USPS Rant

[Pstmstr]

Just a low volume day. Funny you should mention Kingfisher. Sunday I ran the Alva combo. Last night it was the Duncan combo. 45k pieces there. Today will be crazy. We're running all of the USPS holiday mailing deadline postcards. That'll double our volume and create havoc in the machines. Maintenance better be on their game!

Got mine. I can't believe they wasted money sending that crap out. I see USPS Marketing department still sucks.

 

[1shott]

Ok, Ada. Let's hear it. How was your mail today? I ran it yesterday. Should have been stone cold perfect since Ada and the combo cities only had about 26k pieces. (not responsible for packages or parcels).

Well I got some junk mail and one letter from my employer. Seemed normal.

 

[SoonerP226]

I found this comment under Steve Lehto's recent video about a student getting busted for a $3.5M shipping scam. I LOL'd.

I worked for UPS and I had a coworker who would say before he worked at UPS he wondered how on earth shipping companies are able to get a box from point a to point b without losing or damaging a significant % of the packages, and now that he works there he's more confused than ever.

Here's the video. I'd just post the link, as the video itself isn't really relevant here, but the forum is aggressively helpful about converting YouTube links to embedded videos.

ETA: After finishing the video, it does actually apply. Near the end, he talks about the USPS having never lost a book that he's sent as media mail.

 

[Pstmstr]

I found this comment under Steve Lehto's recent video about a student getting busted for a $3.5M shipping scam. I LOL'd.



Here's the video. I'd just post the link, as the video itself isn't really relevant here, but the forum is aggressively helpful about converting YouTube links to embedded videos.

ETA: After finishing the video, it does actually apply. Near the end, he talks about the USPS having never lost a book that he's sent as media mail.

Interesting idea. Like I mentioned last week, the companies handle so many packages it is truly amazing that so few are damaged or lost. It's never fun when it happens to be the package you were expecting though

 

[GorillaG]

I can tell you the main reason the USPS sucks (I mean apart from the fact its run by the government) and that in a word is Amazon. I was one of those hateful, illiterate, lazy Rural Carriers for 30 years. Still would be if it weren't for Amazon/ I went from about 5 packages a day that wouldn't fit in the mailbox to around 150 that had to be "porched". And those driveways can get pretty long out in the country and those dogs can get mean out there too. Rural Carriers aren't "on the clock" like city carriers, their salaried. Its WAY worse for highway contract carriers. They bid the salary they'll work for, and if they dont have regular Rural Carriers then that post office is so far out in Bum Foxtrot OK there are no other jobs and the carriers usually figure out they underbid the job and often just quit. Some have even left the mail on the side of the road and never came back. No one hardly ever writes a letter or pays a bill by mail. A half a book of stamps lasts me a year. The USPS was over the day they invented the internet. The morons in D.C. invested BILLIONS in machinery to sort mail we don't have. So we deliver Amazon and junk mail at a LOSS to keep the plants open and people working but at a loss, not a profit. Try UPS or FedEx they might be better but both charge way more than the USPS. I had to use UPS to mail an envelope overseas. 80.00 bucks.

 

[Pstmstr]

I can tell you the main reason the USPS sucks (I mean apart from the fact its run by the government) and that in a word is Amazon. I was one of those hateful, illiterate, lazy Rural Carriers for 30 years. Still would be if it weren't for Amazon/ I went from about 5 packages a day that wouldn't fit in the mailbox to around 150 that had to be "porched". And those driveways can get pretty long out in the country and those dogs can get mean out there too. Rural Carriers aren't "on the clock" like city carriers, their salaried. Its WAY worse for highway contract carriers. They bid the salary they'll work for, and if they dont have regular Rural Carriers then that post office is so far out in Bum Foxtrot OK there are no other jobs and the carriers usually figure out they underbid the job and often just quit. Some have even left the mail on the side of the road and never came back. No one hardly ever writes a letter or pays a bill by mail. A half a book of stamps lasts me a year. The USPS was over the day they invented the internet. The morons in D.C. invested BILLIONS in machinery to sort mail we don't have. So we deliver Amazon and junk mail at a LOSS to keep the plants open and people working but at a loss, not a profit. Try UPS or FedEx they might be better but both charge way more than the USPS. I had to use UPS to mail an envelope overseas. 80.00 bucks.

