It sucks when you realize that........

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Large government agencies sometimes have problem employees.
Recently a military veteran killed six people in Pennsylvania.
NASA had a problem astronaut who tried to kill her boyfriend's other girlfriend.

We haven't heard from the National Park Service but I suspect that there have been naughty rangers.

 

Let me make a suggestion to all USPS dependent coin recipients. At my last home, we moved in right before the holidays, and I naturally left a small tip and card for my postman. Best. Move. Ever. My postman would text me in the AM when I had a package he would come across during sorting. He would even put the packages in a vase on my patio if he didn't see my car on the driveway. After time, and talking, we became friendly and he eventually sold me around 50 lbs of beautiful antique sterling silver golf trophies and silverware his family has had for over a century to pay for some medical bills. Really a nice guy that I became friendly with and who went above and beyond.

Now, in our new house, my new post woman is a crackhead. Doesn't show up at least 1x every fortnight. Twice I have been expecting a package, that had tracking saying "OUT FOR DELIVERY", met her outside waiting for her, to have her tell me "NOPE, NO PACKAGES FOR YOU"...Long story short, I printed the tracking, as well as the resulting tracking after she left. Because that's where the truly deviant move was made. The crackhead dumped all of the mail she didn't feel like delivering that day in the "OUTBOUND" bin at the sorting facility and I was able to watch it online bounce around South FL over that weekend. Needless to say I showed that to the Postmaster and it was undeniable. My mail has been much more timely since. She is an extra betch to me now. Whatever. Do your job fool.

 

It shouldn't take near bribery to befriend and have special treatment of the postal service. Customers have already paid the service and must be diligent above and beyond the call of duty to ensure mail is being delivered. Some carriers can be friendly and go the extra step, even become your friend, but those others utter lacking in their duty and loath of the public they're bound to serve, really ought to be looking for another job if it's so insulting to them or they despise the customers, mail and their role to such an extent.

 

Yes you can.
Since letter carriers work the same route day in and day out, all you need is a few of the addresses to figure out who dumped the mail into the sewer. Even the substitutes are tracked.

I like the USPS and have never been burned. I've had some run ins, but the local Postmaster was always there to address my concerns.

 

Yes, I can... and yes, you can. So too can a branch manager, post master and private detective. But too few customer complaints are followed through on by any of those in that list who can, with any authority, make a difference.

Even when addressing complaints of service problems with letter carriers in writing on the USPS online site, they always side in favor with the carrier, and yet the problems persist.

So, some few bad apples have been caught with egregious amounts of mail fraud(?) and it may serve to assuage the public, while disgusting us, and put the onus on other carriers and clerks who might be slacking, but the wide spread laziness and poor effort that leads to problems is far from being addressed.

Yes, I can monitor, suspect and make complaints when I see problems or feel the service is poor, but do you think a direct mail company is going to go out in the field and spend time and money watching carriers? How will they know where to look? Do you think they will even hear from a customer complaining that they are not getting their junk mail? Who is going to go to that effort and how? If the local PO doesn't do anything about it when a customer complains, I highly doubt a direct mail company is going to do anything either. As I said earlier, they use volume to overcome lazy and lost delivery. If the mail isn't getting through they can increase the number of mailings to ensure enough attempts to hit a customer with an advert hits its target.

 

I guess I have been pretty lucky. Only 1 piece lost out of I do not know how many mailed to me. I almost always get everything with 3 days. The people where I go are always pleasant and helpful with answer questions or assisting with packages.

So I will not complain about USPS. Been great to me.

Now UPS on the other hand is bad in my opinion. Too often they skipped delivering the package the next day. They made lame excuses as far as I was concerned. And then you have to pick it up by 5pm - but only if you called them and had them pull it off the truck. I was so happy when the mint switched to fedex - I could come home. Find my slip of paper and go down and pick it up - I think they stayed open until 10 or 11. It was great.

 

Most of my parcels from the Mint did and still do come by UPS. They will use which ever service they need to fulfill orders. I agree though, UPS has been a challenge for non-business delivery. They work great for companies sending out and companies receiving as the routes deliver earlier in most cases to businesses and within normal business operating hours, those hours when individuals are not home to take delivery. With the UPS stores and re-routing options UPS allows usually (with some exception to high value Mint orders), I have experienced better and better service with UPS in recent years.

 

I worked at UPS for thirty years.......at UPS it's production, production, production. Each route was time studied and God help your sorry hinney if you brought the truck in 'over plan'......they'd (supervisors) have you tied to a chair the next morning asking you to explain why the route took so long to complete. I started there when you had to 'sheet' (physically write down) every package ICC number. I ended my tenure there at the dawn of the DIAD......delivery information access device....which is basically a mini computer where everything was key entered by the driver. Today, everything is preloaded into the DIAD.......every package ICC number in the truck is already loaded into the device. Management feels you should complete your assignment more quickly because of this. That, and the fact that they can track your every movement leaves little wiggle room for a driver to (so called) waste time. These guys are on a strict timetable and management tightens the noose at will. Now I ain't making excuses for these guys that flag stops, miss send again delivery's, or miss service. The folks that I took care of were my 'family' and I treated them as such.....as they did me. Just sayin' time is money and I came from a different time. You ever try to talk to one of these guys? They're all nervous Nellie's and can hardly give you the time of day..........doubt any of them will make thirty years like I did.

 

The ups guy here been at it awhile wicked nice guy. He runs that truck like he's dale jr tho. I can always tell when he's coming around 3:45-4:30 usually he's got that thing absolutely floored outta the stop sign at the corner every time!

 

Were you there when Industrial Engineers rode with the drivers, timing them with stopwatches?

Do you remember writing your Congressman, at the behest of UPS, that USPS parcel delivery was unfairly subsidized by first class mail? Thus being unfairly competitive with UPS package delivery prices.

To see how long in the teeth you are, do you remember witness gathering?

 

I remember all that Charles.....the teeth are very long.....

 

I did a stint during college with UPS, though not a driver. Didn't even care to shoot for that "goal". One thing I remember being a big dividing factor at that company was union vs. non-union workers, how they treated one another and how it affected employee performance. Invariably this lead to problems for the customer I imagine.
It was my first and only "union" experience and rather interesting, I suppose. To do the job there was training and then testing of how fast you could unload and load trucks (big trucks and delivery vehicles) and how fast you could sort parcels in hubs given your task. It's hard labor.

Now my UPS driver these past few years has really rocked and I have felt that the company has sought ways to expand their market to the residential customer (which has particularly made up for failings at USPS) and just this afternoon, I thanked my driver profusely for his service when he delivered my final Mint parcels for the year, and I gave him a nice gift card and note of thanks for the holidays. I was glad to do so and he seemed to appreciate the gesture as well.

 

I know the sound of my drivers truck very well when I hear him roll up. He's also on that tight regular time. I might be 'end of day' but I can count on it always being 6-7pm, and he's here with my stuff.