OT: How’s mail service in your town?

[redir]

Originally Posted by yngpunk

Most/all of the open roles are for non-union/non-pension roles to start, and then it takes awhile to move into an union/pension type role. Not as attractive as it once used to be.

Ah yes. That's too bad. Government jobs have always paid a lot less but then you had that huge benefits package which made up the difference. Now without that it's like just another gig job.

[bthornt]

I frequently get my neighbor's mail delivered to my box. One thing I have noticed is that the individuals delivering the mail in my neighborhood don't wear USPS uniforms. I guess that means that the USPS has outsourced daily mail delivery in my area.

I am sad because it seems that there has been a continuous decline the quality of service in many public and private organizations in the US. For example, I had an appointment scheduled with the social security administration this morning. The local office isn't open, so all appointments are conducted over the phone. They sent me a letter stating the date and time of the appointment, but no one ever called. I tried calling their office, but it's impossible to speak to anyone. You get put in a queue, and then you get dumped out of it and then you have to start all over.

Rant over.

[VTCaraco]

Our situation ~ rural delivery routes in VT ~ is similar, but not quite as bad as the OP.
In the past, missing a day was unusual. Then it became common place to miss a day here or there with no explanation/warning. And then in the past 6-months or more, no service has become much more common. I'd guess we get mail delivered 4 or 5 days most weeks rather than 6. And it's not unusual to have no service for a week or even more.
It became problematic for me around mid-summer and our local office was doing everything they could to mitigate the situation. A non-delivery person was going to the regional branch to get the mail for our small town and deliver what he could. But the backlog was so bad that the regional branch wasn't able to do the sorting. To the credit of our local folks, they took the initiative to go down and sort and found our package for us.

For our region, the issue is an inability to find people to work ~ or so they've reported. I know the local newspaper covered the issue late in the summer and VT representatives said that they were going to push for answers for the reasons outlined ~ that people DEPEND on the service.

I've reached the point where I'm much less likely to mail-order things to avoid the frustration that this causes (e.g. when I've paid for 2-day service and it's been a week+). Maybe that's a good thing....

I feel for the organization and would be said to see their demise, but the quality of service is truly bad at this point.

[dustyrider]

It sounds like any post office I've ever been in for the last 40 years. There's more counters than workers, a line of people without any clue of what will be needed when they reach the counter(think TSA), and one self serve kiosk that has a line just as long. But they never fail to deliver junk mail Mon.-Sat. and mail to people who haven't lived at my address for decades... it's a modern day wonder what can be with the help of federal dollars!

[Ozz]

Originally Posted by dustyrider

It sounds like any post office I've ever been in for the last 40 years. There's more counters than workers, a line of people without any clue of what will be needed when they reach the counter(think TSA), and one self serve kiosk that has a line just as long. But they never fail to deliver junk mail Mon.-Sat. and mail to people who haven't lived at my address for decades... it's a modern day wonder what can be with the help of federal dollars!

Maybe...but not all the fault of USPS:
"In 2006, Congress required that the Postal Service pre-fund its health benefit obligations at least fifty years into the future. This rule has accounted for nearly 90 percent of the post’s red ink since."

UPS, FedEx, SHL, etc have very good lobbyists:
"To argue that the Postal Service needs to be privatized, conservatives need to show that it is dysfunctional, and there’s no better way to do that than by weighing the agency down with impossible financial obligations."

Cheers.

[el cheapo]

Lucky me...my mail carrier is a neighbor. Can't get any better than that. Only time I worry is when he's on vacation.

[C40_guy]

The postal service is a *service.* It doesn't have to make a profit, in the same way that fire departments provide a service but aren't expected to make a profit...

[chuckroast]

Our service is excellent now but we did go through a transition period over the last year or so when our previous carrier retired and a new fellow took over her route. He's got it figured out though and things are good.

