And then there is the US Post Office

[question everything]

always in deficit, always planning on raising postage rate.

On Monday I delivered a thick envelope for priority mail from the Twin Cities in Minnesota to Los Angeles. Not exactly out of the main road places.

When yesterday morning I was called to be told that the envelope had not arrived yet, I went to the post office to inquire.

Oh, said one of the employees, to California it can take as long as a week.

For a priority mail, I asked? Yes, it is faster than the "regular" 10 days for parcel. (Which is BS. I have mailed small letters that usually arrive within 2-3 days).

After 30 days, another employee added, you can ask for a trace. Thirty Days? For a Priority Mail? Is this a joke?

I wish I had a tracking number the way one gets with FedEx, I added.

Oh, you could have purchased a tracking number.

For how much, I asked?

Forty five cents....

And as I was leaving, fuming, I could not help thinking: if McDonald's workers are trained to ask every customer: "do you want fries with that?" why can't the postal office workers be trained to ask: "do you want a tracking number with that?"

There are so many qualified, thinking people searching for good paying jobs, why does the postal service hire the dumbass ones?

And why should I use the postal service for a priority delivery when FedEx can be so much more efficient?

They can raise the price of a first class stamp to $1.00, and they will still lose money, lose business to more efficient operations.

Epilogue:

This morning I received a call from LA that the package did finally arrive.

[bryant69]

1. I don't know Postage rates are pretty low

compared to other nations postal systems.

And if you are wondering why qualified ambitious people aren't looking for careers in the post office, you might consider their pay scale.

It's not even like teaching where there is a genuine opportunity to help others.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[iconoclastNYC]

14. Oh how dare you.

How dare you come up with common sense explanations for the bad customer service!?

If you were a good democrat you'd go along with the notion that the government can't do anything right. I mean...clearly we should privatize the USPS . Just look at what a success the Pentagon has had with outsourcing. Those troops have everything they need and it costs so much less then when the military took care of it.

[bryant69]

17. Hmmmm

Are you sure that's what a good democrat would do?

You know I"m very succetible to peer pressure. `

[napi21]

2. I must say I'm surprised at the experience you had.

I sell items on ebay and 99% of them I ship via USPS. I have been using their services for almost 5 years and have never had a problem with deliveries. FedEx used to be cheaper for heavy packages, but since they began adding a fuel surcharge, they're not cheaper anymore.
With the millions of packages being shipped eevery day, I'm sure some get lost, mis-delivered, or just stuck in a corner somewhere, but that really does seem to be rare.

[question everything]

5. So did I

I was surprised by the claim that Priority Mail from Minneapolis to Los Angeles would take up to a week. This is not priority mail. This is snail mail, or worse. You can get there faster by driving. A wwk was how long it took the movers to move us that distance (in the opposite direction) with extra four more households on the same truck.

And I was surprised by the comment that I could have purchased a tracking number. I think that this should be a given with Priority Mail, or at least offered for $0.45 more.

[Momgonepostal]

31. Whenever I mail a package they ask...

I tell them how I want to send it and they ask if I want o insurance or delivery confirmation (which includes the tracking #).

Every time. :shrug:

[hfojvt]

3. I have to question that

"always in deficit"

I remember them operating in the black during the Clinton years. Best I could find from a quick google search says in 2000

"USPS is only required to break even, yet it has raked in profits of $5.5 billion over the last five years and implemented a billion dollar rate increase just over a year ago."

http://www.cagw.org/site/News2?JServSessionIdr012=2tqwa4jag1.app24a&page=NewsArticle&id=5779

[question everything]

7. USPS owes Congress $3 billion?

The U.S. Postal Service says the price hike is needed because it owes Congress more than $3 billion. It's been about three years since the last time the price of a postage stamp was increased, but for some of the people we talked to, two cents is too much.

http://www.ktvotv3.com/Global/story.asp?S=4066411&nav=1LFs

Also

When the price of a stamp goes up, the Postal Service shows a pattern of making money in the first year, breaking even in the second and losing in the third. That's why they establish rate hikes on a three-year cycle. Postage rates last increased in June 2002.

http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20051104/NEWS/111040030

[hfojvt]

10. in that respect

it is no different than anything else - gasoline, groceries, fuel oil, cable television. Costs go up, and prices need to go up too. Would any company keep making money if they had no way to expand their business and their prices were fixed for three years?