I am always amazed at people who just did a rural carrier job and pretend to understand how USPS works. Sounds to me like the job went from blowing around the route in 4 hours getting paid for 8 to actually having to get out and deliver some packages. I seriously doubt you got more than 20 a day that wouldn't fit in a mailbox but I could be wrong. Definitely not if a country rural route.i do agree that USPS hasn't adapted well to the type of mail people get these days, especially increased parcel volumes. They've only recently got vehicles that have shelving in the cargo compartment for example. The good news is we both got our time in and now can just wait for our carrier to bring anything we might be interested in receiving. I think we got out while the getting was good. I hope you are enjoying your retirement.

 

[OK Corgi Rancher]

I'm having a really hard time pinning the blame on Amazon for the woes at the USPS or anywhere else. But, that sounds like the norm in many businesses these days...blame the customer.

Amazon, and other high-volume shippers, negotiate a contract with the USPS, FedEx, UPS, etc. If your shipping outfit can't handle the volume your customer wants to ship then don't agree to the contract. This is not an Amazon problem.

If the USPS and the others had customer service departments like Amazon does, threads like this wouldn't be as common as they are.

 

[Pstmstr]

I'm having a really hard time pinning the blame on Amazon for the woes at the USPS or anywhere else. But, that sounds like the norm in many businesses these days...blame the customer.

Amazon, and other high-volume shippers, negotiate a contract with the USPS, FedEx, UPS, etc. If your shipping outfit can't handle the volume your customer wants to ship then don't agree to the contract. This is not an Amazon problem.

If the USPS and the others had customer service departments like Amazon does, threads like this wouldn't be as common as they are.

I don't disagree. I'm sure things have changed a lot in the 12 years I've been gone but when they contracted out customer service phone calls to an outside agency that was a mistake in my opinion. Customer used to be able to call their local post office and talk to a supervisor or the postmaster to try to get their situation resolved. Marketing in their infinite wisdom, contracted with Amazon and other shippers with little input from operations. Many rural careers driving their own vehicles and some of the other vehicles on city routes did not have the capacity for large volumes of parcels. The most expensive thing for a carrier to deliver is a package because they have to be handled individually and many times walked to the front porch. I could go on but you get the idea. There is a massive need for change that I suspect will not happen as long as the US government mandates delivery to every delivery point 6 days a week regardless of cost. It either needs to be fully funded by the government or privatized.

 

[Chuckie]

I needed a USPS "Priority Mail" Tyvek (free) envelope to mail some paperwork to my granddaughter so I went on the USPS website under mailing supplies to order one and discovered that I can't get just ONE . . . I have to order a pack of 10.

OK, so I ordered a pack of 10 (still free) and several days went by and I got a text on my phone (after providing every bit of personal information I had including a kidney to get on the notification list) saying that it had been delivered. Well, maybe so, but not at my door (as promised) or at the rental office where I live.

The next day I happen to catch the elusive mail delivery person servicing the apartment complex where I reside and ask her about whether she had any of those envelopes on her mail-truck, to which she said no, that she does not carry ANY mailing supplies, or even stamps for that matter. So I ask her if she could grab one of those (free) envelopes and stick it in her truck and I'll just get it from her the next time I see her delivering mail to our mailboxes.

She said no, she could not do that and that I must contact the Midwest City post office by phone to request that those free Tyvek envelopes (pack of 10) be mailed to me or I can request that ONE envelope be sent with the letter carrier on her next delivery to my address - let's jump through some more 'hoops' to get to the same result, shall we?

Then she goes on to tell me that she has to be on her way because they (the post office) has her on such a tight time schedule to deliver the mail that she cannot take the time (i.e. waste any more time) to talk about this envelope request.

Apparently she is not able to grab a free "Priority Mail" Tyvek envelope from the same post office she works out of and stick it in her mail truck, but instead, I have to call that same post office to request a free "Priority Mail" Tyvek envelope be put on her truck - WTF!

 

[OK Corgi Rancher]

Sounds like typical gov't bureaucracy...