Share your bad post office experiences!

[jcat]

One of our mail carriers never bothers to ring the bell if there's a package, even if the front windows are wide open and he can see somebody's home. I don't know how many times I've watched him go straight from his truck to our garage (the carriers have permission to sign for us if nobody's home).
New carriers often can't find our house, because it and five others aren't actually located on the street listed. You'd think the P.O. would tell substitutes and new carriers that, but they apparently like to let them find out the hard way.

 

[margecat]

We are not allowed to open screen doors and leave parcels at my PO. Also we are not "usually" allowed to open gates to deliver parcels (only if we have prior permission from the home owner.) These reasons include dog danger and a complaint from someone in our District taht a door was damaged when a carrier left a parcel between the doors and it didn't shut properly and the wind caught&damaged the door. I ALWAYS leave a notice at the door IF no one answers so it can't be said that "The carrier never came to the door". Heard that more times than I care to dispute. Can't tell you how many times I've rang, knocked, heard the TV...Kids...people talking. Yet no-one comes to the door. I'll bang twice but hey, I get paid on evaluated time and other people are waiting for their mail, too. Sorry got going there!

Ours sometimes do leave big envelopes between the screen door and the front door.  I've never had an issue with that myself, but I can understand why your P.O. won't allow it--that, and the gate thing--imagine what a carrier could encounter!  Not just mean dogs, but how about tripping over junk in the yard, etc.?

I think the reason why some people don't come to the door is that they could be women and/or elderly, and at home alone--and may not realize that the mail carrier is the one knocking. I've done this myself, especially after a couple of nuts at my door (one tried to break in while I was alone) incidents. Or, maybe, with the TV on, etc., they don't hear you (especially if they are elderly and hard of hearing)? Or, they could be in the bathroom, and in no position to get to the door in time! :-)

 

[rosiemac]

It took 11 weeks for a Christmas card to get to Rigel (Coolcat) in Mexico!

 

[zohdee]

I apologize that this may be a bit off topic but I get many packages delivered by Fed-Ex and UPS.  No one ever signs for those other than the driver.  If they should deliver it to the wrong address and the recipient is not honest, what is the recourse?

I do feel bad for our mail carrier.  There is a 4775 my street and and 4775 on the road north of me, all on her route.  I had my income tax return delivered there before direct deposit.  At least they were honest and brought it to me. 
 

 

[tarasgirl06]

Oh, my empathy and sympathy, but I'm afraid I've got this beat.  A few years ago, my now-ex and all of us moved to a beautiful property in the desert, which had no house mail delivery, only P.O. boxes at the little post office in the community.  So of course we had to set up a P.O. Box address, which should be simple, right?  HAH!  The fine folks there told us that we could not have a P.O. Box until we had at least 2 pieces of mail showing our new address.

  I kid you not.  In the meantime, of course, we had bills and other post coming to us, and where could it go? 

 (Yes, we had credit card statements that did not reach us timely due to this wonderful "postal" episode, so had to pay interest charges for the first time ever, even though not our fault.  What could we do?)    I honestly don't recall how this was finally resolved, but it was.  We actually got a P.O. Box of our very own!  But there's more.  The little boxes were too small for anything at all sizeable, of course, which meant that large packages (of which there were more than a few, as we lived far from town and in such strange postal circumstances) had to be put into one of the post office's large lockboxes.  That meant we had to obtain the key for said box, which meant that we could only get our package(s) during postal business hours, which was very inconvenient, to say the least.  And when we DID have to deal with the fine folks in the little building, they generally treated my ex politely, but not so, me.  I was left with the distinct impression that neither myself nor my postal business was wanted.  *sigh*  One divorce and move later, I miss our property and a whole lot more extremely much.  But I can't say the same for the post office. 

 

[Ms. Freya]

My worst experience was a paid -for mail forwarding that was never enacted when we moved, so a whole bunch of renewal credit cards, bank cards and my husbands health card vanished off into oblivion for us to follow-up with, cancel and sort out.

Our current mail carrier is actually pretty good with one minor exception of trying to stuff everything, regardless of size, into our mailbox. Really, I don't mind having to go pick up a big parcel, or if you leave it on my back porch, but please stop deforming my mailbox by jamming things that clearly don't fit into it.
 

 

[mani]

I had a guy deliver a parcel at 10am one morning when I was home with the flu.

He ticked me off for still being in bed at that hour...