[Wickerman]

4. In 35 years of dealing with the Post Office

I can't recall any really bad experiences. As a sometimes eBay seller I have had many buyers tell me that their payment was mailed yet it never arrived. :think: I don't blame the PO, a look at their feedback tells me it happens too often to be coincidence.

I've had three insurance claims against them and each has been very satisfying. ymmv.

[Kingofalldems]

6. You ran into a dumbass

Priority Mail should take 2 to 3 days anywhere in the USA. BTW, tracking at 45cents is cheap and effective, should always be used.

[dflprincess]

8. They're probably using Northwest to fly mail out of Mpls/St Paul

that might explain the delay.

[Greyhound]

9. Once again welcome to *Co.'s amerika.

My sister works for USPS so I've been getting the story for 5 years. It is the same story in every agency. First promote incompetent cronies or ass-kissers, then increase the workload and stop hiring, lay off the part-time and support people so the people you can't fire can't keep up with the job, steal as much $ as you can get your hands on, subcontract with 'private' carriers that have no accountability, and blame it all on how incompetent and corrupt the government is.
Once people are really sick of it push the idea of privatizing the whole thing because you've all been brain-washed into believing that corporations are efficient and well-run. One day we'll wake up to find we have no government, no representation, and no choice.

[bbgrunt]

21. exactly. same with education.

[Greyhound]

26. Every goddamn dept., bureau, agency, and office.

it's their "Final Solution" to the problem of government (meaning the constitution stops us from screwing you as much and as hard as we want)

[stop the bleeding]

11. Government employees would not offer to help an old lady on her

deathbed it if was not in job specs.

And if I am offending anyone oh well, I have had too many daily(repeat daily) experiences to feel otherwise.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. As a retired postal employee...

One who has no love of th4 postal service and has worked as clerk, carrier, and spent most of my career as a counselor for "troubled employess", and who retired the first day I was eligible. I am not an apologist for the Postal Service.

Having said that, the postal service gets a bad rap. I'll spare you the stats about billions of pieces of mail, cost ratios, etc. But, just think of how many pieces of mail addessed to you in an average week, arrive on time and are delivered to your door. The PO screws up. What business of it's size (of which there aren't many) doesn't. How many pieces of mail do you send out that get where they're supposed to without a hitch? As a postal customer, I can easily reckon that 99% of my mail, incoming and outgoing, is delivered on time.

You know why UPS and FedEx and all the other companies don't deliver ordinary mail? Cuz they couldn't possibly do it at the price the postal service does. Even with all the automation, your little card that goes across town to Aunt Myrtle, requires a minimum of 10 people handling it.

Actually, the rates for mail service are artificially low. Try comparing them to other countries for cost and efficiency.

[question everything]

15. I agree with everything that you say

my points were, first - to accept that a Priority Mail from Minneapolis to LA should take a week as "normal" is wrong. It could happen on occasion, but not the norm.

Two - I did not drop the package at the mail box; I did go to the window and I would think that as I was paying for this the employee would have mentioned that tracking number was available for extra $0.45. This is so basic... Everyplace that you go - McDonald, the phone company, credit card - the employees are eager to sell you more services and products. Perhaps their compensation is tied to it. But if they do, why not the postal service workers?

And I don't support privatization. But there ought to be ways to motivate even government and quasi government employees. To hire people that like the work and are interested in the job. Many years ago working for the Post Office was quite desirable, the income the "benefits" etc. But perhaps this, too, is gone.

And then there is this story (thank you, google news)

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Postal Service has drastically curtailed a moving-expense bonus program for senior executives, ending payments of up to $25,000 that allowed officials to pocket thousands of unspent dollars. In one instance, an executive received $50,000.

