[Sidponcho]

Govt paid employees with great benefits and retirement plan driving around in jeeps putting pieces of paper in a metal box at the end of 300 million driveways across the US. LOLOLOLOLOL

[61-63]

I have no problems with the postal service or Fedex or UPS. Yes there has been a glitch or two or three over the years but all three are darn good at what they do. I feel we are very fortunate in this country to have the shipping/mail services we have. My biggest problems with shipping haven't been the shipping service but with the idiots that don't pack stuff tight or just throw two or three heavy and sharp edged items in a box so they bounce around on the way and destroy one another. IMO one bad thing about social media/forums etc. is the tendency for all of the whining and bitching that goes on. When things go right which they mostly always do you never hear a word but have a glitch occur and watch out.

[Stuart]

Like anything else, you always hear about it when things go wrong but not when they are going right. The USPS, Fedex and UPS all have similar on-time delivery rates - around 98%, from what I can find online.

[Gator67]

Originally Posted by 61-63

I have no problems with the postal service or Fedex or UPS. Yes there has been a glitch or two or three over the years but all three are darn good at what they do. I feel we are very fortunate in this country to have the shipping/mail services we have. My biggest problems with shipping haven't been the shipping service but with the idiots that don't pack stuff tight or just throw two or three heavy and sharp edged items in a box so they bounce around on the way and destroy one another. IMO one bad thing about social media/forums etc. is the tendency for all of the whining and bitching that goes on. When things go right which they mostly always do you never hear a word but have a glitch occur and watch out.

Not sure if you were trying to be ironic, but this post made my morning!

[RocktimusPryme]

Originally Posted by 61-63

I have no problems with the postal service or Fedex or UPS. Yes there has been a glitch or two or three over the years but all three are darn good at what they do. I feel we are very fortunate in this country to have the shipping/mail services we have. My biggest problems with shipping haven't been the shipping service but with the idiots that don't pack stuff tight or just throw two or three heavy and sharp edged items in a box so they bounce around on the way and destroy one another. IMO one bad thing about social media/forums etc. is the tendency for all of the whining and bitching that goes on. When things go right which they mostly always do you never hear a word but have a glitch occur and watch out.

Right, that's the way reviews are in general. One of the darker sides of human nature. Something goes as expected and we don't say anything about it. Have a problem and we feel everyone needs to know about it.

[David Jones]

We ship and receive a number of packages from USPS, UPS and FedEx daily. Jewelry. Some pretty high value. We have no more issue with one than the others. A huge percentage of the time, we get, or our customers get, what was shipped in a timely manner. With many of the USPS methods, they may issue a number associated with that shipment, but I've yet to be able to actually track anything until after it has arrived. If then. Other than that, I'm not aware of them losing anything for us and the cost is good. These days, paying for next day air with UPS and FedEx is pretty much a waste and they are no longer honoring their arrival guarantees. Somehow Covid is affecting their ability to deliver in a timely manner. We're shipping ground only because of that.

[61-63]

I'm just not a big fan of bitching and whining. Get over it, deal with it, fix it if necessary, and shut the hell up! How many mistakes have YOU made this week?

[ta6point6]

I ship a lot of things USPS with Ebay and most arrive on time. I have had to file maybe 3 claims with broken items and received a check within a week from USPS. My problem as of late is I feel they have started charging double compared to FedEx. I was trying to ship a steering wheel in which box was 15x15x5. USPS wanted to charge me 30.00 while FedEx was 15.00. Early on I liked that if I guessed wrong on weight USPS would charge my paypal account the difference but lately adjustment charges have seemed excessive. I had one adjustment from USPS charge me another 11.00 for a package that I already paid 25.00 to ship. USPS does not tell you how much under weight package was just the adjustment charge. On the other side I did get a refund from USPS on a package that weighed less than the 8 pounds I stated, it was only 4 pounds. USPS gave me back .07 in PayPal, somehow that does not seem right. I will say like any goverment program their are always flaws like having to deliver mail in outdated trucks that have been catching on fire lately. I heard these have Pontiac motors in them no wonder they have lasted so long. I hope nobodies mail was in this truck

[vertigto]

FWIW...USPS honored their Priority Next Day shipping for me when a package I sent arrived a day late...full refund of shipping charges (but not insurance).

[389]

I have no issues with the USPS. Considering what they accomplish I think they do an exceptional job. The people who usually complain have no idea what its like to run or do something...

[mgarblik]

I am sure there are hard working, well meaning employees in the USPS. It seems unfortunately, none of them work at my local branch. My home mail delivery is pretty spotty. Some letters, bills and packages take 3-4 times as long as they should to be delivered. Eventually, they seem to come. In the last 2 weeks I have been in the branch in person 3 times to buy STAMPS!! The damn post office is OUT OF STAMPS. I am not making this up. The last time I waited in line with my mask on in the six foot spacing situation for 20 minutes to finally reach the ONE person working the counter to once again say, " Sorry, we are out of stamps, try one of the other branches. Thank you, is there anything else I can assist you with?" Yea, how about some stamps?

[vertigto]

Originally Posted by mgarblik

I am sure there are hard working, well meaning employees in the USPS. It seems unfortunately, none of them work at my local branch. My home mail delivery is pretty spotty. Some letters, bills and packages take 3-4 times as long as they should to be delivered. Eventually, they seem to come. In the last 2 weeks I have been in the branch in person 3 times to buy STAMPS!! The damn post office is OUT OF STAMPS. I am not making this up. The last time I waited in line with my mask on in the six foot spacing situation for 20 minutes to finally reach the ONE person working the counter to once again say, " Sorry, we are out of stamps, try one of the other branches. Thank you, is there anything else I can assist you with?" Yea, how about some stamps?

