Rant on shipping

[mjonesnh]

Ordered generator parts Jan 18. Shipped the 19th from las vegas, arrived in Memphis Sunday evening the 20th. That is far as they have gotten, tracking shows running late, moving in network. Never made it out of distribution facility according to tracking. Priority mail package cannot make it 200 miles to my house in 4 days . Just contacted USPS but have doubts it will do any good. Probably lost in transit or walked out of building on its own.

Package showed today. Can't say whether contacting USPS had anything to do with that or not. Maybe coincidence it showed next day, maybe not. Received email from person identifying herself as supervisor of the local post office telling me it would be delivered this morning. 5 days from Memphis to Nashville area for a priority mail package! Dunno

 

[1Mech]

Package showed today. Can't say whether contacting USPS had anything to do with that or not. Maybe coincidence it showed next day, maybe not. Received email from person identifying herself as supervisor of the local post office telling me it would be delivered this morning. 5 days from Memphis to Nashville area for a priority mail package! Dunno

Glad you received your package, the fact that you had an email from the supervisor indicates your call did some good, otherwise, it would have just showed up as another piece of mail.
I do machine maintenance at the Tulsa Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC), I have had front office people come out looking for individual mail pieces before, so calling about lost mail will not hurt. Might not help either, just depends. We process over 23.8 million packages every day, it is amazing that an individual piece can be found, but it does happen. Just be glad your package didn't get missorted and head back to Las Vegas or some other place. I had that happen to a package coming to me once.

 

[Jstpssng]

A couple of oddities from the postal service. When I was self employed, one of my bread and butter contracts was from a local paper mill. I gave them a good price because I could work around my schedule, and also an invoice on Tuesday morning would see a check on Friday.
Usually.
The time I really needed the money as I was going away the next week and needed 4 tires, the check didn't show. The auto scanner read a "0" as "6", and my check visited half the country before landing in my mailbox.

More recently, I didn't get my check stub. After a few days I was thinking about contacting HR, when I recieved a call from a coworker. Somehow the envelopes holding our check stubs had stuck together until getting to his post office... 200 miles away.

 

[Oaktree]

Glad you received your package, the fact that you had an email from the supervisor indicates your call did some good, otherwise, it would have just showed up as another piece of mail.
I do machine maintenance at the Tulsa Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC), I have had front office people come out looking for individual mail pieces before, so calling about lost mail will not hurt. Might not help either, just depends. We process over 23.8 million packages every day, it is amazing that an individual piece can be found, but it does happen. Just be glad your package didn't get missorted and head back to Las Vegas or some other place. I had that happen to a package coming to me once.

You make an excellent point, one that can easily get lost in all the whining. That is a huge volume of mail, and the fact that probably 99.999% of it gets where it's going in a timely manner is pretty amazing.

 

[newbury]

You make an excellent point, one that can easily get lost in all the whining. That is a huge volume of mail, and the fact that probably 99.999% of it gets where it's going in a timely manner is pretty amazing.

And judging by the stuff we get, especially from September thru January, it doesn't need to get there anyways.
I normally get the mail from my mailbox. I'll bring in a pile of mail and for every piece we needed to get (bills - no one sends snail mail anymore) there will be 20 pieces of "other". Calendars, charity, political flyers, ads etc.

And probably the only reason we get a bill by mail is because I sell trees and thus I don't sign up for email only billing.

 

[Rod in Forfar]

Before Canada Post got into package delivery in a big way, the rural mail lady delivered occasional packages to our house if they wouldn't fit into the central mailbox. Things have gone from very good to much less desirable with her retirement.

In current Canada Post jargon, "We attempted to deliver your package" on email or in a notification in the mail box means, "It has arrived at the local post office. Please come to the office and wait while the clerk digs through the pallet-sized box for your parcel." This adds a two-day delay to the eta for the parcel. When I tell vendors of this delay, they sometimes send things by other courier services, though Purolator recently delivered a very expensive package to me from fifty miles away by routing it up and down the 401 several times before heading north with it.

 

[JethroB]

Before Canada Post got into package delivery in a big way, the rural mail lady delivered occasional packages to our house if they wouldn't fit into the central mailbox. Things have gone from very good to much less desirable with her retirement.

In current Canada Post jargon, "We attempted to deliver your package" on email or in a notification in the mail box means, "It has arrived at the local post office. Please come to the office and wait while the clerk digs through the pallet-sized box for your parcel." This adds a two-day delay to the eta for the parcel. When I tell vendors of this delay, they sometimes send things by other courier services, though Purolator recently delivered a very expensive package to me from fifty miles away by routing it up and down the 401 several times before heading north with it.

Huh. I didn’t realize Purolator still existed. We used them regularly in the late 80’s and early 90’s. In one weekly payroll circumstance, Purolator didn’t deliver to a remote location so an employee had to drive 90 miles each Friday to a city they did serve. Easy Friday for him.

 

[1Mech]

And judging by the stuff we get, especially from September thru January, it doesn't need to get there anyways.
I normally get the mail from my mailbox. I'll bring in a pile of mail and for every piece we needed to get (bills - no one sends snail mail anymore) there will be 20 pieces of "other". Calendars, charity, political flyers, ads etc.

And probably the only reason we get a bill by mail is because I sell trees and thus I don't sign up for email only billing.

You can't really blame the Post office for all the junk mail we get. The Post Office does not create the mail, we only deliver it. Others create the mail, spend good money doing it. It is estimated that direct mailers will spend upwards of $40 Billion on direct mail in 2023. (New Research Underscores Direct Mail's Resilience) I guess someone is responding to it or these mailers would not be spending that kind of money on it. They also create many jobs, mostly here in the USA, in addition to the jobs at USPS.

 

[newbury]

You can't really blame the Post office for all the junk mail we get.

I'm not blaming the PO for junk mail, but the PO makes the rules on delivery and I daresay I for one could easily put up with a 3 days a week delivery schedule.
I'm a big fan of the Post Office.
When I was growing up my Father sold an acre or so of land to the PO and they built a small Post Office, with parking next door. About 30 yards from our front door and halfway to my 3 room grade school. So from about 3rd through 7th grade I frequently stopped at the PO on my walk back from school and really enjoyed it.

 

[Pixguy]

Other than a power hungry postmaster once every carrier I've had have been very good,