USPS Delivery Problems

[Por_sha911]

Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6

I think one key to great mail delivery is a $30 gift card at Christmas time. I've known my current mailman for well over 5 years, could be 10, and always got decent service, started with $15 Starbucks cards, moved up to $30 gift cards a few years. Cheap thank you for the awesome service I get.

My USPS carrier OWES ME $30. On a regular basis, I have to take mail that was in my box and bring it to my neighbor who's box is next after mine (down the road and not just right next to us). I had 5 letters for them in my box yesterday.

I'm just glad that the neighbor who's box is before mine are really good folks I trust.

[Superman]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Nobody is "scanning" anything at delivery, when they are actually putting it in the mail box.

This differs from our service. I see the USPS truck go by (the actual mail box is not visible from my living room window) and sixty seconds later I am notified the delivery was completed.

As I say, when I see a First Class or Priority USPS shipping option, I choose it. Faster and less expensive.

[Superman]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

My USPS carrier OWES ME $30. On a regular basis, I have to take mail that was in my box and bring it to my neighbor who's box is next after mine (down the road and not just right next to us). I had 5 letters for them in my box yesterday.

I'm just glad that the neighbor who's box is before mine are really good folks I trust.

I see these stories, and it seems clear that some Letter Carriers are more diligent than others. This should surprise no one. This happens in all occupations and all organizations public and private.

And I can't help wondering whether customers 'fixing' these delivery problems is part of the problem. If the Letter Carrier had to fix their own problems, then perhaps greater care would be taken by them in the first place. Perhaps deliver the important-looking mail directly to your neighbor, but mark the junk mail "Wrong address....Try again" and place it in the outgoing mail slot. Or save it up for a time, then personally deliver it directly to the manager (Postmaster).

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by Superman

This differs from our service. I see the USPS truck go by (the actual mail box is not visible from my living room window) and sixty seconds later I am notified the delivery was completed.

As I say, when I see a First Class or Priority USPS shipping option, I choose it. Faster and less expensive.

I get the same notification upon delivery. I don't think they actually scan anything, however, I think they simply tap a touch screen on something that tells their system (and us) that they delivered something. The assumption is that whatever was scanned back in the mailroom and posted to "informed delivery" is what they delivered. They do not verify each individual piece of mail or each individual package by actually scanning it in the mail truck before putting it in the mail box. It's simply an acknowledgement that "yeah, I delivered whatever it was that might have been in the tray for that address".

Interestingly, my missing package showed up in my mailbox today. I received no notification that it had been delivered, nor was it included in the image provided by "informed delivery" as something I should be looking for today. Of course not - their tracking website told me they delivered it to me on Monday.

Conversely, several rather important pieces of mail (tax documents) that showed up on "informed delivery" as being out for delivery today were not in my mailbox today.

Something is very, very broken at the Post Office. It must be, to have come to the attention of a Congressman or several.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Something is very, very broken at the Post Office. It must be, to have come to the attention of a Congressman or several.

You will want to talk with the Post Master General, Louis DeJoy, who took over in June 2020.

If you google "new postmaster general" or "Louis DeJoy," under NEWS, there is a lot to go through.

If there is one thing we can probably all agree on, the USPS has been broken for many years.

I am just thankful that Rob is my mailman and before him Nick, who was a pistol. It was always great to see him and talk for a few minutes.

[upsscott]

Originally Posted by tabs

It was the UPS man who delivered a shotgun to the same address on the wrong street...

It was a UPS Counter Man who took it upon himself to open a package containing a SW mdl 27-2 to check it before shipping..which was legal because it was FFL to FFL..

It was the UPS that delivered a rifle with the barrel poking through the package..

And it’s UPS that doesn’t deliver firearms anymore.

[upsscott]

Well we do deliver firearms, only to licensed dealers. It had nothing to do with being PC. It was all about liability and people shipping guns without specifying so thus requiring an adult signature. It was a complete headache. Theft was also an issue.

[jhynesrockmtn]

Jeff, could your issue be theft from your box or doorstep? We have had a fair amount of that in our area. I installed some Google nest cameras including a doorbell camera so I know when deliveries get made.

USPS is so short of staff that I have relatives across town that only get delivered to once or twice a week. We still get daily service.