The bonuses, which supplement government payments for housing assistance and shipment of household goods, will now be capped at two weeks' salary. For senior executives earning about $165,000, the limit would slightly exceed $6,300.

http://www.picayuneitem.com/articles/2005/11/03/news/16po.txt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

25. The "great job" is gone.

As for your experience with the window clerk, you should call the postmaster of the office and suggest that tracking numbers be offered.

The Postal Service "motivates" it's employees mostly with threats not bonuses or pats on the back.

As for the story you cited about "moving expenses" it's all too true. And, more. When I was (technically) in management, we'd be hauled off to fancy hotels in distant places for "conferences" or "training" that could have been done locally. At great expense. This while they were busily cutting benefits and resisting pay raises for the common folk and crying about the necessity of economizing.

As I said, I'm definitely NOT defending the postal service but, at delivering mail, they're pretty damned good.

[recoveringrepublican]

20. My husband is a supervisor and was told

that for every penny over $1.50/gallon in gas it costs USPS an extra $2 million to deliver mail.

The prices have to be artificially low. I'm a TE (I type shit) and there has to be at least 500 employees at my plant alone, making at least double what they would in the private sector (and making sure they are doing a damned good job as they know they won't make that anywhere but USPS). I love how people bitch about USPS. Would love to see what they had to say if they had to deal with private companies doing all USPS does, with underpaid servants really delivering their checks, bills, letters from grandma, etc. Instead, for $0.37, a person who is paid well and doesn't want to loose his job and all the benefits, will come to your house, pick it up, and it will be delivered ANYWHERE in the US right to the mail box. For $0.37 the piece of mail will be keyed by me, to make sure it reaches the correct destination.

Be an apologist, I am. Some of the most dedicated people in my community work for USPS. You will see postal workers at every demonstration against corporate greed and demanding a livable wage for all.

[Momgonepostal]

32. I'm also a DCO, at the Modesto REC.

Nice to "meet" you. :-)

[recoveringrepublican]

37. lol, just got off of work actually. Boring as hell, but really the best

job I've ever had. No BS as long as one is meeting the standards. I punch in, am told where to go, take my breaks, then punch out. If I need to change my schedule, it's pretty easy. I've never had a job offer annual leave before, granted it takes 20 hours just for 1 hour, but it was nice having 4 days off paid. Sucks though one has to wait so long to be career. I took the battle exam, but only scored 82. lol sorry to ramble I can't sleep yet.

[Momgonepostal]

38. It's the best part-time job I've ever had, too

I love the annual leave. For me, I usually work 5-6 hours a shift, so the 50 some hours of leave I had accumulated at the end of last year was the equivalent of 2ish weeks pay. Cool.

We just had the opportunity to take the exam, but I decided not to because at this point, part-time is all I want anyway.

I work evenings because I have young kids at home. The other part time evening work jobs in this area pretty much pay minimum wage, so this is a good thing.

Does your site do PARS yet? We've done a little for a while, but are getting more soon, so they are training more of us in that. I'm about halfway done with the training.

[recoveringrepublican]

39. It's great for mothers! But please take the battle exam when you can!

This job is also great for college students

I was working the 7pm-1am shift, but now that my in-laws are back from Greece I work the 7:30pm-4:30am, I usually get off about 3:30am. I drive 39 miles to work because of the wage and the hours, no jobs around here had hours that work with my husband's (he's a supervisor for USPS), and I don't want to ask my in-laws to watch my children more than they already do, and no jobs close pay enough to justify putting my kids in daycare, with what they were offering I would just be working to send my kids to daycare.

yes we have pars. I've only been working there since March, I reached my last benchmark end of August, my last 7 edits were clean. Wouldn't you know it My next 3 freaking edits (I've only had 3 for some reason) had a total of 4 freaking mistypes!! I'm over 5% right now and it's really pissing me off. I was suppose to train for flats in Sept, but had to take that week off, but now I'm stuck in letters until (hopefully) I get my error rate down. I was at about 12,000 ksph (that's with the 0% error rate), but now I'm just doing the minimum if I can help it. I can't wait to train in flats, they have a 9:00pm-5:30am shift which would be great once my both my kids are in school, that way my in-laws wouldn't' have to watch them at all and I could sleep more when they are at school.

