Posted on 09/22/2014 4:42:31 AM PDT by Kaslin
Bang! Lee looked up from addressing a package while she waited in line for service at the post office. Despite a lobby packed with customers—without notice—a postal worker slammed down the service window gate and went to lunch, leaving Lee and the other patrons to fend for themselves.
The U.S. Postal Service excels at treating customers poorly. My friend Lee’s story is but one of many nightmares of churlish postal workers and deficient USPS customer service. Many government workers get away with behavior that would get them fired if they worked at a private company like McDonald’s or Apple.
There should be a “Yelp” for government services. We deserve an open place where we can rate the “customer service” that we receive from the post office, as well as the EPA (which has distorted scientific data), the Federal Reserve (which inflates our currency), and the IRS (which hires employees like Lois Lerner who are admittedly “bad at math”).
Salaried workers in the private sector often skip their lunch break and shovel down a sandwich while preparing for an afternoon conference call with a big client. But government workers will take their lunch break whether they have a long line of businesspeople, senior citizens and parents with young children waiting in line—or not. Certainly not every postal worker is slothful, yet massive reform is necessary.
Elderly residents in the Brooklyn, NY neighborhood of Borough Park recently had to fight to regain mail delivery service after a mailman complained about having to stoop down to drop letters into mail slots. Based on a single whining mailman, the post office told Borough Park residents they would have to install higher mail slots or pick their mail up at the post office. The Brooklyn Eagle reported: “senior citizens [had to] stand in long lines to get their medications and other vital deliveries that used to come directly to their homes.”
You just can’t make these stories up. I was at the post office around 5:45 p.m. on a recent weeknight. The post office officially closed at 6:00 p.m., but many people were in line. (Some Americans actually work during the workday.) My jaw nearly dropped to the floor when one of the postal workers loudly complained for all to hear: “Everyone always waits to come in at 6:00 p.m.”
He wasn’t finished barking. He shouted at me, as I hurriedly taped up a package: “Are you going to be finished soon? We close at 6:00 p.m.” I felt like saying: “You can see I’m rushing and you don’t close for another fifteen minutes. If this were the private sector, you’d be happy to serve a paying customer instead of pushing them away. You’d also have business hours that were more conducive to your customers.”
Last week, I opened my P.O. box to find a clear plastic bag containing a ripped piece of my outgoing mail, along with a note from the post office: “WE CARE. Dear Postal Customer: We sincerely regret the damage to your mail during handling by the Postal Service.” There was also a sticker: “SENDER. Affix correct postage and remail.”
The ripped envelope contained a check that I had sent out to pay a bill. Apparently, the postal machine had removed my postage and shredded the envelope and check. The next day, I brought a new check and envelope to the post office and asked them to reimburse me for the postage and make sure that the envelope arrived by the check’s due date.
After checking with her supervisor, the clerk told me: “No. We can’t do anything other than what we’ve already done.” I said, “You mean other than ruining my mail?” She said: “Well, we put it in a plastic bag for you.” At this point, I realized that logic and reason were pointless and simply re-mailed the envelope and left.
Last strange but true story: my mother bought a roll of stamps. When she returned home, she noticed that the roll of stamps was unusable because the stamps were affixed together. She immediately returned the roll to the post office, explained the situation and asked for a replacement. The postal worker told her: “Are you kidding? We can’t give you your money back or exchange it. Would you go to a grocery store and buy a loaf of squashed bread and then try to return it? How do I know you didn’t glue those stamps together yourself and then come back here?”
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to point out that the aforementioned excuse is full of holes. Why would someone intentionally damage stamps and then ask for a fresh set? They would have nothing to gain, except an inconvenience. Also, who buys a loaf of bread that is obviously squashed? The roll of stamps looked perfectly fine and there was no way to tell that they were glued together until my mother tried using them.
Postal workers, kindly reform yourselves. Your salaries come from the taxpayers’ hard-earned money and we are losing patience. The customer should always be first.
The postal service is established in the Constitution. It ain’t going anywhere.
The USPS is not subsidized by the taxpayer. They have not received a dime of gov’t money for years. But they are required by law to pay the government 5billion a year to fund retiree insurance that is already funded 75 years out.
That is why they are in the red.
Customer service varies, but just wanted to correct the statements about taxpayers paying for salaries. Customers like bulk mailers pay the salaries. Without them it would cost three times as much to mail a letter like it does in every other country.
Well, no. The reason they are going bankrupt is because the congress forces them to overpay into the retirement accounts to support shortfalls from every other government retirement program.
It is complicated for the average reporter to understand, or put into a 300 word story. But once you step back and see how they are crushing the postal service in a way no other company in the country is crushed, it is very clear what they are doing.
