WHAT HAPPENED TO THE POST OFFICE MOTTO??

[rwsmith]

It's at that point....

Though I hated going out on disability, I recognized that the climate had gotten so bad that it wasn't an awful thing that I retired early.

Missus Smiff taught special ed for 10 years and support was non-existent, just the threat of getting sued. She saw the light and started delivering mail part time. When she came to me shaking and said that she couldn't go back to school I told he to get out of there, so she became a full time rural carrier. Working in the office is miserable but she loves her customers and watches out for them and they really appreciate it. She's had several routes around town over the years and everybody that doesn't know her from teaching, knows her from being a carrier. She always said that it didn't matter how much they were on her about going FAST, she was going to take care of her customers. After this Amazon thing and having to do such heavy work for so many hours she has been miserable (it's taking its toll physically) and has plans to retire in September. I told her I knew just how she felt. I really enjoyed my work until they decided to make everybody as miserable as possible. When it gets like that......it's time to go. She can do any other job she wants too.

I could go on about stuff like working to build a reputation, but they fix it so that nobody knows your reputation after being with a company 25 years and make a target out of you.....but I'll stop there. I'm probably preaching to the choir.

 

[The Last Standing Knight]

I always keep in mind this statement from a letter carrier many years ago when it comes to the USPS.
At work, we had a letter carrier who kept putting mail in the wrong boxes. This wasn't a sometimes thing, but every day. One of my tenants confronted him about it. This was his response and I remember every bit of it:

"Lady, I don't care. I'm paid to deliver it, not see that it's accurate. You don't like it then call the Post Office and file your gripe."

Sums it up.

 

[rwsmith]

There are plenty of those.......

I always keep in mind this statement from a letter carrier many years ago when it comes to the USPS.
At work, we had a letter carrier who kept putting mail in the wrong boxes. This wasn't a sometimes thing, but every day. One of my tenants confronted him about it. This was his response and I remember every bit of it:

"Lady, I don't care. I'm paid to deliver it, not see that it's accurate. You don't like it then call the Post Office and file your gripe."


Sums it up.

...and there are some of those in my wife's office. And a few of the substitutes she's had. Some only wanted to be dragged along by the system. And some of those get promoted.

I know that at times we could always tell who was delivering our route. One carrier....always right. The other carrier...always wrong.

 

[cmort666]

My mother sent me a Christmas and birthday card the week before Christmas (addressed to a friend's office). I haven't seen it yet. I don't expect to.

 

[JayFramer]

The Post Office is doing all they can, bear with them and stop being impatient. They are the unsung heroes of our daily life and work hard. Sad and pathetic that some would put them down for their services. I have known many postmen through my time and they all are incredible people who would stop at nothing to help their fellow man. And glitches in delivery is not a result of laziness, but unsafe conditions. Have you ever slipped on ice and buster your head open? They are trying to avoid that and again please be patient, they're doing everything they can to help you.

 

[joeintexas]

I have to say our postal delivery service here is very good. Friendly and always polite. I appreciate that. Can't say the same for our trash pick up, it's hit or miss whether they pick it all up or not. It's almost got to the point of being a neighborhood joke. The neighbors tell me it does no good to call and complain but I did anyway. They were right.

 

[Ranger17]

Yeah i wont complain about the service here; i work from home and have frequently spoken with our delivery person. She's always upbeat, friendly, and does a great job. Being in a 'burb, i concur that they cant deliver what they dont get. Amazon and other packages shipped first via UPS/Fedex that end up mail post for final delivery; those seem to always be on time. But snail mail that has to rely on trucks to bring it here (they look like 3rd party delivery services)? Well if they arent running then no mail that day.

I work in logistics, and the USPS isnt the only service that can be delayed with inclement weather.....

 

[TomkinsSP]

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

Fun fact: that quote is not and never was the motto of USPS. It was carved in stone on the facade of the New York City Post Office across the street from Penn Station. William Kendall, the architect liked the quote, which is a free lance interpretation of the creed of the Ancient Greek Messengers.

And, as an "old guy" let me tell you those folks "delivered for you".

 

[Jack Flash]

... Working in the office is miserable but she loves her customers and watches out for them and they really appreciate it. ...