Do you get the health insurance through the union? Luckily I get health insurance through my husband, but have many friends who would love to work as a DCO, but need the insurance their current job offers. If you do have it is it good coverage?

[Momgonepostal]

40. Do you mind if I PM you?

Not that I have anything private to say, but I don't think everyone else cares... :-)

[nini]

22. As a fellow former Postal Worker.. I agree with you

The PO does a hell of a job considering the volume of mail that goes through every day. While the OP has a valid complaint that the clerk should have asked, I also say as a consumer we should also know what we want and perhaps ask too.

I won't even get into the BS postal workers have to deal with daily with the military type management - that's a whole issue which will send me into a rant :-)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

27. Believe me, I've heard all the rants about management.

I was an EAP (Employee Assistance Program) counselor until they "privatized" it as a cost cutting measure (it wasn't). Management in the USPS is beyond inept. Relying almost totally on punishment as a "motivator". I spent 10 years listening to tales of abuse, coercion, favoritism, backstabbing, sexism, racism, and violence. What has always amazed me is the SMALL number of instances of "going postal" that have occurred. Of course, the lesser incidents of violence, threats, etc, don't make it to the media.

When they privatized EAP out, they had to give us equal or better jobs in "management". There were any number of supervisor jobs available that would have been a promotion. No way. Supervisor in the USPS is the worst job. Upper management leans on them to inflict more "discipline" constantly. So, the decent supervisors are forced out and replaced by the ass-kissers and martinets.

But, the average worker puts up with all the BS and generally does a helluva good job. And, if management would act sensibly and just back off they'd do an even better job.

[nini]

28. oh.. I have some stories for you

I decided to try mgmt. The first week with my crew I was told I needed to create a situation with one of the clerks to see how I'd handle confrontation.. WHAT? no thanks. I went back to my clerk job the next night.

My supervisor at the time was having an affair with another team member. They both left their spouses and she gets pregnant. He decides she can do my job while I'm out unloading trucks. Oh no.... I was senior clerk and went after him. We had a huge shouting match in the middle of the workroom floor as he tried to discipline me without a union rep. Lucky guy - I had a car accident the next week and was never able to go back.

I was so miserable at that job that I was actually happy to be in the hospital with broken legs because I knew I wouldn't have to go back to that hell hole for a long time.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

30. Stories? Here's one.

After EAP, I worked for 5 years in Labor Relations. I was booted out (literally - complete with a Letter of Warning) because of my "sympathies" towards the workers over management.

One of the goofiest things that management did was a case of a clerk on graveyard who, passing one of those machines in the swing room where you cough up a quarter and have a chance of snagging some toy, saw that two toy rabbits were caught in the chute. He gave the machine a rap and out popped the two toy rabbits. He took them and put them on his LSM. A supervisor accused him of "theft" because he got them without depositing his quarter. He was fired. The union grieved and it went all the way to arbitration (expense in the thousands of dollars) where the arbitrator literally laughed it out of arbitration and called it (no kidding) "BunnyGate". The employee was rewarded his job back, complete with all back pay and possible overtime. I believe he had spent, at least, a year out of work while the case went through all the steps before arbitration. So, he collected, conservatively speaking, about $40,000 for not working while management threw their weight around. I was chastized for saying, "This is really stupid". The "stolen" bunnies were worth about $2.00.

In EAP the incidents were much more tragic. Suicides, assaults, rapes, drug addiction, alcoholism, just plain lunatics, and all kinds of horrors. Although, I thought the "privatization" of EAP was a terrible move for the employees, all the counselors in the district (4 of us in 3 offices) were burnt out and relieved to out of the job.

