Why I Hate the Post Office

Everything is down-sizing. It's considered a good day if there's no news story about layoffs in the morning paper. Yesterday, while watching the news, I just about blew a fuse after I heard that budget cuts will be affecting the United States Postal Service. Instead of laying off workers, they are considering only delivering five days a week instead of the current six. So what, does that mean that my mail carrier will only deliver two days instead of his usual three?

I've always held the opinion that the Post Office is like the bank only worse. They both have horrible hours, rude (and unreliable) employees, outrageous fees and nothing is guaranteed. Take this for example, you can pay at least $15 to send something overnight, however overnight delivery is not guaranteed. So you're pretty much paying extra so that something may get there faster.

The other thing that makes the post office like the bank is that all activity is governed by a "roll-over" time. In banking if you make a deposit, no matter how early or late you make it, if you don't make it before the roll over time it won't be counted during that day's work. For example, most banks end their work day at 3 p.m., meaning you can deposit at 2:59 p.m. for it to be counted in that day's work, but if you make you're deposit at 3:01 p.m. you're out of luck. Your deposit won't go in until the next day. Same with the post office. If you put you're mail into the box after the pickup time, you're screwed.

Here's my question. I walk down the street, and I see that each mailbox has the exact same pick-up time. How can at least 25 mailboxes, spread out over a 3 mile stretch all be picked up at the same time when there is one guy picking up everything? Someone is bound to be screwed over. Like I said, it's the bank but worse.

Next, we move to actual delivery. I live in the city. I've lived here for a little over two months. In my two months I have already had three letters not delivered to me. Why? I don't know. One person even resent the same envelope that was not delivered, replacing only the stamp, and guess what? It made it here.

Are they just lazy, or just stupid? I don't know. I can tell you that my carrier is just lazy. The guy only comes three times a week. How do I know? Two simple ways. Number 1: I used to come home everyday for lunch at the same time he delivered down my street. Number 2: you can tell by the dates on the envelopes. There would be two dates under the sorted for delivery section, meaning that two days worth of mail came on the same day.

I know I could just not be that popular, and taking out my insecurities on the post office, but sadly that is not the case. I know this because the junk mail never stops - ever. In a world where junk mail comes everyday, when you find it coming every other day, you know something is off. I know the junk mailers aren't laying off so that leaves me with only one other option - my mailman is lazy.

And on to the "rain, sleet, snow" thing. That is the biggest bunch of baloney I have ever heard. We got snow two days ago. So obviously given the post office oath they should be delivering. Untrue. I had a package that should have been delivered two days ago but it was not. I know that it was supposed to be delivered because the USPS tracker stated that the package was "out for delivery," two days ago. Alas, I did not get it until yesterday. (I also didn't get any mail two days ago, yet yesterday I was bombarded with three days worth of mail.)

And here's the icing on the cake. Once I received a "sorry we missed" you ticket for a package because I wasn't home. The funny thing is that I didn't leave my apartment all day. The mailman, too lazy to walk to my door to deliver the package, simply left the note without making any attempt to deliver the package.

Speaking of package tracking, that is the worst system ever. They only update it once a day, the terms are vague, and the system is inaccurate. Once, while living in New Castle County, Delaware I ordered something from Amazon.com. One of the Amazon warehouses is located in New Castle County, which results in speedy deli every. Strangely enough though the package, which was shipped from the Delaware warehouse, was routed to Philadelphia, before heading back to Delaware. When I lived at that address all Amazon packages would go from the warehouse, to the local post office, then to my mailbox, all within a day. The side trip to Philadelphia resulted in a week long wait for a package I could have retrieved myself from the warehouse in under an hour, round trip.

So what am I saying? If you're gonna stop delivery for one day USPS, use that time to organize your obviously faulty operating system. There is no reason that things should run the way they do. I loathe going to the post office more than the bank. Maybe some layoffs are in need. Layoff your current staff and give all the motivated individuals who recently lost their jobs something to do. And President Obama, please consider in you wave of bureaucratic reforms to reform the post office. God knows it needs it.