Is the postal service always this bad?

As you know it's that time of the year again.. the warm fuzzies of Christmas. Good tidings and best wishes to all, except..

The postal service. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/Christo_pull_hair.gif

Is it normal for packages that used to take 4-5 days max to arrive by air mail start to take 14-15 days nowadays? I thought I'd beat out peak season when I got two packages shipped out to me on 24 Nov (by folks that I'd consider very reliable, so I know darn well they would make sure it shipped), but it's been nearly 2 weeks and nothing has shown up. Unfortunately, not realizing that the nonsense starts so early in the year, I did not request Global Priority (one package was too big anyway).

I'm also shipping out some lights, or soon will be, and I dread the thought of any of those going missing in action or taking weeks to arrive. The problem is FedEx/UPS wants a minimum of $35 to handle a basic letter-sized package!

Is there anything I can do to ensure my packages get through during this time of mail flood and mail failure? I find it really hard to believe that the postal services around the world work on 'best effort' delivery, with 'best' being "we tried our best, too bad it didn't work out and you're screwed". No wonder they're creating a market for couriers to charge an arm and a leg just for the peace of mind that your shipment made it.

I swear I hope nothing happens to my U2 - Global Express tracking status info hasn't been updated in 3 days, I mean, what do I pay these people for....

I think the post office got messed up... I was sent a letter and the bar code on the bottom was blacked out. The letter was only from one state away and took almost 2 weeks to get here.
Maybe they are using commodore 64s for their computer system or something.

Yup...slows down to a crawl. My mail is usually delivered about noon. Christmas time, it's not delivered until 5PM or so.

The USPS blames it on Holiday greeting cards, etc.

--dan

Tell them to stop delivering so much spam instead of the mail. I get about 3 times as much junk as important stuff.

I do not trust the postal system.
I was sent a 2 stage switch thing for my arc ls
I never got it.

a replacement was supposedly sent and I never got that one either.

I got my 12 bucks back but I would rather have gotten the switches-kits.

now I am scared to buy or sell any thing that involves the mail-unless it requires a signature.

bills seem to arrive just fine.

[ QUOTE ]
dano said:
Yup...slows down to a crawl. My mail is usually delivered about noon. Christmas time, it's not delivered until 5PM or so.

The USPS blames it on Holiday greeting cards, etc.


[/ QUOTE ]

Heh, at least it is still delivered...

[ QUOTE ]
Lynx_Arc said:
Tell them to stop delivering so much spam instead of the mail. I get about 3 times as much junk as important stuff.

[/ QUOTE ]

YES! That IS the solution! I bet more than 50% of the stuff that ever goes through is spam.

[ QUOTE ]
markdi said:
bills seem to arrive just fine.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, and that is the problem /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif


And finally the U2 shows some movement:
Your item left the United States from Chicago (O'Hare) AMC at 9:05 am on December 04, 2004.

But it doesn't explain what happened to the other two packages /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/au.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mpr.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rant.gif

Besides, that's an unusual route to take to get to the Asia Pacific - Chicago? What next? Usually, it's Los Angeles to Japan/HK, then to me, but.....

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif

We now resume our regularly scheduled waiting. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Kevin Fritz sent me something in the spring and I gaot it this fall -- almost 6 months to the day after he sent it. Pony Express was WAY faster.

I sent a letter from Fort Worth to Arlington (15 miles) a couple of years ago and it took 2 weeks. Generally though, I think these are exceptionally long -- usually it's not so bad -- we tend to remember the ones that stick out rather than the hundreds that don't!

My own experience is just the opposite, knock on wood. Postal system hasn't slowed yet. I expect it will the last week or so before Christmas. I am experiencing longer lines at the Post Office though.

Sent a Global Priority flat rate envelope to the Netherlands recently, and it arrived in three days. Sent a Global Express box to Australia in good time too. Haven't heard from a member in Malaysia yet, about a Global Priority envelope I sent on the 26th of November. Could be the Malaysian Customs or Postal System is slow. It's my first shipment to Malaysia, so I don't know what is normal.

I had my first and only close call recently, with a Global Priority envelope to Austria. It made it (in 3 weeks), but only my reinforcing of the envelope and the bubble wrap got it there OK. Have learned since, that Austrian Customs or their Postal System has a bad reputation with incoming International packages. My future Austrian shipments are going in a box from now on.

Domestically, everything is fine, from my perspective. Everything is reaching me in good time, and everything I've shipped is taking the normal amount of time too. The Postal System isn't perfect, but I haven't ever had anything lost or damaged. Hope I didn't just jinx myself!

I've received several hundred Priority Mail packages in the last 18 months. I've shipped over 200 Priority Mail, Global Priority Mail and Global Express Mail packages in the last 18 months. I know it's not a huge sampling, but it says a lot to me.

oldgrandpajack


PS: I have a PO Box. It's the best form of insurance there is.

Don't know what it will be like after the first in the "country".

But for the past several years our normal Postman is an Uber cool Dog lover pal! No problems at this end!

We are gonna have a PO box in Sheperd, I guess that's where my stuff (little of it as there is) will get sent!

...and I've never had a problem with the USPS.

I suspect Murphy managed to hire the Grinch and gave him my case file this season...... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/Christo_pull_hair.gif

Thankfully, as I said, there's always CPF to balance it out... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grouphug.gif

We had a regular postman here for decades.. the mail always came before nooon. The last 5 years service has changed though, sometimes the mail doesn't come before 4pm and I have had to take a lot of mail to other people in the neighborhood because the postman cannot read the addresses. I do not like the idea of getting others important mail because it gives me the idea they may be getting mine and that is not good especially with all the identity theft etc going around these days and credit card fraud.

Postal Carries are not allowed to sort the mail themselves. It is all presorted for them already. They are just supposed to put it into peoples boxes.

I worked at a Remote Encoding center for the PO about 2years back. It was just a temp position. All the mail gets run through a high speed Optical Character Recognition system. If it can't read your handwriting (or the camera is dirty) then an image of that gets sent to the REC's for a real person to type in the address in shorthand. That what those barcodes on the bottom of mail is for. They get blacked out if something gets screwed up.

I've been pretty happy with the post office over the last few years.

I've never had any major screw-ups with the Post Office, UPS, or FedEx. Twice that I can remember, USPS packages have taken 8 or 9 days to arrive--too long, but not absurdly so. Once I had a UPS package from Amazon mis-routed, and that ended up taking about 2 weeks to finally arrive.

My worst experience was when my LCD monitor from Dell (via FedEx) arrived with the screen smashed due to shipping damage. But Dell's customer service got a new monitor shipped to me in two business days, so I wasn't too upset about that. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

The USPS is the only monopoly mandated in the US Constitution.

I think it depends on where you live. Where I live they handle letters ok but it is useless for packages of any kind. They WILL be stolen.

On a side note, when I was a kid in the fifties the USPS actually had TWO residential delivery schedules EACH business day. The mailman came in the morning AND in the afternoon.

Hello....It's the POST OFFICE!!! The poster child and world example for poor customer service, and a bad attitude.

I sure as hell don't know WHY; most of these guys, even the letter sorters, earn at least 50% more than I do.... and I have a college degree.

I have a friend who works for the Post Office, as a letter sorter. One night, there were literally *7* supervisors on duty, doing absolutely *no work whatsoever*, except to repeatedly harass the *4* letter sorters for not working hard enough!

I know I'd 'go postal' under those circumstances.

The only thing stopping my friend, is that the money is so good. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif