USPS
Who pays for USPS when they don’t deliver the package, hold it in the back and then send it back to the shipper? Since I have never been billed for that experience and quite sure the shipping company does not either then I would guess it comes right off of USPS’s bottom line.
I have had my own personal frustrations with USPS over the years but I had a doozie this past summer. Ends up, I was not the only one after talking to a few others that had the exact same experience. We were out at the beach for Thanksgiving and as we are reading more and more about Amazon shipments I wonder how e-commerce will change the post office, FedEx and USPS.
E-commerce purchases from Farfetch or Ssense sometimes come from other countries. It might start with DHL but the hand-off is to USPS. That is when it gets complicated. It ends up that these companies have some kind of priority deal which makes sense. Where we are located in Amagansett, there is no postal delivery. You must have a PO Box to get mail. I had one for years when the kids were in camp to get their letters but it made zero sense to keep after that. It only became a vehicle for spam. It was shocking to me how much spam mail just accumulated over a year. The priority deal means that the post office must hold your package for a possible pick-up for 5 days without notice even if you do not have a post office box. Never heard of it? Me either but now I know.
Ssense emailed me that the box was at the post office. The person at the post office refused to believe me. She was downright nasty. If you don’t have a PO Box it goes back, period. I came back again the next day to try again. The postmaster was there and iterated the same thing.
I asked them if they would be so kind do just go look in the back because if my box was there, then the problem would be solved, it wouldn’t cost USPS any money and was it that big of a deal to go look? After some evil eye contact, they decided with a shrug that they would do it.
Low and behold, out she comes with the packages explaining the priority stuff. The anger and the unwilling to help behavior is beyond me. It also makes me wonder about the future of mail, period.
Comments (Archived):
My parcel disappeared inside USPS’s LA facility (maze) this last summer. It went in, and 31 days later(!) it reappeared, and then departed the US for Heathrow. An inexplicably bad service. The delay made a total mess of my summer cycling holiday plans. I would say never again, but i don’t always have control over which parcel service a US seller uses. Looking on the bright side i did finally get the parcel, which is better than no parcel at all. Moral of the story is to go with the seasons but plan one year ahead to such avoid delays, and cultivate alternatives.
share your frustration. wanted to ship a package from our building in Chicago. I spoke in person to the postal person who handled our building-she told me she doesn’t take packages, only delivers them. It wasn’t a small box. I walked the five blocks to the central post office facility and mailed it. If I was an elderly person, or someone that wasn’t strong enough to haul it I would have had to pay to take it there.We have a place in a remote area of Minnesota. Only PO Boxes, but we don’t have one. We wanted kayaks, and wondered how we would tie them to the top of our car to bring them up. Turns out, Amazon Prime delivers. Game changer.
.It is time to close the USPS and allow private enterprise to run the show.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Talk to an Amazon flex delivery driver. I have. Tell them you are actually doing a survey for work and can pay them $10 for their time (that is what I do) Report back and see if you have the same experience I have, I won’t prejudice your results. It isn’t going to be your concrete laying experience.
I wasn’t going to comment but I have to. I comment from the entrepreneur and out of the echo chamber viewpoint but I live in both worlds.You bring up a point issue. Might that point have a bit of nuance? Might you and your friends not be surprised?1. You are getting packages that are from companies that do not employ U.S. workers and are selling things like $500 denim pants. If you go to their websites (the postal workers did) they literally flaunt the fact that if you are not them you are NOT cool.2. They are going to an address that is worth eight figures on land that a generation ago belonged to simple potato farmers with kids that worked at post office jobs and could afford to live there, not have a second or third vacation house worth more than all of their generations combined forever.3. You don’t have a P.O. Box which means that the post office might close because of too few. Your reason is too much mail. I get it, but you know the reason why you get so much and from so high end places? Tech companies sell your name and address. I assure you the postal worker does not get the same mail or amount whatsoever, we laugh about it.4. The jobs that are replacing those jobs (I have no love for overpaid union jobs) are jobs doing “flex delivery” at Amazon where you get paid $54 to bring your own car and work a shift that is supposed to only take 3 hours (takes 5)”The anger and the unwilling to help behavior is beyond me” It wouldn’t surprise me if the person spit on your box. (they probably did)The “gig” economy work that the elite describe is really nothing more than enslavement. Seriously. Bring me food, drive me, put together my stuff, do my menial tasks. Do it because you desperately need to make sure your kid has that smart phone and all of the apps otherwise they aren’t cool.My point experience is that the women that run the two post offices that I go to are seriously some of the best salt of the earth I have ever met and their only lament is that they know that when they retire, that post office way of life is going away.