[tabs]

Originally Posted by upsscott

Well we do deliver firearms, only to licensed dealers. It had nothing to do with being PC. It was all about liability and people shipping guns without specifying so thus requiring an adult signature. It was a complete headache. Theft was also an issue.

That has always been the case. I AM A LICENSED HOLDER, HAVE BEEN SINCE 1985. Only exception is firearms made before 1898, those are classified as being antique. For all intents and purposes they are non firearms, as nobody cares.

[Superman]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Something is very, very broken at the Post Office. It must be, to have come to the attention of a Congressman or several.

Before anyone chooses to insult me on the basis of some assumptive caricaturization, please read this: I am not making any judgments or assumptions about the presence or absence of any problems with the USPS. I am not in denial about the potential or likelihood of large, systemic problems and/or localized ones. Indeed, it would surprise me to find that any organization, including USPS or any other, is problem-free.. And.....I really don't like people telling lies about me as a basis for insult.

That said, Jeff, it sounds like there is certainly a localized problem. In this thread, we hear of satisfied customers. We see certain Letter Carriers being lauded. It seems obvious to me that, at a minimum, your Letter Carrier is behaving poorly.

This raises the question of whether this Letter Carrier's supervisor is effectively supervising. In either case, a Postmaster General and a Congressperson are just not on point to drop what they are doing and reach out to your Letter Carrier's supervisor. If your Letter Carrier's behavior is consistent with national USPS policy, then some folks in Washington DC do need to wake up and smell the obvious coffee. But in other neighborhoods (like mine), package deliveries are instantly communicated to me in real time. Packages never arrive without this notification, and notifications are never inaccurate.

So....I am not necessarily seeing this is a problem for Congress. I could be wrong, but this appears to be a local supervisory problem. USPS may have problems that Congress needs to address, but your neighborhood's Letter Carrier supervision does not appear to be among those. To me.

[tabs]

In general I have had pretty good luck with all the carriers..except for the outlier here and there..

Many times for me the problem has been with the shipper and their shipping protocol. You never ever want to ship a long gun where it can go up and down in the box...the constant bouncing up and down during shipping is what breaks stocks.

[Superman]

Originally Posted by jhynesrockmtn

USPS is so short of staff....

This has been the case for a great many years, and is surely at least part of the overall national efficiency challenges which Congress has noticed (but not addressed). The new Postmaster General has basically been hired to squeeze blood from a turnip here (fix the problems with no additional funding) and he says he thinks he can do that. We wish him success.

And while it would be nice to evaluate USPS by comparing them to UPS, those organizations are not nearly the same. USPS and FedEx do not handle bazillions of pieces of First Class mail each day, and they don't want to. USPS revenue from First Class Mail has dropped in half over the past three years. UPS revenues are greater than that of USPS. And UPS does not have to stuff EVERYONE'S mailbox every day.

[KFC911]

My USPS deliveries and tracking has always been accurate .... and real time. It gets delivered and then updated as such immediately. I see other carriers delivering packages to neighbors porches and updating as they walk back to their truck too.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by Superman

So....I am not necessarily seeing this is a problem for Congress. I could be wrong, but this appears to be a local supervisory problem. USPS may have problems that Congress needs to address, but your neighborhood's Letter Carrier supervision does not appear to be among those. To me.

Washington Representatives Suzan DelBene and Rick Larsen, per the article I linked in the first post, certainly see it as a problem for Congress. As noted in that article, these problems have been that widespread in our state, at least.

Additionally, I've mentioned our mail lady has been with us for a long, long time. Never a problem until last summer. I'm convinced it's not her. It has to be further upstream.

Representatives DelBene and Larson could care less if I get my mail. For this to have come to their attention, it has to be far bigger than that.

[Superman]

Interesting. Believe it or not, there are topics on which I am not the world's foremost authority. And even more surprisingly, I understand that.

I wish I knew more. Perhaps some explanations will become available.

[Superman]

Okay, I read the article. I have some observations I will not share here but I will say that the only "national" angle I see are the demands to meet a Congresswoman in her DC office which would indeed "get their attention." What happens, besides the staff time to attend the meeting, is other staff time by several offices and internal correspondence between the local post office, the regional offices, the national office, back downstairs, back up the chain, back down the stairs again..... And lots of folks think this use of resources is a great idea. Okay.....

