I went to the relatively new local UPS store for the first time in our small town. Family managed. The managers 16 yr old daughter was working, knew the business inside out. Friendly as could be. Bent over backwards to help. I had to mail several framed pictures. They took them and said don’t worry, we’ll do all the packing, labeling, etc. No waiting.
Contrast to the local US Post Office. The uniformed workers there struggle to get out a smile. Getting anything extra is like pulling teeth. Move slow as turtles. No wonder it’s losing money.
There would be cases where a local grandmother would run them free of charge in exchange for a place to sell her quilt blocks or whatever.
Prior to the unionization of the postal service, that's how most of the post offices in rural America were run. Business interests would actually compete with each other for the privilege of hosting the post office even though they made little money doing so. The extra traffic would generally result in extra sales where the businesses did make money.
UPS and FedEx are miles better when it comes to package delivery. There is no way, however, that UPS and FedEx could pick up the daily mail delivery portion of what the USPS does.
Same thing in Green Bay. Guy took my items, weighed them, told me not to worry, he had the packaging and that was it. 5 minutes.
But you paid dearly for that service.
You would NEVER pay that much for service from the post office.
My local UPS store sucks. They are arrogant and they don’t listen. I will go across town to the other UPS store or Fed Ex store.
But, if the local UPS store had to deal with the volume of people they would be understaffed and they would be nasty.
I am not defending lousy service, but people walk into the post office fixing for a fight. They “expect” bad service, so when they see anything, their suspicion is confirmed.
I have seen crappy service in all delivery stores. I will tell you that the reason I use the USPS is because I can do it all online, and the guy comes to my door every day. I don’t have to call them, or email them or anything. The less human contact, the better the system.
I can tell you that I send out ten or twelve pieces of priority mail daily during my busy season. The delivery times, tracking, and accuracy is just as good as UPS or Fed EX for a lot less money.
They could get rid of ALL of their buildings for all I care.