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On the warpath


MerriMagic

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Ok I've had it with our post office. Zeb just went outside, and found my new dollhouse lying in a snowbank. The post office driver must have just kicked it out of the truck. Didn't knock or ring the bell, and if Zeb hadn't gone outside when he did, that package would have been covered over with snow, because it wasn't within sight of our windows..and my house would have gotten all warped.

WHAT IS WRONG with the post office nowdays, that they can't hire responsible people..is it only our local post office? Or is it the whole system.

This is the second warning I've written today. The other is in Chit-chat about a detergent product, ack.

So you folks who are in snowy areas...if you've ordered something big, look out for your package or your post office driver might throw your precious package out in a snowdrift.

Monkies could have done a better job of delivering this item. I hate our post office.

Jeanne

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Yikes! Hope you're planning to contact the Post Office about that! Maybe let the seller know too -- it's probably in their best interest to be aware of this (after all, they can lose alot if their merchandise is destroyed during shipping and have to refund/replace the item).

I have an uncle who works for the USPS and sometimes I'd hear him comment about that with some carriers. He says it gives folks like him (who do treat their packages/mails with respect) such a bad rap.

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Poor little dollhouse! Winter is why I have a Post Office Box. I live in snow country, too, and both the post office and the newspaper delivery folk make it clear that if there's too much snow around the boxes, they'll just drive on by.

Now my UPS and FedEx drivers go above and beyond to deliver goodies, even as far as calling to make sure I saw the notice on the door? because the weather was so bad. :)

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I work for the USPS, and I am thoroughly fed up with postal management. THAT is the problem. I keep the actual customers (you) in mind every single night I work, and try my best to get the mail run through the system quickly, so the mail is always on time, and carefully, so that the items don't get marred. Where the management comes into play as being the problem is that they treat all of us like garbage, which results in many of my co-workers developing the "don't gave a $^@^ attitude and manifests itself in poor quality work on their part, and also that this same "management" allows the slackers to slack while they hassle and belittle the honest, hardworking employees. I am not a carrier, but I most vehemently believe there is absolutely NO excuse for someone treating your package that way . . . it upset me to read it BECAUSE I know you are telling the truth. As much as I need my job, I can honestly say that I expect the USPS to go down the tubes soon and perhaps it is just as well. I don't know what in Heavens' name I will do to survive when it does, but it just can't continue the way it is being run. Every single night I work, as I am being treated with blatant disrespect and even hostility, by my supervisors and even upper management, I mentally remind myself how many people are praying for their unemployment or social security checks to arrive - sometimes just to be able to keep utilities on or to eat - and of the other important mail they hope to receive on time (birthday cards from Grandma, etc. . .) and I give more than 100 percent because I personally care about all of you. I just wish that other tired, jaded postal workers would take that mentality. I do my best for all of YOU, NEVER for postal management - who I consider abusive, uncaring individuals who don't even do their jobs.

All I can say, is how sorry I PERSONALLY am for this having happened to you, and ask on behalf of the decidedly uncaring USPS, that you forgive us all. These are hard times, that mail belongs to our customers (not to those of US who handle that mail) and I really grieve that most of those who seem to be in a position to make a difference just don't care.

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Your not the only one! I order stuff for my dollhouse online all the time (because of the lack of a good dollhouse store in Upstate NY). One time I had a package full of minis dropped off and it was thrown behind the wheel of my car covered in snow. Not even close to my house and I couldn't see it. I was at home when it was dropped off and I didn't get a knock or anything. My dad went outside and said, "Here good thing I found this or it would have been in peices after running over it in the morning."

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Your not the only one! I order stuff for my dollhouse online all the time (because of the lack of a good dollhouse store in Upstate NY). One time I had a package full of minis dropped off and it was thrown behind the wheel of my car covered in snow. Not even close to my house and I couldn't see it. I was at home when it was dropped off and I didn't get a knock or anything. My dad went outside and said, "Here good thing I found this or it would have been in peices after running over it in the morning."

These USPS horror stores make me cringe! Although my stomach is in knots every night I pull into the parking lot at work (knowing I have 8 hours or more of misery and belittlement ahead of me), I still firmly believe it is up to each and every one of us who are USPS workers to do our utmost to get your items to you in a timely and safe manner. After all, it's not YOUR fault that our managers treat us like crap. Once again, even though I couldn't have personally handled any of your mail (due to being in a completely different locale), I want to extend my personal apologies on behalf of the USPS to you. I wish I could make them straighten up and fly right, but heck . . . they never listen to me, no matter how beneficial an idea I may have to offer.