Anybody who thinks that working for the PO is a cushy job ought to try fending off the doggies, plowing through snow up to your ass, listening to outraged people who didn't get their Xmas catalogue, or putting up with the indignities heaped upon the peasants by the bosses.

End of memory lane rant.

[Skittles]

13. I have used postal services several times a month for over 40 years

not ONE time has anything ever been lost, or even LATE. I think for what I pay I get DAMN GOOD service. Now I am stuffing packages full to the brim and mailing them to Iraq and Afghanistan for always the same price $7.70. I always make sure everything is PRINTED, LEGIBLE and I clear tape my return address. IT IS A BARGAIN.

[Xithras]

16. The USPS is doomed.

Email and the telephone have largely supplanted casual letter writing, and electronic billpay is rapidly eating into business mail. If not for junkmail, the USPS would be bankrupt already.

The problem with the USPS is that thir long term prospects put most of their business in package shipping, which forces them into direct competition with FedEx and UPS. Both of those carriers are faster and more efficient than the USPS.

[mtnester]

18. I have mailed letters from where I am to a city that is about 12 miles awa

and had it take four days, or more.

I would pay more, but only for better service. I could have walked that letter back and forth a couple of times in that amount of time period.

Nevermind the RIDICULOUS amount of time it takes a letter to come back if your zip is wrong or something. Have seen it take 45 days. And 50% of the time, it is because the route carrier/post office itself did not know that a new street existed and figured they would ship it back and let me figure it out.

[Xenotime]

19. * has allowed

all these prices to get out of hand. This is just another tax the pugs are using.

[Cleita]

23. Did you know that the US Post Office is run by a private company

contracted by the federal government? It happened somewhere in the middle seventies. I noticed because I went from having efficient mail service to inefficient service. My regular mailman and many of his co-workers were forced into early retirement and a new crew was brought in. Yes, I'm saying that the post office was run more efficiently by the government than private industry and my stanps cost a lot less then too.

[nini]

29. I wouldn't say a private company as much as they fund themselves

and are responsible for budgeting etc..

Workers were not forced into early retirement. they were given the option which many took because it made sense to do so, (my mother took the option when offered).

What they do that pisses me off is they did get into the 90 casual employee which has affected efficiency. They just don't get to stay in the job long enough to get real good at it.

Stamps were cheaper because costs in general were cheaper back then.

Postal workers are still under the govt. umbrella. I am a retired civil service employee because I worked for the PO.

37 cents is a bargain... a freaking bargain these days.

[Cleita]

35. I know for a fact that my postman and some of his co-workers

were forced into early retirement because they told me so. In other words they were made an offer they couldn't refuse. I remember him telling me that the handwriting was on the wall and he would be foolish to fight it although he wasn't ready to retire yet.

I'm pretty sure it's not part of the government although employees get all government employee benefits. I would have to research it though, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt although those same postal workers said it was a new company contracting with the federal government.

[nini]

36. I took a private company as an entity above the USPS

the USPS is it's on. In terms of other agencies such as the FBI then yes, it's not part of the govt. BUt it is not run by a corporation per se.


Forced out and an offer you can't refuse are too different things. My mother was given the same offer and when she weighed her options it was a good deal. She could have stayed and accrued more but there was no sense to. She got above the amount she had paid in.

I'm not going to argue the fact the PO has changed and is using more part-time type employees. That is true. But there are many fulltime career employees still there and you still can hire on in that capacity. However, the manual labor type jobs have been reduced to the casual/part time type workers more than it should. These type jobs don't affect the overall performance though as some would imply.

[Cleita]

33. ....

[chat_noir]

24. count me in on a vote for the USPS

Maybe I'm lucky, but my experiences with the post offices/postal workers in my area have been 98% excellent.

The one things that the USPS could do is raise the postal rates for junk mail to exhorbitant levels. :) Price them out of the business!

[bleedingheart]

34. Sorry for your experience, but I love the USPS

always have had great service.

Now I have had problems with Fed Ex an UPS...damaged items and items that they did not deliver as expected.