Charles2222
Posts: 3993
Joined: 3/12/2001
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ORIGINAL: Greybriar
Whenever I want to mail a package cheaply and have proof it got delivered I use Delivery Confirmation. The recipient of the package doesn't sign for it but the postal employee who delivered it confirms it got delivered. There are also Signature Confirmation services, but I only use those when the item I'm mailing is valuable enough to warrant the higher cost. Unless there's been a change that I am not aware of, Registered Mail is used for the most valuable items and Express Mail is used when the item needs to get there as soon as possible. There are other classifications of mail as well; just ask a knowledgeable postal employee about what is the most appropriate way to mail something that fits your needs. And by the way, the last I heard the cost of Priority Mail was only pennies more than Parcel Post and the speedier delivery more than made up for the difference in cost.
Perhaps I am taking too much for granted as I live in a small town but the mail service I am provided with is top notch. The Post Office here is also in the process of moving the mailboxes from beside the front doors to the curbs in front of our homes. There are no changes for the current residents though, and only the new people who move in after someone has died or moved away or who have built new homes will have curbside delivery. So it is being phased in gradually. To ram something down a postal customer's throat like a $250 charge for a mandatory move as rogueusmc described would get people so riled up here that...well, let's just say it would not be a good idea for the Postal Service to carry on that way.
After my father died a few years ago, I was concerned about my mother going down the front steps of her home to get the mail from her mailbox. She was eighty at the time, and the possibility existed that she could fall and break a hip or even worse, particularly with the snow and ice that winter usually brings in this part of the country. So I called the Postmaster where she lives and explained the situation to him. I felt considerably better afterward when he authorized her mailbox to be moved near her door on the porch.
I have experienced a lot of human kindness and consideration in most of my dealings with the U.S. Postal Service. Oh, I've had a few run-ins with the Postal Service in the past but nothing to get too bent out of shape over.
In closing, I would like to share this little story with you: An aunt of mine had had the same city letter carrier for nearly thirty years. One day she found her Social Security check laying in her front lawn where the letter carrier had apparently dropped it. She was so upset about the incident that she complained about it for weeks. She forgot all those years of dedicated service because of the one time he made a mistake.
Interesting post, but it sounds like your USPS is more of a dream world. I didn't go off on a tangent about my mailo service, because I've just given up on it in a number of ways, though the package I was delivering was in the suburbs of Dallas (that's how much I trust 'the big city postal') but it still often has the big city mentality. For example, I learned differently afterwards, when I went in I asked them if they provided tracking on packages, and he said yes, and then he suggested me get out of line and go try signing some thing or other behind me, and then he mentioned express mail, which I suppose was that, and then he mentioned priority, so given the convenient ease of not having to lose my place at the head of the line I chose priority. Yes, priority isn't tracked as I later found out elsewhere - Great. Other than opening 15 minutes later than their door claimed they opened the one morning I was there early, what few times I needed them I gues sthey were adequate, but given how I haven't used them more than a dozen times (going through the line for service that is) that's not exactly encouraging.
Back to my delivery which does come from big city USPS. Regularly, very regularly, like 3 or 4 times a month, I will get somebody else mail. Most of the time it's the nexct door neighbors and some or all of my own. Other times it's with no possible match whatsoever, such as same street, or same address number but different street, and a few times not only is it not the correct city, but there are no matches whatsoever. And it's not like my deliverer doesn't know about this either (not that I have phoned him in or anything). When this happens, I pplace the foreign mail back in the mailbox telling hin to re-deliver and explaining why it is incorrect. Strangely enough though, it has occurred to me now, that I haven't seen a mishap with him for maybe 6 weeks now. I had talked to him the first time to warn himm of my new mailbox and he said he had never seen one that operated that way before. It has a seesaw in it that will drop in the back when there is weight on it. Well the last time he was in error, he rang my doorbell. It turns out that he had mis-delivered again but knew he had, but he couldn't retrieve it becuase it got swallowed up. I then opened it anbd gave the errant portions, and there were a lot, back.
At that point I had the theory, that he always delivered that way, just throwing any ol' slop in people's mailboxes, and since he could think about it and check it afterwards it didn't matter too much, but when one swallows anything pretty much put in there, uh-oh. Ever since that one day, not that I was mean to him, in fact he probably got the opposite impression, but then my previous notes could be a bit more curt, th email has looked fine. I have always noticed that evrythign I really needed, nbills, I have always, but with all the errors I have seen I have to wonder not only how much has been lost, but also how many people would just throw foreign mail away.
So yeah, there's more to this than I first mentioned. If I were so cruel or what not to the USPS, I would had sold that chap out a long time ago. Instead, only he and I know of his, or the people who sort his bundles, numerous errors. On delivering packages and buying stamps you can see right there why I use the suburbs mail office instead, but also because I grew up there. In that city, at least where my parents live, it's still doorstep delivery. I pity those who or basically immobile having to go to the curb and with my mail being big city, the thought of their making an excpetion for little old ladies is pretty close to laughable. I could foresee a "get you neighbors to pick it up" as the response. I don't know of a case like that just yet, but that's what I would expect. I mean the big city can't let people "walk" all over them like everybody and their dog using mototized carts at Walmart, can they? Believe me, I can see a neighbor driving numerous times through my lawn and just tell him that it angers me and don't do it anymore and the lousy mail service hasn't been squealed on at all through all of this; I'm not exactly Mr. Perfect myself.
Oh, just to show you don't know big city very well, try this on for size. I complained on thsi board yesterday about my street being a highway with a 30mph posted on it. The city came in and widened the street and reset or replaced the wooden mailboxes and we had no choice in the matter as far as I knew. One catch though, I can't recall the amount, but everybody had to pay for "their" piece of the road. I think they tried to get across the impression that the city ate 50% of the bill. I was charged between $500-$900. So maybe now you can recollect just why the big cities have been vacated more for the burbs, but do recall also, my story of the USPS package was a burbian one.
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