In fact, just yesterday, I called the post office closest to my own home (not where I work) with a question as a customer . . . after it rang about 25 times, someone at the post office picked up the phone and immediately dropped the receiver back into the cradle without even speaking. I immediately called back and got a fax tone. I was furious - not just as a dissed customer, but as an ashamed USPS employee. I don't care if it is busy at Christmas - there is absolutely no excuse for behavior like that. I was appalled. I called Consumer Affairs and filed a complaint. I know many of the people I work with would consider that wrong since I work there, but come on . . . that's no way to treat any customer!!!!

The sad thing is that the USPS handles a crucial aspect of our daily lives. We handle a staggering amount of mail each and every day. I believe in WHAT we do, just not HOW we do it. There is a very noticeable "Us versus THEM" mindset amongst postal managers - they consider themselves far above all of us "worker ants" and it creates a very negative impact on the atmosphere and especially the productivity of our process. I hate it. I want to fix it. I've tried. I've gotten nowhere. It has been suggested to me (even as recently as 2 days ago) that perhaps I should join Postal Management. NOT ON YOUR LIFE. I would never "cross over to the dark side", and if I was a manager and tried to make the differences that need to be made, I would be ostracized by the management body. I see bad things ahead for the USPS and I can't sympathize with management because they are bringing it on. I am, though, sorry for those of us who try to do the right thing and we'll end up losing our jobs too.

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I sympathize with you Jeanne. I can fortunately say that, despite have different mail carriers on what seems like a weekly basis, they have always been careful with my packages and friendly when I see them. Last week, my mail carrier honked at the end of my driveway until I came out, because he wanted to walk up a package and my dog was on the porch (she's a barker, so I understood).

I kind of miss when I was a kid and we had the same mail carrier for years at a time.

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Know what you mean. A couple of months ago i sent a check with an order and waited and waited. I got worried when the check wasn't cashed. (Backlog might have kept the order, but the check?) So i wrote to the post office there ( a western state) and asked if it was delivered, that maybe I made a mistake and had used an old website. I got a short nasty note back saying it's not the p.o.'s business to give out info.So I lost it and wrote that I wasn't asking anything personal aboyut the people,just was it delivered?And leaglly when the p.o. accepts my money for a stamp, that's a contract that they will fulfill their end and deliver it. What is illegal is the p.o. charging a $5 fee to check on mail. Complain when you get really bad service for no reason.I'm sure the postmaster didn't like that letter but they didn't have to be fresh to start.Linda :)

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I once ordered a large hard-back book. When our postman delivered it, he bent it and shoved it into our mail box. My husband and grown son had to literally put their feet on the post and try to pull the book out.

Yes, I told the post office what I thought! :)

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Know what you mean. A couple of months ago i sent a check with an order and waited and waited. I got worried when the check wasn't cashed. (Backlog might have kept the order, but the check?) So i wrote to the post office there ( a western state) and asked if it was delivered, that maybe I made a mistake and had used an old website. I got a short nasty note back saying it's not the p.o.'s business to give out info.So I lost it and wrote that I wasn't asking anything personal aboyut the people,just was it delivered?And leaglly when the p.o. accepts my money for a stamp, that's a contract that they will fulfill their end and deliver it. What is illegal is the p.o. charging a $5 fee to check on mail. Complain when you get really bad service for no reason.I'm sure the postmaster didn't like that letter but they didn't have to be fresh to start.Linda :)

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Know what you mean. I got a short nasty note back saying it's not the p.o.'s business to give out info.Complain when you get really bad service for no reason.I'm sure the postmaster didn't like that letter but they didn't have to be fresh to start.Linda :)

Oh, Linda! That is EXACTLY what I am talking about! That's what I run into, as a postal employee, trying to deal with "management". I am glad you wrote your letter because you are 100 percent right . . . they didn't need to act like jerks when you were trying to find out what problem your mail piece had encountered. They should not only have been willing to help you, but should have been truly apologetic for your mail piece not being handled properly. I ask myself EVERY day, "why, oh why are these idiots acting like this?" "Who lets them by with this stuff?" So on, and so forth.

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Only way to get the phone number of my post office is to be good friends with or related to one of the old timers in town.

And, get this . . . even if you work there and CAN weasel the number you need from somebody, you almost NEVER get an answer! Almost every single phone call is put on voice mail. It is insane and frustrating, beyond belief! I honestly don't know how any business thinks they can operate this way. I get boiling mad when I hear postal management whine about business being down. I think "well, idiots . . . you are the reason it is down!".