 

[pawasteland]

The past few months I have had the following happen:

1.  Receiving mail for someone on a total different street

2.  Several packages delivered to the wrong address, thankfully, the people returned my packages to the post office

3.  Had my MORTGAGE paperwork delivered to the wrong address

4.  Had several packages marked as "delivered" that I still have not received

5.  Had a card left that I had a certified package at the post office, went to pick it up and they said, "nothing is here for you", only to drive home, a 10 mile ride one way, and call the post office for the RUDE lady to say, "we are closed, we close at 5", even though it was 3 minutes before 5 and then tell me that the package was at the post office. 

6.  Dealt with the RUDEST person ever at my post office, she is pure MEAN

7.  Have had several packages that never made it to my house, but made it to the post office.

Really?  I mean, if I did my job like this, I wouldn't have a job!  You must not need any type of skill to work at the post office.

 

[pawasteland]

All righty!

. Hmm. . .
1.) There's nothing we CAN do really. The envelope comes to us ripped and empty, we don't have any idea what used to be in it or what happened to it, or even if anything WAS in it to begin with. We have to deliver everything with an address and postage on it no matter what. . .so all we can do is deliver the empty envelope

. We keep stickers around saying "arrived damaged at __ PO", but that's not very helpful. I have to say that very few employees would risk their pension by stealing a pair of shoes, so more likely the parcel was damaged in the sorting machines and the shoes fell out there. There is a "found loose in mail" department, so next time a package arrives without contents ask the postmaster to put a report in to them. You need to know specifics about the item, though (exactly what brand, size, color, etc.).
2.) They really SHOULD have some kind of system, LOL. Now and then someone will set something somewhere it shouldn't be and everything falls apart, but if it happens on a regular basis they obviously have some organization issues.
3.) If the sender didn't insure it with us, well. . .

. Most companies carry their own insurance and so you have to go through them. eBay sellers rarely get Postal insurance because PayPal takes care of that. Those not covered by private insurance or PayPal should get Postal insurance for anything that's important.
Hehe, I have my "mail math" speech I always give to friends and family who complain about misdeliveries: every carrier gets at least 1000 pieces of mail every day. And that's a small route; a normal-sized route probably averages about 2-3 thousand, a high-density route will have even more. If they maintain a 99% accuracy rate (which is pretty good, ithink), that still means that 10-30 mailpieces will be misdelivered every day. It's pretty rare that a carrier has that many misthrows (newbies and subs, maybe), so if he's really good we'll say a 99.9% accuracy rate (statistically impossible to be better than that!), but that still means 1-3 misdelivered pieces every day. And if it's your mail that gets misdelivered, yeah, that stinks. But it's not possible for humans to be 100% accurate all the time. And at least your mail carrier will be back the next day to take the misdelivered mail back. . .the UPS guy delivered a package that wasn't mine (same house number, 2 blocks over), and other than throwing it on their porch myself (which I did), I didn't know what to do with it!

So, if I answer the phone at work and say, oh well, that's our policy, you expect the customer to be happy?  I realize you may have, "too much mail" that you feel you need to deliver, but it happens to me ON A DAILY BASIS and the mail get's delivered to a cluster of locked boxes and they can't even get that right?  Then on top of it, to have to deal with the rudeness?  If you don't like your job and feel you need to be rude, you shouldn't be a public servant. 

 

[AbbysMom]

All righty! :lol3: . Hmm. . .

1.) There's nothing we CAN do really. The envelope comes to us ripped and empty, we don't have any idea what used to be in it or what happened to it, or even if anything WAS in it to begin with. We have to deliver everything with an address and postage on it no matter what. . .so all we can do is deliver the empty envelope . We keep stickers around saying "arrived damaged at __ PO", but that's not very helpful. I have to say that very few employees would risk their pension by stealing a pair of shoes, so more likely the parcel was damaged in the sorting machines and the shoes fell out there. There is a "found loose in mail" department, so next time a package arrives without contents ask the postmaster to put a report in to them. You need to know specifics about the item, though (exactly what brand, size, color, etc.).

2.) They really SHOULD have some kind of system, LOL. Now and then someone will set something somewhere it shouldn't be and everything falls apart, but if it happens on a regular basis they obviously have some organization issues.

3.) If the sender didn't insure it with us, well. . .:dk: . Most companies carry their own insurance and so you have to go through them. eBay sellers rarely get Postal insurance because PayPal takes care of that. Those not covered by private insurance or PayPal should get Postal insurance for anything that's important.