Did anyone see the 60 Minutes segment years ago where a family thought their elderly father was being neglected in a nursing home? They installed a hidden camera. The video revealed that he often went days at a time with NO ONE even looking in on him, let alone caring for him. It did contain a beautiful moment when the mailman delivered some mail to him and asked how he was. The old fellow said "bad, really bad." The mailman stayed with him a while and they prayed together.

IIRC, the mailman inquired at the main desk about the old guy, but was given some BS answer. Amazing that the mailman cared more about him than the staff at the nursing home!

 

[mstem]

We are in a rural area. When USPS has packages that won't fit in our mailbox, we have a nice size box, they will pull in the driveway, get out & place package by the door. Yes, the USPS have their faults but for the 40+yrs. I have lived here it hasn't been the rural mail carriers. Couldn't ask for any better service from them. Now the jackasses at the post office is another thing. Our daughter recently purchased a new house 200yrds. down the road from us. She went to the Chase City, VA post office where their mail was delivered from at their old house to change her address. She was told by the postmaster she couldn't do it there she would have to do it online. So she came by here pissed off, got on the internet to do it. And guess what? They charged her $1.00 to change her address! She was boiling! Later I saw our carrier & she handed me our mail. She ask if our daughter had bought a house. I told her yes & pointed it out to her. She ask me to tell her to get their box up. I told her they tried but the ground was frozen & her hub couldn't dig the hole. She said fine, would it be ok to put their mail in our box until they get theirs up. I told her it would. Then I told her what happened at the Chase City, VA post office. She couldn't believe it! She said they were just too damn lazy to change it.

 

[nachogrande]

THE WAY THEY WERE.

REMEMBER WHEN mail persons hoofed it to EVERY house, in ANY weather with those real nice heavy leather bags? Now mail boxes are a clustered eye sore, or all on one side of the st. When I moved here one of the first things I did (rebellious by nature) was to move my mailbox from across the street to in front of MY house. It didn't take long for the neighbors to follow suit & I never got in trouble for starting this uprising. We no longer always have the same carrier. All but 1 do a great job & carry anything too big for the mail box to the front door. 1 carrier you can't get him off his backside with dynamite , maybe he has a disability, but then so do both of us, and going to the PO/ stand in line for a piece of junk mail really burns my backside.

 

[Watchdog]

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

In the last 5 days we have NOT received mail in three of them. Thursday we got 16" of snow ........ Friday was bright and sunny but it was 5ºF ......... and today it was 30º and clear - ALL THREE DAYS we had no mail service! It's not just me either, there are many in our neighborhood that are complaining of the same situation. Have any of you guys experienced this or are we just "lucky"?

Two things have "happened" to the USPS, its motto, and its commitment to customer service.

The first is that modern times have caught up with the postal service. The USPS is now reluctant to send its carriers out into dangerous weather and conditions. Labor costs, health insurance and health care costs, and revenue losses when employees are injured all contribute to this.

Ask yourself how often you go out driving and walking in 16 inches of snow when it's 5 degrees...unless you really need to get out?

The second thing is...I'm sorry to say...the USPS no longer has the quality employees it had thirty or forty years ago. A lot of postal employees, carriers and clerks, just won't show up for work if there's snow on the ground. They'll call in sick, or call in saying they "can't get out of their driveway" or they "can't get up the hill on their street or road". Some of it's legitimate, but a lot is not.

My dad was a letter carrier for over thirty years. It snowed so bad here once back around '55 or '56, the postal service borrowed vehicles from the national guard to deliver the mail. Dad came home for lunch driving a big 10-wheel personnel carrier with the big white star on the doors! He gave us kids a ride around the block in it! He never missed a day of work for any reason, and no matter what the weather, his uniform was perfect. I don't see that level of dedication now.

 

[GT_80]

we had a blizzard last week, and no mail on that day, but we have been getting mail on Sundays for over a year now- Since maybe pre-Christmas 2016? still feels weird seeing a Mail truck on my way to Church.

 

[NYlakesider]

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”



In the last 5 days we have NOT received mail in three of them. Thursday we got 16" of snow ........ Friday was bright and sunny but it was 5ºF ......... and today it was 30º and clear - ALL THREE DAYS we had no mail service! It's not just me either, there are many in our neighborhood that are complaining of the same situation. Have any of you guys experienced this or are we just "lucky"?

