Comical but serious

[Lark Parker]

In Okinawa, my new next door neighbors moved in quickly.
It didn't take long -- their furniture had been shipped to Antarctica. No problem as it did arrive about six months later.
Just another benefit of the career military life.

[t walgamuth]

I use the USPS a lot to ship stuff and usually it works pretty well. Nobody is perfect, not them not ups and not fed ex.

[jclary]

I use the USPS a lot to ship stuff and usually it works pretty well. Nobody is perfect, not them not ups and not fed ex.

Very true, on this we can agree. However, criticism, when it is deserved, is a necessity. Failure to do so, is a dereliction, leads to complacency, and an assumption that substandard performance is acceptable.

Since my last post, I received an email invitation to fill out a USPS quality of service survey. I had fun with that. Especially on the questions requesting me to provide an explanation in "essay" form. At the end...I thanked them for the opportunity to "vent."

[Daan]

I must be in the minority (or I'm about to really "jinx" myself) but I've never had a problem shipping anything USPS, but I've had ..."issues", ha ha with both the Brown Guys and FedEx. I had a photo business I shut down and sold off all my equipment, so more than a dozen packages sent all over the US and Canada, and I also sold off my guitar collection (and about a metric ton of parts), to Australia, Europe and all over the USA. Again, nothing lost, stolen or broken. Receiving stuff is a whole nuther story... Fedex won't deliver to my house, I gotta go to their depot to get my stuff (but the wife orders stuff online and FedEx shows up with her stuff???) UPS pulls the "no one home for delivery", even though I work nights and am home with the kids M-F, I never saw a brown truck. Ugh. Our Postal Route Worker is AWESOME, the mail is there every day about the same time, and she brings packages up our long drive to the house.

[Mikado282]

My wife shipped two boxes USPS from Kingman to Albuquerque. The destinations were one block apart. One went right over there and the other one took a detour to Florida before heading back to NM. I shipped a package USPS to NC where delivery was attempted but it was on a Saturday and the business was closed. The carrier noted that she would try to deliver it again on Monday. It was never seen again. Now we get insurance on everything we ship thru the post office.

Even the insurance is a joke. Took me 8 months with a lot of hand wringing and drama to collect on the claim I had with USPS.

[Mikado282]

No detailed comments from me, but with my eBay store - the Post Office loses things a lot, UPS breaks stuff (and denies it), and FedEx just charges too darn much (but their performance never disappoints).

My experience also when I was selling over $3-5,000 a month on Ebay dealing in vintage stereo equipment and car parts.

[raoul5788]

As a nearly 30 year postal carrier, now gratefully retired, I've heard and seen all of these stories and many more. Unfortunately they are all true, or could be. With the massive volume of packages and regular mail handled on a daily basis, I was always amazed there weren't more screwups.

[bumpkinvilledano]

In 1975, I beat a postcard from South Dakota home(Rhode Island). By 3 weeks. Driving a 1941 Chevy Master Deluxe sedan.

That said, I was dating a woman that worked for the USPS 25 years ago and had a chance to go on a "Grand opening tour" of a sorting facility. Mail would come down a conveyor and the person had about 1-2 seconds to look at the zip code and hit the correct key to kick it to another conveyor, this was done several times, to get it to it's correct destination. Unless the conveyor jammed up, which she said was a frequent occurrence.
After seeing this, I was surprised that ANY mail made to anyone.

[sasquatch]

Even the insurance is a joke. Took me 8 months with a lot of hand wringing and drama to collect on the claim I had with USPS.

I've never had to use the insurance (yet) but at least you have a chance to get something.

[greyben]

I've used USPS buying and selling on Ebay as well as for other things with very few problems. I once purchased a 59-64 parts book on Ebay which was shipped to me media mail. Somewhere along the line it was opened for inspection. I was required to pay first class postage (no credit for postage already paid) When I questioned the local postmaster I was shown the regulation "No catalogs may be shipped via media mail". Studebaker parts books were of course called catalogs. It wasn't even an original. Too bad we can't order from these 50+ year old books.