Anyone else having trouble with the US Mail?

[5oakterrace]

In retirement I worked for the post office thinking I was going back to summer job I had 40 years ago. The joke was on me. I quit after 2 weeks. They have a hard time "keeping" new workers.

With Amazon having the USPS deliver packages, many routes had their usual mail, plus all these packages. My trainer has 250 packages one day. She gets paid for 8 hours no matter how long it takes her to deliver. 2-3 days a week she cannot finish in 8 hours. She takes no lunch break. On those days she is working those hours "for free. She has been doing this route for 10 years. She knows it like the back of her hand. If you are "new" you have to know how to arrange those packages in the truck in the correct order to save time. It will take you at least 4 hours longer to do that route than the regular. It will take 6 months for you to get up to "regular" speed IF you can do that route day after day, which never happens.

The post master said their routes should be re-evaluated in which case they would divide them up and add 30 percent more routes to make it manageable. That means adding employees. Has not had a re- evaluation in years

Why doesn't the union step in? Because in some areas Amazon does it's own deliveries in which case the routes are decent. But where Amazon deems it economical to offload onto the USPS, Amazon does not deliver. Maybe the USPS should charge Amazon an arm and a leg to deliver for them.

[lunardds]

Originally Posted by meyatt

USPS pays temp workers from November (sometimes mid-October) until the beginning of January to deal with the excess of holiday packages. They've done this for quite a long time and the temp hourly wage is generally pretty decent.

My usual mail carrier showed up Monday and told me she is sharing my route with the new temp carriers. She had a stack of mail and said the new carrier is just leaving my mail on the shelf claiming my business is never open. I haven't received any mail since then. Pretty frustrating to say the least.

[Lewis Moon]

Originally Posted by lunardds

My usual mail carrier showed up Monday and told me she is sharing my route with the new temp carriers. She had a stack of mail and said the new carrier is just leaving my mail on the shelf claiming my business is never open. I haven't received any mail since then. Pretty frustrating to say the least.

Twice in the last month packages noted as "out for delivery" didn't arrive until the next day with the reasons being "animal interference " and "blocked access", neither of which was true. We have a camera trained on the mailbox area.
I finally chased down the package marked as delivered, but was not. I went to the PO and talked to a manager. The carrier made a "mistake".

[cash05458]

Originally Posted by meyatt

USPS pays temp workers from November (sometimes mid-October) until the beginning of January to deal with the excess of holiday packages. They've done this for quite a long time and the temp hourly wage is generally pretty decent.

A non-trivial issue is in 2006 they passed the The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. It forced the USPS to pre-fund more than $120 billion in retiree healthcare and pension liabilities. They undid this in 2022, but services were largely decimated by the change. They were set up for lettered mail, not the package economy Amazon created.

My dad carried mail for 15 years and worked in maintenance operations another 30 years. He started and it was a fairly stable job with benefits, by the time he left it ended up as a common destination for people dishonorably discharged from the military, with bare-minimum staffing and sorting machines from the 1970s.

Postal service funding is regularly raided to pay for other services.

A rather real and true post right here via actual problems via the USPS. And no one responds to the above but all have their true horror stories about said service.

Have to say, I always enjoy the quarterly rants about bad service, politics and who broke what via these what's wrong with USPS posts. Pretty much everyone outside the service have zero clue as to what is going on, has gone on, will go on. You guys are literally old school tho standing at the complaint counter whether that be at Postal or over at Jc Penny's and the old why can't I get a refund after I lost my receipt crew. That's fine and I worked there for 15 years as a mailman. The same sorta posts come up regularly as well via fedex or ups problems and folks scream that that bottom bracket sent from some guy in north dakota got lost for a few weeks. It's endless no matter which carrier.

I don't say any of that badly or to be insulting. But I do find it humorous after being a mail carrier for so very long. Think of how this economy has changed from brick and mortar via how we mostly get things and amazon and all that jazz and what that entails. I buy online as well and put that pressure on all that. But if you think going from the old model of shopping for ourselves to the new one where we all sit around home and have things brought to us isn't going to have huge problems...huge...then think again.


Personally, I think the folks from all 3 mainly used services do a helluva of job all things considering the burden that has been put upon them. And ridiculous expectations as well. I have been in the trenches with two of those companies and know plenty from my friends I am close to at UPS to tell you that it is a lot more complicated than you folks think. And that these folks work insanely hard to get you your crap. It isn't inattention or doing a bad job or not caring...I will tell you that.

But keep telling your stories of how bad things are when something went awry and slapping that hand down on the counter...I am sure it will go somewhere...

[Spaghetti Legs]

I don’t blame the rank and file carrier or office worker at all. I recognize that it is a poorly led, underfunded organization. The use of temp workers will result in the same type of stuff you see with food delivery unfortunately. The regular carriers in my neighborhood have always been great, there just aren’t enough of them to go around. Every time I go in to the Post Office, it’s like a ghost town. There aren’t enough people there. Even the main office in our town of 50,000 people has maybe 2 people at the front desk and one of them has to do passports all day. I don’t see that getting better going forward unfortunately.

[cash05458]

Originally Posted by Spaghetti Legs

I don’t blame the rank and file carrier or office worker at all. I recognize that it is a poorly led, underfunded organization. The use of temp workers will result in the same type of stuff you see with food delivery unfortunately. The regular carriers in my neighborhood have always been great, there just aren’t enough of them to go around. Every time I go in to the Post Office, it’s like a ghost town. There aren’t enough people there. Even the main office in our town of 50,000 people has maybe 2 people at the front desk and one of them has to do passports all day. I don’t see that getting better going forward unfortunately.

and if they paid folks well enough to do the job and hire lots more people these days? Then folks would scream about the price of postage doubling or even tripling...folks want good deals:this is part of it. Bad service and not enough workers go hand in hand. But we all, including myself, look for free postage. And no, you are correct, it ain't going to get any better. That has zero to do with who is in power politically as well I will tell you.