Well Chief, can only speak for myself but I never missed a delivery up here due to weather. A couple hours late now and then. My guy has a good all-wheel drive with very good snow rated tires and he can even make it up my rather nasty driveway if he has a package for us. It appears all the drivers up here use their own vehicles.

Now when I lived in Colonie about 4 miles from that huge mail handling complex anything was possible regarding mail and attitude of the folks there!

FWIW I feel that the rural drivers are a major cut above the city/suburban people. Yes we give him a decent tip within PO guidelines)

 

[Ranger17]

I could be wrong, but seems the PO can't run themselves like most businesses would and if a price hike is needed then it is put in place. It isn't a true gov't agency but yet needs to operate under their guidance and approvals when pricing/profitability comes into play.

The other carriers (package and truck) raise rates as needed. The PO cant seem to do so regardless of being above or below water...... which can affect service, staffing, and so on....

Again apologies if I am off on the above.

 

[cmort666]

Sad and pathetic that some would put them down for their services.

You bet I'll put somebody down whom I catch in a bald face lie.

1. I ordered two IKEA Jansjo lamps from Amazon. They were supposed to be delivered on a Sunday. The day before, they were reported to be delivered... in a mailbox smaller than the item delivered. They've never been seen or heard from.
2. I ordered some gear to clean the sensor on my camera. I sat in my friend's office waiting for the items to arrive. While leaving to get dinner so that I could wait in my friend's office until 8:00pm, I got a notification that the office in which I had been sitting, with no delivery, no knock and no written notice on the door, was "closed" and therefore the delivery couldn't be made. I called Amazon who called the USPS. Even the USPS rep admitted that I'd been LIED to.
3. There are literally DOZENS of pages of similar stories on Amazon's customer pages, some with video evidence.

It's one thing to not be able to make a delivery.

It's an entirely different thing to lie like a five year old to justify it.

 

[BC38]

I always keep in mind this statement from a letter carrier many years ago when it comes to the USPS.
At work, we had a letter carrier who kept putting mail in the wrong boxes. This wasn't a sometimes thing, but every day. One of my tenants confronted him about it. This was his response and I remember every bit of it:

"Lady, I don't care. I'm paid to deliver it, not see that it's accurate. You don't like it then call the Post Office and file your gripe."

Sums it up.

Yeah a couple of times a month we get mail for the folks with our same house number two streets over. They get ours with about the same frequency.

Calling and complaining only helps if the person you have to complain to cares more than the person screwing up.

 

[cybermgk]

What happened to the USPS Credo?

The U.S Congress did.

 

[BC38]

I could be wrong, but seems the PO can't run themselves like most businesses would and if a price hike is needed then it is put in place. It isn't a true gov't agency but yet needs to operate under their guidance and approvals when pricing/profitability comes into play.

The other carriers (package and truck) raise rates as needed. The PO cant seem to do so regardless of being above or below water...... which can affect service, staffing, and so on....

Again apologies if I am off on the above.

That is true for MAIL, but I don't believe it is true for the package delivery side of their "business". I believe they can change/set those rates anytime they want.

The mail side of the post office is operated as a quasi-government entity and is heavily regulated. The package side is theoretically operated as a separate "business unit" - even though they leverage the operating costs off the mail side of the business. The mail side doesn't have to turn a profit either - it just has to break even, and they have to have Congressional approval to raise the price of stamps to ensure they bring in enough to break even.

Basically their monopoly on mail is used to subsidize and make the parcel side profitable - which is very anti-competitive and gives them a huge advantage over their "competition" - like UPS FedEx, etc.

 

[zzzippper]

For the amount of mail they handle per day, and the rate they charge, I think they do an outstanding job. No, I've never worked there, nor do any of my relatives, it's just my personal opinion. Do they have their share of bad apples? You bet. But so does every business anywhere.

Amen. USPS is todays version of a brick and mortar store trying to compete with the big-box stores (UPS, FedEx). I will give anyone here 43 cents and ask them to deliver a letter from me in St. Louis to my elderly aunt in Tacoma and turn a profit. And do it on time, damnit!