suggestions?
 
Operating a national post office and taking a census are the only actions that the Constitution requires the federal goverment to do. Everything else is a list of things that the government may do, or is prohibited from doing.
 
Are there any areas in public or private services that are getting better? Kinda difficult to determine in the last few years.
 
What is this about ? The USPS has regulations about mailbox placement and I never have seen anything that allows for them to use anything that helps them reach.

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Around here, people that live on a nearby state route, have small strips for the mail carrier to pull into so they aren't 100% on the road while delivering mail.

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Hall,

To answer your question, mine is the specs just like you show. They do not need to use a device out the window during the spring, summer, fall. Just in the winter. It is a state highway and techically spaeaking you are not allowed to plow it yourself. The snowbanks get big and hard, but it is not difficult to deliver with this device they use. You cannot snowblow or shovel safely unless you want to become road kill.
 
We get snow here 🤣 Used to get a lot more but we did get 10+ inches last Sunday/Monday. We live on a residential street and the snowplows ended up building up a 3' wall of hard-packed snow at the end of everyone's driveway. I ended up just shoveling out a 1-car path so my wife and I could get our cars out (I have an AWD sedan and she has an AWD SUV). I also shoveled a large scallop by our mailbox so our carrier could reach the box from her car like normal, and also shoveled out the fire hydrant that happens to be in front of our house.

I see plenty of people who have their driveways plowed or they use tractors with plows and while it's risky, they plow out of their driveway and push it all the way across the road. They also clear the area in front of the mailboxes too. I'm not aware that the county, state, etc "care", at least not until there's damage.
 
You cant shovel it safely. You will get hit by a car. It is a 55MPH road. and Everyone does 65+.
You need to talk to the post master about getting a box in a different location, maybe one of those locking ones like apartments have somewhere.

As @Hall posted, there are specific rules for your mailbox, and the carrier is not supposed to get out to deliver items that will fit in the box. Period. If they cant reach the box then its no longer there problem - including complete access I believe its 20 feet front and back. Might be 15?

My carrier is very nice. The dogs like her much better than the fedex and UPS guy so it must be fact :ROFLMAO: . Might be that she is a "she", the dogs like women better it seems.
 
You need to talk to the post master about getting a box in a different location, maybe one of those locking ones like apartments have somewhere.

As @Hall posted, there are specific rules for your mailbox, and the carrier is not supposed to get out to deliver items that will fit in the box. Period. If they cant reach the box then its no longer there problem - including complete access I believe its 20 feet front and back. Might be 15?

My carrier is very nice. The dogs like her much better than the fedex and UPS guy so it must be fact :ROFLMAO: . Might be that she is a "she", the dogs like women better it seems.
Indeed my mailbox is within the guidelines hall posted.

As far as safety, they sit on the side of the road with flashers and deliver for the past 11 years without a collision, never needing to get out of their vehicle. Nothing has changed. Snow loads this year are the same as the last 11 with last year 2023 ~ 2024 being very light in comparison to all other years.

As suggested I may park a vehicle and have my plow guy push the snow area around the mailbox onto my porperty. We cannot plow onto or across a state hwy. Fine is high. Snowblower wont even touch it, tried that years ago and blew the shear pins from the ice.

The issue is unless all the neighbors on the road also clean theirs, service will not likely resume, which is where I have my issue.
 
get a old train rail, set it deep in concrete, then weld a one-half inch plate on the top,,then get a double ended door mail box screw it to plate. this is what a friend out in the country did as the plow kept knocking it down.
 
You cant shovel it safely. You will get hit by a car. It is a 55MPH road. and Everyone does 65+.
If you have snow blocking the mail carrier’s access to your box, and your road is so dangerous that you can’t clear that snow, then why do you expect your carrier to expose themselves to the same hazards that you are unwilling to?

Clear the snow from your box.

Or go pick up your mail at the post office.
 
When you lower hiring standards, You get workers with lower standards.
When there is no one to hire, you need to lower your standards, or not hire anyone 🤷‍♂️

While you can make a decent wage if you stay long enough, it appears the bottom 25%, which I assume is starting wage - is between $19 and $21 an hour. Hard to support a family on $40K a year, so your going to get what you get.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/2022/may/oes435052.htm
 
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