Post office woes

[LeasureChix]

Quote:
I dont think you can complain to the local government. They have a HARD task to do.

Actually, I should have been more specific. If people are concerned about closures, especially their local post office, they can complain. It has stopped closures.

 

[Carols Clucks]

You want to have some fun, decide to put back up the bank of mailboxes on your 12 unit apartment building that the previous fraternity took down. They took it down because who needs bills, but the law is you have to provide locking mailboxes. So back up they had to go.

First the local postal supervisor only wants to put the $1500 box on the sidewalk-the location we returned them too was on was on the driveway, under cover for rain and less than 10' from the point he wanted the box. Good idea, but what about all the people that use that sidewalk, where did he suggest they walk? Well we could take down the fencing and let them walk on the lawn. Ya...that is going to go over well. We spent almost 2 months dealing with him and all the hoops he could find to put us thru to put back up the bank of mailboxes that had been there for 4 decades! Yup since the 1960's, you would have thought it was a brand new building we had secretly built overnight.


This is the same guy that wanted my own carrier to park at one end of the block and walk up the hillside and across the front lawns to service 50 apartments and then back again to the truck rather than move her truck 4 times in the back driveway to each of 4 buildings. It would have saved gas, but the lawns are not meant as daily traffic access and have dips and rises built in to them for drainage. Oh, and she would have had to leave her truck in a red zone blocking a school crosswalk on a state hwy route. I guess her time was free and her safety was not his concern or that of the kids that use that crosswalk. Smart man. I had to write her a letter explaining the dangers and forbidding her to use our lawns as sidewalks.

 

[FrenchToast]

Great thread !! I am so fearful what the changes that are being made at the USPS is going to do to the egg shipping business. Especially if they go to only 5 days a week delivery !!!

At first when I started buying and selling eggs I was angered at the tracking system until I learned that the "track and confirm" website was for both Priority and express mail. They keep everyone confused but using the same "track and confirm" system.
If you read further on their site it will explain that only express mail will show the actual whereabouts of that package. It is a "bonus" if your priority mail package shows any activity while enroute. I've noticed my egg shipments will show some tracking info when they have been scanned at the airport and when they are on the truck for delivery (most of the time)

All priority mail claims to provide is "Confirmation" of the package with that "tracking" number. They should make it clearer to avoid all of the hostile feelings they are stirring up !

Anyway, I sure hope they don't go down to a 5 day delivery !!!! We might be scr3wed in the egg business if they do.

Anybody know what we can do to protest this ????? I haven't mailed out any Christmas cards YET but plan to. Look at it this way, The USPS is something alot of us have taken for granted, we can help it by using it !!! I love getting cards in the snail mail !!! Beats getting the bills !!!

Happy Holidays Everyone and hope all of those eggs arrive on time !!

 

[donnavee]

Did you get your eggs? Mine took 4dys Priority Mail from NY - but they have arrived safely.

 

[LeasureChix]

Quote:
The USPS will stay in business if people continue to send mail. Order printed magazines. Send letters. Send cards. Mail your bill payments instead of using online bill pay. Even ordering free catalogs. Use the USPS for all of your shipping needs.

The big hatcheries have been in steady contact with the USPS regarding shipping day old chicks. I'm pretty sure that even if mail delivery goes to 5 days, mail will still have to move 7 days a week, as it does now. The only day that my trucks are not on the road (as a mail contractor) is Christmas. Go out to any highway on a Sunday, you will see postal contractors hauling mail.

I don't want 5 day delivery either. We are consumers used to instant gratification. You are so right, the USPS is taken for granted.

 

[eggdd]

i don't think the usps is taken for granted. i think they do a bad job. or, certainly, the job is done better by others.

and why not have the mail five days a week? there is nothing that can't be done in five days a week. and, besides, if any of you are like me, and most of the folks i know irl, i mostly get crap in mail. in fact, i will go days (sometimes) without even checking the mailbox - - as there's mostly nothing important in there....and if there is, i know it's coming and look for it.

just because a few are "used" to something doesn't justify the expense. times are a-changin'. there are reasons why people aren't sending as much mail via usps; there are reasons why it's losing billions of dollars. the feeling of nostalgia is irrelevant here, in my opinion.

 

[FrenchToast]

Wonder if the UPS or FedX will ever get into the shipping Eggs and live birds???? Until then I think the PO is doing a job others don't want. If the UPS and FEDX only deliver their choice of packages then of course things can go more smoothly.
I for one enjoy getting the mail 6 days a week. We get a free weekly pape on Mondays, and Thursdays, a subscribed paper on Wednesdays and a Farm & Fleet sale paper on Fridays. We look forward to our mail. Not all of it is junk.
Yes times are changing and not for the better I'm afraid, IMHO. I don't send anything out via UPS or FedX. But do they supply you with free boxes, fragile stickers, tape ????? My small town PO gives me everything need as well as personal service. I love them !!!

 

[SChunn]

I'm also waiting on eggs that were shipped out Tuesday to get here from Tennessee. They should have been here Thursday, by the expected delivery date. I talked to my own post master who's computers show the same as my tracking. Hasn't left the Tenessee sorting station yet. As of this afternoon, it has not been scanned in Houston so I'm hoping for Monday. My postmaster said he sent a letter priority to the Houston post office on Thursday and it hasn't arrived there yet. He said Houston was 12 trucks behind right now.....

 

[Melissa Rose]

Nellie - Rockinpaints mailed me some gorgeous Orp eggs on Monday and they finally arrived today

They had LIVE ANIMAL on hot yellow paper all over it. Can you imagine if there really was a live animal inside instead of hatching eggs

I raise Tortoises and shipping their offspring really worries me. I do it by UPS and over night with an early morning delivery but still

One time I was expecting a new tortoise to be delivered by DHL and it was supposed to arrive by 10:00 in the morning at about 15 after I went to check the tracking and it said DELIVERED

I called them in a panic since it wasn't delivered to me and after about three hours of tears and fear he shows up and hands me the box upside down even though it was marked "live animal this way up"

 

[FrenchToast]

Quote:
I didn't think UPS delivered live animals???? OR is it just chicks they won't deliver?
Actually I really surprised that any of them do? With the impersonal service and all of the automation these days I'm surprised any of the LIVE animals make it at all !

I sent eggs marked 'Live Embryos" handle with care once and they marked Undeliverable. My PO said the "Live Embryos' may have sent up a red flag thinking that it was a hazzard material or something like that. She madea phone call and the package went on it's way. Now I just put Fragile, I don't mark it eggs. Not everyone at the PO enjoys their job.
Also the Postmaster in town used to work in Milw WI and he told me that even though the packages may be marked fragile they still get tossed. He also told me that the bigger the package might be safer for eggs since the smaller ones are easier to toss into the bins from a distance. The bigger ones they have to carry over. They all get other packages piled on top of each other regardless.

I think of mailing eggs, chicks or any other live animal similar to putting your child on plane, ALONE !!!! Who knows what might happen !!! Still can't believe some people do that either !!!! Why would you expect the airlines to babysit your child or the PO to babysit your package and treat it like their own ???? It's a gamble but a whole lot cheaper then getting it their yourself !!