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I'm lucky because out here in the boonies,everybody knows everybody and our p.o. is nice, only 3 people. But I say it again, complain and if it falls on deaf ears,write to the postmaster general in washington. If I'd gotten another nasty reply I would have sent him both letters. Too much job security there.Sometimes it's unbelievable what a guaranteed job can do to people. Years ago my brother arrested a high school teacher selling drugs in school and guess what?That teacher kept his job because he had tenure. So, complain.Sometimes it helps.Linda

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I have to say something positive about the PO, even though I get aggravated with them at times. A customer tried to stiff me for $80 plus, claiming a package had not arrived, to get PP to give her back the money she paid me. The clerk and supervisor at our branch went out of their way to get me proof of delivery, copies of the signed delivery slip, gave me numbers to contact her post office, etc. They were far more sympathetic and helpful than Paypal was! And our post man leaves the packages on the doorstep, if no one answers the door, and leaves it behind one of the columns where it can't be seen from the street. They're not perfect, but they are trying to do their job!

Of course, they're all Texans...I honestly believe folks are just friendlier out here! :)

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As an employee, if you complain about mishandling of mail, or anything else that isn't being handled correctly, you are labeled a "problem employee" and management goes out of their way to give you as much @$^@# as possible, every moment possible. A lot of my friends at work get really upset at how badly I, in particular, am treated when I bust my butt harder (and do a better job) than at least 99% of the people in that place. They always tell me "I wouldn't do it". Well, as I've mentioned on here previously, I do it in spite of them (as in management) FOR YOU ALL. That keeps me going, and I know it is the morally right thing to do. Some of my co-workers seem to forget that we are just the temporary custodians of your mail - that it belongs to you, and if we do something to damage it, it's the same as if we came into your home and broke something.

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Although our local postal folks are reasonably competent, before we got our new postmaster DH & I occasionally found undelivered packages in the ditch beside the road down behind our house; in the carrier's defense, when we attempted to deliver it to the address on the box we couldn't find it, and we drove up & down the street for half an hour before finally leaving it with the neighbor whose house number came closest to the one on the label. I stopped swapping with Tracy/ Minis on the Edge after the PO (don't know whether it was hers or ours) "lost" packages from BOTH of us. The one that totally fired my noodle, though (and our local folks tried to take up the battle for me) was when I tried to mail Hyacinth to KathieB and after three months during which I got a few concerned PMs from Kathie, I finally got the mangled remains of the box she had been packed in from the regional postal hub in Jacksonville along with a computer-generated form letter. I no longer trust packages to family members to the PO, I'll deliver them in person, if late.

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Our current small post office also is great. We have a rural driver who delivers and when we have packages too big for our mailbox they will come up our drive to deliver it. And considering we live on a hill, and our winters snows sometimes make it dicey she still does it. She has gotten stuck at least twice to our knowledge. We ran a business out of our house for several years and got rather well known to the local office and even now they still go out of their way to be helpful. At Christmas I always tried to take in a batch of home made cookies to show our appreciation.

When we lived in California 15 years ago we definitely had problems with stolen mail and rude carriers. Since my DH was working on gov contracts with a major aircraft related org, there was some concern about what was stolen. As it turned out it was a couple of local kids looking for money or checks or cards and we caught them with the help of our local cops (who were super great by the way). The post office folks was not even interested.

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While we lived just outside the town line, in the township, our mail service was ok. Can't say I needed to complain too much over 18 years (except when I had to go to the PO and deal with "the Nazi" woman). :lol:

When we moved into the borough it was another story! Our first week I had mail sit in the box for three days....I finally called the PO to complain. Unfortunately I got "the Nazi" (ask anyone in town-they'll know exactly who I mean!) and she actually said to me that "it is not the mail carrier's job to look into every mailbox. If he did that he would never get done with his route." ???? What the...???? :)

And once I was waiting for a certified letter...stayed home and waited for the guy...heard him at our box, then onto the next house, so I went out. A note was in the box that he had attempted to deliver the letter & get a signature but no one was home! :banana: :lol: That liar never even knocked on the door!

You know, after reading Rhonda's experiences at work, no wonder they have workers "going postal"!!