Hehe, I have my "mail math" speech I always give to friends and family who complain about misdeliveries: every carrier gets at least 1000 pieces of mail every day. And that's a small route; a normal-sized route probably averages about 2-3 thousand, a high-density route will have even more. If they maintain a 99% accuracy rate (which is pretty good, ithink), that still means that 10-30 mailpieces will be misdelivered every day. It's pretty rare that a carrier has that many misthrows (newbies and subs, maybe), so if he's really good we'll say a 99.9% accuracy rate (statistically impossible to be better than that!), but that still means 1-3 misdelivered pieces every day. And if it's your mail that gets misdelivered, yeah, that stinks. But it's not possible for humans to be 100% accurate all the time. And at least your mail carrier will be back the next day to take the misdelivered mail back. . .the UPS guy delivered a package that wasn't mine (same house number, 2 blocks over), and other than throwing it on their porch myself (which I did), I didn't know what to do with it!

So, if I answer the phone at work and say, oh well, that's our policy, you expect the customer to be happy?  I realize you may have, "too much mail" that you feel you need to deliver, but it happens to me ON A DAILY BASIS and the mail get's delivered to a cluster of locked boxes and they can't even get that right?  Then on top of it, to have to deal with the rudeness?  If you don't like your job and feel you need to be rude, you shouldn't be a public servant. 

Hi and welcome to TCS!

The chances of Willowy being a mail carrier in your area are pretty slim, so taking it out on her isn't going to help. Have you made any complaints to your Postmaster? That's the first place you should start. There is no way for your Postmaster to know a Worker is doing an unsatisfactory job unless people complain.

I've had to deal with some awful postal workers and some good ones too. Painting them all with the "you must not need any skill" brush really isn't fair. It would be the same as having an incompetent worker where you are and for people to say that you must be incompetent because you work there too. :dk:

 

[aimerlee]

When I lived in the DC area we couldn't send out Christmas cards because the post office employees would open them and steal the gift cards, then send the empty letter. We complained many times but the problem was never fixed. 
The post office in Raleigh where my parents live is just as bad. I ordered a big package of expensive lotions and it came to me obviously torn open and repackaged. The package was completely empty except for a letter that said "We at USPS offer our apologies... we value you as a customer..." and other bullshit. Also, my mom's magazines always come to the house up to a month late and the pages are all ratty. It's obvious that someone has been taking them home and reading them, then sending them out again. Some of the pages are even dog-eared.

And last year I found a really rare cd in my collection, and it sold for $600 on ebay. I spent $25 on shipping to get it insured, tracked, express mailed, and get a delivery confirmation. I was freaking out after a week because I heard nothing from the buyer and nothing was on the tracking site. I called every number I could find and none of the post office people could help me, and eventually I went into the office, waited in line for 30 minutes just to find out it had arrived TWO WEEKS EARLIER. I never received a delivery confirmation or anything.

I never send anything out anymore.

 

[catlover19]

I'm starting to get annoyed with how long things are taking to ship. I won a contest on May 22 from one of those "deal/discount" sites and I was able to pick any deal I want. The email I received said delivery takes 2-4 weeks. I contacted them on June 21 and was told that it takes 3-4 weeks and had been shipped and I still have not received anything. I just emailed again, but I have pretty much given up on receiving my prize.

 

[tarasgirl06]

Oh, and in addition to my own mail woes already posted (and thankfully left behind), my aunt once told me that she didn't receive letters I used to write to her before she got a p.c. The reason?  Well, according to her, it could have been because her mail carrier was busted with BAGS OF MAIL IN HER HOUSE that she was disinclined to deliver.  

 

[Willowy]

USPS is the 3rd-largest non-military employer in the U.S., behind the federal government and Wal-Mart. You can avoid Wal-Mart if you want, but even if you somehow manage to avoid receiving or sending any mail at all, you're still going to have daily experiences with Postal employees, because they're out there delivering mail to every single address every single day. The more contact you have with someone/an entity, the more bad experiences you'll notice. It doesn't mean the employees are statistically any worse than any other company's employees. It just means you see more of them. It's a hard job and takes a huge amount of dedication. It happens that people skills sometimes don't come with that dedication, or if people skills decline after years of abuse by the public. It's not good but after memorizing a thousand different addresses it's no wonder there's no patience left for customers.

 

[spudsmom]

USPS is the 3rd-largest non-military employer in the U.S., behind the federal government and Wal-Mart. You can avoid Wal-Mart if you want, but even if you somehow manage to avoid receiving or sending any mail at all, you're still going to have daily experiences with Postal employees, because they're out there delivering mail to every single address every single day. The more contact you have with someone/an entity, the more bad experiences you'll notice. It doesn't mean the employees are statistically any worse than any other company's employees. It just means you see more of them. It's a hard job and takes a huge amount of dedication. It happens that people skills sometimes don't come with that dedication, or if people skills decline after years of abuse by the public. It's not good but after memorizing a thousand different addresses it's no wonder there's no patience left for customers.