That is unfortunate...each branch is different I guess.

Did you know that you can buy stamps online? They still have to ship them to you, but at least you wouldn't have to deal with the incompetence directly.

[NeighborsComplaint]

Originally Posted by Dens71TA

Was it mailed via SmartPost? That is 4th class mail and under guidelines set by the new USPS "leadership" that is getting "delivered when we get time to deliver it."

Plus you never know who is going to deliver it. It could be given to another carrier, shipped by a common carrier, held until it can be consolidated with other shipments at multiple hubs along the way, or whatever scheme they can come up with for a reduced delivery cost.

I have a friend who recently started driving for a Postal Service contract carrier. He says the trucks are all in sad shape, their systems and scanners aren't working half the time, and the employees are by and large a bunch of ne'er-do-wells who do nothing but complain about having to work 3 hours out of an 8 hour day.

[Chief of the 60's]

Originally Posted by NeighborsComplaint

the employees are by and large a bunch of ne'er-do-wells who do nothing but complain about having to work 3 hours out of an 8 hour day.

This is somewhat of a tradition with the post office and they get paid well for what they do.

[The Champ]

Neighbors Complaint and Chief

Referring to NC's comment that Chief quoted and then piled on to...

You have no clue about what your talking about.

I don't work, and have never worked, for the post office.

But I know several people that do. It's hard work, long hours, mandatory overtime and actually can be a dangerous job.

[NeighborsComplaint]

Uh, OK Champ.

Go hang around the post office and see for yourself. My letter carrier sits in ger little truck in my cul de sac hidden from the street from around 1:30P until 5:30P when she empties the drop box at the corner and heads back in.

I worked in 3rd Party Logistics and was once awarded a USPS contract to cross-dock presorted 3rd class mail. The concept was good but USPS never delivered loaded trailers on time, empties accumulated in our drop lot until I began slapping them with storage charges. At least 40% of the inbound trailers had no manifest or the wrong manifest, multiple pallet ID's which did not match the manifest or were missing pallet ID tags (bar-coded with identifying Unit Load# only) no description). Since we could only receive against a confirmed shipping order, the unidentified unit loads were in limbo, neither shipped nor received. I had to set up a separate virtual warehouse in our system which we named "TWLZN" ("Twilight Zone" and assign a temporary ID to receive into and ship from so that we could get paid for what we actually handled. We would wait up to a week for corrected manifests to arrive to create delivery manifests for consolidated loads going to their depots. Much of this happened right at the end of the day and the USPS Logistics people would just sigh and say "I'm off the clock, call me back tomorrow." We finally invoked our 90 day notice bailout clause and ceased doing business with them.

You honestly have no clue.

[SRR]

Originally Posted by Sidponcho

Govt paid employees with great benefits and retirement plan driving around in jeeps putting pieces of paper in a metal box at the end of 300 million driveways across the US. LOLOLOLOLOL

A friend of mine is a retired letter carrier with 30 years. She gets $800. a month as a pension.

My sister is also a retired letter carrier. She was once promoted to a supervisor position at a bulk mail center and ended up on stress leave because she said dealing with the union protected "sick, lame and lazy" as she called them was just too much and went back to being a letter carrier.

[misterp266]

“By 2009, the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog agency, determined that the Postal Service’s business model was no longer sustainable. The debt it carried jumped from $7 billion in 2008 to $10 billion in 2009.“

“At the end of 2019, the GAO calculated that the Postal Service had $160.9 billion in debt, $119.3 billion of which came from retiree benefits.“

While I think that for the most part they do a good job, it’s also obvious that they need to make some changes.

[Firedup6975]

Ordering a lot of parts lately for my TA project in progress, no problems with timing, but finding a lot of my packages are damaged or tore open. One part was damaged during transport. I try and buy my parts from Amazon if I can, as having Prime delivery is pretty fast. Used parts through forums or groups by private people, you never know what you’ll get.


Good luck! Along with everything else going on we try and keep busy other ways like working on our cars, and even that seems stressful these days with dealing with issues like these.

Hang in there and stay calm!

[Sirrotica]

Maybe why the current postmaster, that previously, successfully, revived a near out of business, logistics and trucking company, and turned it into a thriving business, was appointed to turn the USPS around.

Instead of throwing more money (tax dollars) at the problem, which has already been tried numerous times (bailouts), without success by postal employees, promoted to the postmaster position. Instead they took a business man, that has a concept of how to get things done within a budget, and has proven successes in the business world to get results.

I can't fathom why he hasn't been able to turn the USPS around in a couple of months.... Maybe the employees, and union, want everything to remain the same as it has been for decades, and are trying to thwart his efforts.

I believe there have been other people that have come from the private sector into a position of running an entity that was hopelessly, unsuccessful, and inefficient, and turned that entity around in a relatively short time. Seems the employees didn't want any change either, and tried to stop the change for efficiency.

Usually anything that is run as the USPS is, funded by the public, if it was run as a legitimate business, they would be out of business within a week, without massive cash infusions from the public. Making the USPS run by a business model, there could be hope down the line that the USPS could run smoothly, and efficiently, at the very least, a break even point. UPS and Fed Ex seem to be able to do it, and still show a profit. Given proper leadership, the USPS could run in the black for a change too.