The other big change I've noticed over the last few months is that Amazon has begun doing their own deliveries in my town (or at least they have Amazon branded trucks, maybe they use a contractor). That has taken a lot of load off the USPS here.

[jamesdak]

We've got pretty good service out here for the most part. Good carriers and such. Still they could save themselves a lot of trouble if the whole junk mail crap could be made to go away, LOL!

[oliver1850]

I went through a period 2-3 years ago when my mail carrier refused to deliver large packages like wheel boxes. It was very frustrating as the local PO is miles away and only open for 3 hours a day. My take was that I'd paid to have the packages delivered and it shouldn't have been a problem. Now that USPS has priced itself out of any large box deliveries I don't have any problems. I have had a few small items gone missing for weeks but they showed up eventually.

[pdmtong]

No issues here

[dbh]

Living in an urban area, we haven't seen a dramatic decrease in delivery to our home. I suspect that's largely to the fact that there's ample enough staff that when our regular mail carrier takes her vacation, there's enough people around to juggle shifts, etc. Also, Amazon has a very robust network here, which has lifted some of the burden from USPS.

I did a bunch of bike part cleaning this spring and selling on eBay. Lots of trips to the post office to drop off packages. What amazes me is the different quality of service at various post offices just a mile or so away. The closest post office to my house is exactly what you'd envision when you think of a large sprawling government bureaucracy: dated facilities with long lines, no self service machines, and very few people at the counter to help customers. Sometimes I'd have to drop off a package that was already prepaid. Literally just needed to leave it in a bin and be done with it. Closest post office doesn't have a parcel bin, so you have to stand in a line with folks figuring out complex transactions (international shipments, registered mail) just to leave a package at the counter. Other station, which is a bit farther, has a parcel drop box where almost any Priority or Express parcel can just be left securely if prepaid. They also have self serving scales and postage printing machines, so no need to wait in line to ship a package. Two totally different levels of service only a mile and a half apart.

What amazes me is that so few people understand they can prepay for postage online. I can't believe that folks wait in these huge lines to ship packages when they could have done it all at home and dropped the thing off in a letterbox or parcel box at the local Post Office. It's like folks who wait in line at the bank to deposit a check. You could, but why? I know my bank does everything in its power to discourage you from using its in-person retail services. Knowing how long it can take in line to just mail a package, I can't imagine the idea of folks using the post office to do their banking, as some in Congress have proposed. Makes sense from a policy angle, but my goodness, combining lines and service of a retail bank with a post office -- good luck.

[bigbill]

I live in an unincorporated area of the county. We have clumps of boxes by neighborhood along with some larger lockers for packages. If I have a package via USPS that won't fit in my box, the postal person leaves a key to a locker. UPS and Fedex still deliver to the door. Our postal folks are contractors so the quality of service varies week to week. About five months ago, a woman living half a mile away found a white plastic envelope at the end of her driveway. It was my prescription meds I get from VA. She was kind enough to drop them off. I complained to the Postmistress and was basically blown off. I took it higher and was blown off again but in a more respectful tone.

As neighbors, we just deliver the mail that is erroneously delivered.

[oldpotatoe]

No issue here in the republic. A suggestion tho..if you have a package/envelope with prepaid label(like USPS priority, click and ship)..take it in and have it scanned by a person..had a check get lost..just put it into the slot..USPS priority envelope. Tracking said it never got scanned(??)...

[jlwdm]

Originally Posted by chuckroast

Our service is excellent now but we did go through a transition period over the last year or so when our previous carrier retired and a new fellow took over her route. He's got it figured out though and things are good.

The other big change I've noticed over the last few months is that Amazon has begun doing their own deliveries in my town (or at least they have Amazon branded trucks, maybe they use a contractor). That has taken a lot of load off the USPS here.

Your area is late to the party. Amazon has been delivering for years. Amazon vans seem to be everywhere and 100,000 Rivian electric vans ordered over next 9 years. Current vans are Mercedes and Ford.

Jeff