I also see "Western Washington" when the problem may actually be localized into the metropolitan Seattle area. Housing costs are mentioned, and USPS may not have the authority to offer compensation packages to prospective Letter Carriers which would be attractive to them in a market where apartment rents are $2,000+/month. So yeah, plenty of evidence of a staffing problem. Your Letter Carrier may be working two shifts per day.

Still, that does not solve all riddles. I share concerns about when scanning occurs and what data is captured in those scans.

I also notice this assertion by an angry residential customer than 58 other ballots went missing in his neighborhood. I wonder what evidence we have other than an angry assertion.

But I think Jeff said his ballot went missing. I certainly do not have questions about the truth of that!

And I notice the local election office has been drawn into this. Reviews are often appropriate, and these assertions are important. I can tell you as a former insider that a substantial portion of those two local agencies' management resources have been redirected into this review. Pushing other work aside at least temporarily. Still, it must be done. Even in short-staffed organizations.

The article was interesting to me, but also raised at least as many questions as it answered.

[Jeff Higgins]

Here is my absolutely unqualified, knee-jerk, seat of the pants assessment of just what HAS to be happening, with no evidence whatsoever to back any of this up. In other words, putting on my PPOT "expert" hat...

Looking at the timeline on my last botched delivery, the package sent last week, I see the following:

I placed my order on Friday. The nice guy with the hard to get old Ducati parts is in Kentucky. It was mid day here, so at least "tea time" back there. I kinda doubt he was able to get my stuff picked up by his mail carrier on Friday. Which, because he has a life and stays home to be with his wife and kids over the weekend, means he probably didn't ship until... Monday.

USPS changed status on my package as "Delivered, front desk/reception/mail room" on Monday. I think they received it in their mail room on Monday, in Kentucky, and scanned it. It should have then shown a status of "received". Somehow, some way, it went right past all of the intermediate statuses to that "Delivered, front desk/reception/mail room".

How would that happen? Having worked for a large, inefficient, impersonal company for some time, I can think of a couple of plausible explanations:

1) New, unfamiliar software. Operator error trying to use it, just innocently fat fingered something, or whatever. No way to back it out once it moves forward through the various statuses. Honest mistake, frustrated mail room clerk.

2) New performance measures backed by some sort of incentives to meet delivery "targets". Knowing there is no way to say otherwise, no accountability, or that he can blame "new software", some lazy, dishonest, and unscrupulous mailroom clerk pads his delivery performance by simply fast forwarding everything in the system to "delivered". Then, when it actually is delivered, there is nothing the poor mail carrier can do, because the system already shows it as "delivered".

The more I think about it, this seems to be the pattern I've witnessed. Upon arrival at the very first mail center, where items should be scanned as "received", they are, instead, promoted to "delivered" right away. Even if that mail center is (as in this case) in Kentucky, and final delivery is in the Seattle area. Then, from there, since status already shows "delivered", all tracking effectively ceases. There is no way in which status can be updated once it hits "delivered" - the system locks them out on that package from there on. So nobody knows where in the hell it actually is, since no one receiving or forwarding the package can change status anymore.

System glitch or dishonest employees working to some sort of delivery targets? Hopefully Ms. DelBene and Mr. Larson can get some answers...

[KFC911]

Jeff I don't receive a lot of things via USPS, but when I do, and I track them cross country (typical) it's always been accurate. G'boro is a large distribution center ... they arrive there one day, overnight to my local PO, out for delivery around 7-8 am, and in my mailbox and marked delivered by 11:30. Sometimes there is a delay on the shipping end from when it's entered into the USPS tracking system and when they actually send it....

It's always been spot on for me.

[Superman]

Jeff's guess is better than mine. I would dispute his assertion of no evidence. Understandable, for an engineer, who prefers facts over mere 'evidence.' But evidence he has nonetheless, and he knows how to use it.

Gosh it had to be frustrating, Jeff, to work for that large, inefficient, impersonal company. Based on my observations from a distance, that company almost could not have been managed more poorly. You should have developed a drinking problem by now.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by KC911

Jeff I don't receive a lot of things via USPS,

Neither do I...

Originally Posted by Superman

You should have developed a drinking problem by now.

I have no problem drinking...