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When I moved in to my house we had to place a mailbox at the end of our street, I'm guessing because the pavement ends and our road is dirt they didn't want to drive down it. We asked the post office where they wanted it and placed it where they had specified, as far back as our mailbox would let us because there was a barbed wire fence immediately behind the boxes. The first few days we started receiving notes in our box from the mail delivery person to move our box back that it was to forward in comparision to the other boxes. Because there was physically no room to move it back we couldn't do anything but the notes kept coming. We both work during the opening hours of the post office, plus in a different town from where we live and were unable to go in and question it. Soon when we'd get our mail out of our box along with the notes our mail would be covered in dirt and on the few instances it rained gritty wet sand, as if someone had dropped it on the road a couple times before putting it in the box. Then a day or two after that we came home to find our box had been ripped from the ground and was laying ON TOP of the other mailboxes! My husband calmly (much more so then me) put it back in the ground. Two days later we come home to find our box was once again moved but this time it was pulled from the ground and woven between the rows of the barbed wire fencing. :) I was furious! My husband once again replaced it as far back as was possible, which was exactly where it had been before. I actually started sending all of my ordered mail to my parents house two towns over because I was afraid anything I ordered or received would be ruined. I think we finally got a new delivery person because it finally stopped...but till it did I had no trust in my postal delivery either.

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And once I was waiting for a certified letter...stayed home and waited for the guy...heard him at our box, then onto the next house, so I went out. A note was in the box that he had attempted to deliver the letter & get a signature but no one was home! :):banana: That liar never even knocked on the door!

You know, after reading Rhonda's experiences at work, no wonder they have workers "going postal"!!

Oh, my gosh! I have had the EXACT SAME experience happen on several occasions: both with certified letters, and with oversized packages. The last time it happened, I was actually watching from my upstairs window, saw the postman leave & thought the package hadn't come, then went down to get my mail & saw that he "tried to deliver a package" (liar, liar, pants on fire!), so I threw a coat over my nightgown & drove up the street to the next group of mailboxes (knowing he would still be there) and handed him the note for my package and informed him he did NOT try to deliver the package or come to my door. He looked sheepish, and handed over the package but didn't say anything. It really made me mad - not only because he was lazy & didn't try to deliver the package and that he lied, but also because it is a real hassle to get the package at the post office. First of all, you have to wait until the next day and secondly, because I have to drive several miles out of my way and then there is always a line a mile long. I guess I can say in all honesty that I am as disgusted as a consumer as I am a postal employee! And, every bit of this can be traced back to BAD postal management. Even though the carriers shouldn't be cutting corners & lying, I can tell you that they are often handed an extra route or two, on top of the one they are actually supposed to have, on their way out the door and this results in them getting off their normal shift a lot later than they are supposed to. I run into the same thing at my workplace: I run a very heavy zone (tons & tons of mail!) that is supposed to ALWAYS be manned by two people. Almost every night, my supervisor puts me on the machine alone and I have to personally do the work of two people and still get it out on time. And, not only that, but they check the computer records & if the "stats" aren't in line with their requirements, you still get a reaming even though you were doing the work of two people! I can tell you one thing: the USPS needs to have all the current management removed and start over with managers that take their jobs seriously. It would have to be better than it is now!

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I think it upsets me more that people like that are handling things that people NEED. My minis I don't need, but my next door neighbor who needs insulin, gets its delivered. That one day that someone feels like being lazy or a complete dot dot dot could cost someones health. Some people depend on food deliveries and stuff as well. This is not to say that all are like that, but when your working in that line of buisness make sure your able to do the job and do it well. Afterall most doctors don't get lazy and say well I hope he finds his lifesaving meds in this box outside burried.

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Yep the PO has me P O'd more than once but the other delivery services aren't much better. UPS left my new computer on the front porch in plain sight.

FED EX tossed another package in the snow next to the sidewalk, didn't even make the front porch this morning! He complained that my car was blocking the driveway! Its my driveway....Hello ???where am I supppse to park ? So I have just inside door open so I can see today if I get my dollhouse delivery before that ends up in the snow like Jeanne's did. :)

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I work for the USPS, and I am thoroughly fed up with postal management. THAT is the problem. I keep the actual customers (you) in mind every single night I work. I do my best for all of YOU, NEVER for postal management - who I consider abusive, uncaring individuals who don't even do their jobs.

My mom used to work for the USPO, and her attitude was like yours, Rhonda. The management was bad. But Mom kept her customers in mind and went out of her way to be sure people got their mail. She would never have considered leaving a package where it could have been harmed.

It's so sad when people just don't care about their work. And bad management can corrode their workers' attitudes. But the best still do their job right--because they care.

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I'm so sorry for all of you who have had these bad experiences. I don't really have too many personal complaints, just the general ones like Rhonda as to how the PO is run. But, like Roxy said, every carrier can do that. We have 5 steps leading up to our porch. Many times during the Christmas season, just this week too actually, UPS will just throw the package up the stairs so it sits just barely on the top step, right in the middle of the porch. I understand they're busy, but, gee. Again, I'm sure that all comes down to management.

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