[monochrome]

Our letter carrier is wonderful. Left a note once that the front hose faucet was running water. Asks about our children ( they don't receive mail at home now). Takes care with my Priority Mail packages (that always contain an old lens, but she doesn't know that).

Real nice lady.

[DeadJohn]

I've never had USPS, Fedex, or UPS damage or lose a package.

On the other hand, all 3 of them leave packages at the front door, no knock, no doorbell, they just put it down and leave. This includes "signature required" boxes. I guess they consider it safe because I've never reported a stolen package.

[Jacquot]

I use USPS for most of my packages and never had a complaint, but I am very careful about packing and use their boxes for the most part. If it is a return and UPS, I do that and let the local store pack it normally. I had a rough delivery recently with USPS, but the shipper's packing was very poorly done, even the multitude of stamps were falling off. Luckily it was a camera body known to be a tank, and was fine! Out for CLA now...

[Rupert]

Some good some bad...like anything else I guess. I can't say I've had really bad luck but once or twice, but those times are the ones we don't forget.

Regards!

[p38arover]

Letter carrier? Is that the new politically correct name for a postman in the US? We just call 'em "posties".

[ChrisPlatt]

You guys crack me up! I am a USPS employee. I work in a Processing and Distribution Center (mail sorting facility).
I find your characterization of postal workers tossing packages about completely inaccurate and frankly offensive.

Forget those 1930's newsreels you saw showing a thousand postal clerks sorting mail by hand.
Mail processing today is a highly automated process.
At any stage of processing the contents of an inadequately packaged parcel might become damaged.
Many if not most shippers fail to comply with USPS shipping requirements, through ignorance or negligence.

Fortunately despite all most parcels somehow manage to arrive undamaged.

Chris

[csa]

I find your characterization of postal workers tossing packages about completely inaccurate and frankly offensive.

As I mentioned about tossing packages, I also mentioned it was many years ago! No offensive to you or other postal workers, as those that were guilty of this that my mother witnessed are long dead & gone! It was not inacurate, as it was witnessed many times at the post office by my mother, a carrier, herself!

I have a respect for postal workers, seeing the work & care my mother had on her rural route many years ago. I've never had a problem with carriers while I was in town, nor the 20 years on a rural route!

[csa]

Letter carrier? Is that the new politically correct name for a postman in the US? We just call 'em "posties".

"posties" sounds like something we'd put in a bowl and have it for breakfast!

"New politically correct name"? This is the name I've heard all my life; including "mail carrier".

[Parallax]

"posties" sounds like something we'd put in a bowl and have it for breakfast!

I guess my mind was elsewhere. I read that as "pasties".

[csa]

[cardinal43]

On 2 January, I mailed 2 boxes via USPS from Gainesville, VA to Malaga, WA, and they were due to arrive in WA in about 7 or 8 days. One box got there in 6 days. Box #2 went from VA to MD to Atlanta, GA, then to Jacksonville, FL, then to Orlando, FL and finally to WA. Total transit time was 16 days. Nobody within the USPS could (or would) tell me why.

[Digitalis]

I read that as "pasties".

now that would be interesting attire for a postal service...

[sherrvonne]

now that would be interesting attire for a postal service...

Lol, especially since one of my house cleaning clients, a married couple several yrs younger than me, are both postal workers. Also they are always redirecting people's misdirected mail, mistakes from other postal workers. They might come home tired but the house cleaning part is taken care of!

[ChrisPlatt]

Most customers fail to realize the difficulty in handling a heterogeneous product like mail.

USPS strives for 100% accuracy, but when you deliver 40% of the world's mail volume,
150+ billion pieces per year to 150+ million US addresses,
a small percentage of items are sometimes misdirected and therefore delayed.

Chris

[monochrome]

Most customers fail to realize the difficulty in handling a heterogeneous product like mail.

USPS strives for 100% accuracy, but when you deliver 40% of the world's mail volume,
150+ billion pieces per year to 150+ million US addresses,
a small percentage of items are sometimes misdirected and therefore delayed.

Chris

Most people don't understand the scale of 150,000,000,000.

Consider that those pieces are delivered over 304 days = 493,421,052 pieces of mail a day average (accounting for the Sundays and holidays). I cannot recall a time when something was lost. I've had the odd package misdirected and then re-directed.

By comparison, I fly about 5 times a year. That's maybe 200 times in my life. My luggage has been lost thee times, once never to be found again. And many of those trips I only take carry-on luggage.

The two times my luggage was found, it was returned to me at the airport as I was departing for my return flight.