Trump was bad for Postal as was Biden. Biden kept Trump's postmaster general after all when he could have fired him day one. To give a lil historical perspective and go back, when Obama came into office. What did he do? He said that he only wished the postal system could run as well and be as profitable as fed ex and that fine fedex service was an example for all of american delivery services. Odd that he took a ****load of money as a donation from the fed ex company, but all the same right? At the time fed ex were practically paying close to minimum wage and entirely private company of course. Both sides own this.

What I am saying is everyone wants to sit on their ass and have things brought to house in timely manner...and we want to be as cheap as possible to spend that cash on other crap...then zero is going to change. So all these folks whining about bad service can kinda suck lemons as that is about as useful to be honest.

Anyone want to make the delivery services better and put some strong arm into this fight? Make a difference? Sure, sign right up....all three companies are hiring like hell right now and can't get folks to come in. Good luck with that between working for any of these companies and customers constantly complaining about the job you do no matter what you are given. Not a good mix for success or to use an over abused ideal: hope.

[Lewis Moon]

Third time in two weeks: a package that was out for delivery was not....because "the business was closed"....we live in a private residence.

[fried bake]

Originally Posted by cash05458

and if they paid folks well enough to do the job and hire lots more people these days? Then folks would scream about the price of postage doubling or even tripling...folks want good deals:this is part of it. Bad service and not enough workers go hand in hand. But we all, including myself, look for free postage. And no, you are correct, it ain't going to get any better. That has zero to do with who is in power politically as well I will tell you.

Trump was bad for Postal as was Biden. Biden kept Trump's postmaster general after all when he could have fired him day one. To give a lil historical perspective and go back, when Obama came into office. What did he do? He said that he only wished the postal system could run as well and be as profitable as fed ex and that fine fedex service was an example for all of american delivery services. Odd that he took a ****load of money as a donation from the fed ex company, but all the same right? At the time fed ex were practically paying close to minimum wage and entirely private company of course. Both sides own this.

What I am saying is everyone wants to sit on their ass and have things brought to house in timely manner...and we want to be as cheap as possible to spend that cash on other crap...then zero is going to change. So all these folks whining about bad service can kinda suck lemons as that is about as useful to be honest.

Anyone want to make the delivery services better and put some strong arm into this fight? Make a difference? Sure, sign right up....all three companies are hiring like hell right now and can't get folks to come in. Good luck with that between working for any of these companies and customers constantly complaining about the job you do no matter what you are given. Not a good mix for success or to use an over abused ideal: hope.

I appreciate the insight. What’s needed to get the system working the way we want it to?

Also, your thoughts on the article below: thanks!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...uis-dejoy.html

[HenryA]

Couldn't be related to this, right?

https://www.uspsoig.gov/reports/whit...on-and-ongoing

Someday they might run it like a business.

[jlwdm]

I have not had any problems but I have a keyed mailbox - so nothing taken after delivery.

My issue is why deliver 6 days a week. If something is rush there are many alternative ways to send something. I check the mailbox about once a week. I do use the email service that shows me daily what envelopes I am receiving.

Jeff

[JMT3]

The post office is all over the board. Tracked packages get to me either a day or two early or as much as a week late, once in a while on time. I’ve had to 10 to 15 packages mis-delivered in the past year. That involves a trip to the post office. Then a conversation with a supervisor that tracks it via GPS. Either the supervisor or postal worker retrieving the package then brining it to my home. If I order something that offers me options then I take the option that is not USPS. I don’t care if it costs me more since it reduces my anxiety level.

[Llewellyn]

I'm amazed to read some posts on here about sending payments by cheque through the mail. You'd be hard-pressed to find many people in this country who still use cheques (apart from people in rural areas or older people). Even use of physical cash is declining. So many payments are done by EFT these days that the banks are in the process of shutting down the cheque payment system.

Serious question....why do people prefer to go through the hassle of writing and posting a cheque when you can do the whole thing in a few seconds via a banks website? Or is the US banking system that far behind that EFT isn't widely used, or trusted?

And so I'm not completely OT....Australia Post is generally pretty good.

[nonprophet]

Maybe I'm lucky but my ratio of issue to non-issue with USPS is as good or better than other carriers (DHL is the exception, never had an issue with them but I admittedly don't receive from them as often). Sometimes things are a day or two behind schedule but thats nothing new. My biggest grievance is that I occasionally receive my neighbor's mail but it takes me all of 10 steps to walk to their mailbox.

[Louis]

A few months back I mailed a check to Old P for a wheelset he'd built for for me. So, a regular old envelope from St Louis MO to Boulder CO. After over a week of waiting he still hadn't received it, so I put a stop-payment on the check (fee of $36) and sent him the $ through PayPal. Several weeks later, out of the blue, I received a PM from him saying that the check had finally showed up, and that he would shred it. We had no clue what the problem was.

[bironi]

B&M,

I have almost zero issues with USPS drivers on my bicycle, but this does not apply to other carriers.
I would rank the carriers as follows best to worst:

USPS
UPS

Then it gets sketchy, perhaps this order:

Amazon
FedEx

And USPS is stuck with delivering to the most remote difficult end points for delivery. They are now contracting this work to the less concerned contractors, Amazon, or whoever bids the contract and wins.
So, B&M.