I am not defending crappy service, but you made a statement that was not accurate and I am addressing that.
My Mom sits and watches for the mailman. I check my mailbox once a week whether it needs it or not. :-)
My apologies on the auto he (I think it might be the hard K, but then there are Kendra, Katelynn, yeah I’m just an ijit... I don’t know)
As to the stamps - collectors know that the glue on stamps prior to the peel and stick will weaken in water and that makes them removable from envelopes to be properly mounted in a collecting book. Far as I know peel and stick can’t possible stick to each other unless they aren’t mounted to their separation paper at all, while the glue type comes in rolls and that glue will weaken in warm water given enough time.
Indeed same for Amtrak both haven’t made a profit in over thirty years.
I’ve been at this job with a desk and 2 phones and that is my normal routine. The typical gov-co slug annoys me to no end trying to get anything out of them.
Back when I lived in Imperial, CA, we faced a similar situation. If we received a bill from the water or power company, which both had their main offices in El Centro, the postmark indicated that it had gone through San Diego even though Imperial and El Centro are about a 15-minute drive away from each other.
I see little old ladies and men crossing potentially dangerous streets in all kinds of weather every day on my way home from work to get to their mailboxes because the USPS only delivers to mailboxes on one side of the street.
These are people who have paid taxes their whole lives to fund the USPS but they still have to take their lives into their own hands just to get their mail.
Ah, well. A lot, if not most, of them probably voted for the politician who promised them more and more goodies.
“Indeed same for Amtrak both haven’t made a profit in over thirty years.”
In Amtrak’s defense, privately-held Class I railroads couldn’t make a profit on passenger service either.
The funny thing IS, just looking at most of these ‘civil servants’ or talking to them, they are such idiots and losers, you’d think they would be overjoyed to have jobs AT ALL...
Yet, they CANNOT meet even the most BASIC requirements of employment, as people in the real ‘work world’ know them to be.
Because of Teamsters.
Federal Express entered the picture right about then. They weren't on my radar, and then they sent a salesman, a rate booklet, and contact information. They were very hungry, aggressive, and knew we were doing millions in shipping annually. One thing that really impressed by about their hunger back then was that they wanted to do business as business. I never got the "let me take you out to lunch" pitch. It was always, "here's our rates...who is close to matching them...how can you not choose us?"
A large part of the time, they were the best answer. For some sensitive items or large shipments going to certain locations by a required date certain, they weren't. I didn't mind that they griped, because they were a hungry business doing business in the right way.
That really makes me wonder at their hesitation to find an answer to the rural issue.
You don't jump to a new horse until the horse is there. Getting the promise of a horse isn't the same thing. Let them show me the rate sheet, the delivery times, and the abilities of the carriers, and then I'll discuss it with them.
In the meantime, dance with the horse who brought you.
As if the PO gave a damn. Back of the line for you, sucka.
You used to be able to go to the Post Office and buy stamps from a vending machine. It might take you a minute or less.
Now? You have to stand in line with every one else. Why?
God forbid a machine would replace a union member.
At this point, I realized that logic and reason were pointless and simply re-mailed the envelope and left.
AMEN! USPS is USELESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our USPS has its share of problems. First, they’re a government agency at heart, function as such, hire as such, pay as such and operate with a skewed reality that the private sector does not. Secondly, as a quasi-government agency, they face real, relentless competition, which is something bureaucratic agencies aren’t equipped for but for one which they’ve successfully engaged and adapted, IMHO. However, you can’t deny they’ve done an impressive job with the sheer volume of mail and still manage to deliver with predictable reliability, 90% of the time. Thirdly and most importantly, here is why the USPS is imploding:
(From Time Mag, Feb 2013, How Healthcare Expenses Cost Us Saturday Postal Delivery by Josh Sanburn)
Since 2006, the Post Office has been legally required to pre-fund health benefits for future retirees at a cost of around $5.5 billion a year. For the first time last year, it defaulted on its annual payment.
When Congress imposed those mandates in 2006, the Post Office was doing just fine. Digital communication had yet to take such a huge bite out of the amount of mail the USPS processed and delivered. First-class mail volume was about 97 billion pieces in 2006. So there wasn’t much of a backlash when Congress decided that the Post Office was healthy enough to lock in health benefits for future retirees — for the next 75 years, mind you, something no other public or private agency does.
Two years later, the U.S. was hit by the Great Recession at around the same time that mobile communication and things like online bill payments were growing at explosive rates. The Post Office began reporting massive deficits from which it has yet to recover. Last year it delivered only 68 billion pieces of mail.
“the founders would NEVER have made this a government function”
Actually, they would have. It is an important means to transmit government communications.
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