You say it so much better than I can. I do have to add that I've delivered the mail for 17 years, it is by far the hardest physical job that I've ever had. You are right about the patience part too. I know that people think that their mail is the ONLY mail that counts, but we deal with thousands of pieces of mail everyday....everybodys mail is important to me and I know that I don't make mistakes on purpose, but they do happen. I've always said it would be nice if everyone could come in and case mail for one hour of their life just to have an idea. Not deliver it...just case it. I've seen newbie grown men cry after delivering the mail on their own for the very first time. I remember back at the beginning I came home many times bawling to my husband that I just couldn't do it. The fact that I've never been a quitter is the only thing that keep me going back to the PO in the early days. I've seen lots come and give up in my time.

 

[margecat]

My P.O. is at it again. I had someone else's package on my doorstep yet again--the third time in exactly 1 month.  The house numbers aren't even close, so I don't know why they can't get it right so often. I understand that people make mistakes, but this is ridiculous.  I fear for my packages being delivered to the wrong house, and that person is not honest as DH and I are (we walk it to their mailbox).

BTW, they did find that package last week, but offered no explanation.

 

[margecat]

USPS is the 3rd-largest non-military employer in the U.S., behind the federal government and Wal-Mart. You can avoid Wal-Mart if you want, but even if you somehow manage to avoid receiving or sending any mail at all, you're still going to have daily experiences with Postal employees, because they're out there delivering mail to every single address every single day. The more contact you have with someone/an entity, the more bad experiences you'll notice. It doesn't mean the employees are statistically any worse than any other company's employees. It just means you see more of them. It's a hard job and takes a huge amount of dedication. It happens that people skills sometimes don't come with that dedication, or if people skills decline after years of abuse by the public. It's not good but after memorizing a thousand different addresses it's no wonder there's no patience left for customers.

I'm sure the dedicated postal employees outweigh the bad ones, and I agree with most of your statement. However, "years of abuse by the public" and being over-worked and under-paid is NO excuse for an employee to be rude or sloppy in their job.  I worked in public service myself, and had to bite my tongue so many times with rude library patrons. DH delivers to loading docks whose workers call him the vilest obscenities--but he keeps his cool, and does his job in a professional manner--how he does it, I don't know.  He gets called "stupid" by his boss, and gets called the f-word (with some mighty interesting variations!)by dock-workers. 

I worked for minimum wage for 4 years, yet I never even entertained the idea of not giving my job my best.  Low wages are no excuse for poor work performance. I think we could say that many, if not most, of us here are over-worked and under-paid; I know I am.  And I've spent a greater portion of my working career that way, often doing at least1 other person's job--sometimes FOUR, and was told I was expected to be accurate with each job, even though I just started it, and was doing it temporarily. I pride myself in my work ethic. I don't care how much or how little I get paid; I always do my best.

 

[Willowy]

Oh, I didn't say underpaid :tongue2:. Although because the wages are nationwide, what's considered good here probably qualifies as underpaid in NYC or LA or some other expensive place.

I agree that there's no excuse for being rude. I always try to treat people the way I'd want to be treated, because that's the right thing to do. But really, I've been accused of being rude when I'm being super nice and polite so many times that I know that there's no way to make everyone happy, and no point in trying. There are some people who are determined to be unhappy and nothing can be done about it. And when people see you 329 days a year, they find a lot of mistakes.

I'm just saying that sometimes mistakes aren't from being "sloppy". Delivery mistakes happen. Like I siad, I've had UPS misdeliver things to my house, and today the FedEx guy came in to get a box he had misdelivered that the homeowner had brought to the PO (no doubt blaming us for the mistake!). And they don't deliver to every address every day.

There's a form on the USPS website to submit a complaint. And the postmaster's boss will be all over it. But make sure it's actually USPS parcels that are being misdelivered! And that if you complain about the employees' behavior that it's really deserved.

I'll also point out that, because of the current financial difficulties, a huge number of temps and subs are being used. And because it takes AT LEAST a year to learn the scheme reliably, that could be the cause. I don't know about your local office's situation, but they probably are using a lot of temps. There just isn't a way for a sub to be totally accurate, and the turnover is incredible.

 

[catlover12345]

Even though I got the moving slip in and have started receiving mail, the house I moved out of still gets mail for ME!!!

 

[tarasgirl06]

Not in the least surprised.