PSA - USPS offers redelivery

What's the difference between USPS and UPS besides the extra S?
UPS is a business where you pay for a service. USPS, on the other hand, is an acquaintance of an acquaintance who does you a favor of, on the way to somewhere else, dropping off your package.  If you're not home, too bad, go pick it up yourself.

It was a pleasant surprise finding out that USPS finally offers redelivery request on their site.  Granted, the "we missed you" card was put in my mailbox on Monday instead of Saturday and the tracking wasn't updated until this evening.  Still, I'm a lot happier with USPS than I was before, now that I don't have to stand in line for half an hour to get my package.

What is pathetic is the time it took the morons in charge to implement this.  Why morons?  Because this is good not only for USPS customers, but for the company itself.

1. There's no need to go to the post office to pick up your package and stand in line for half an hour.
2. The lines are now shorter because people don't need to go to the post office to pick up their packages.
3. USPS employees don't need to waste time going to the back and looking for people's packages which may or may not be there.
4. Packages can now be separated into pick up and redelivery, which means less time spent looking for a package.

You can request redelivery here.  Though it looks this service is not offered everywhere at this time.

USPS doing their work

When I speaking with the local branch manager about the incident in the previous posts, he told me that they're doing their work and everything else is none of their problem. Here's another example of USPS doing their "work".

Monday, June 23rd, I dropped two netflix envelopes, into the same mailbox and at the same time. This was after the 9AM pickup and before the 3PM pickup. Netflix received one dvd on the 24th and the other on the 25th.

Since this was a Monday, I assume that most of the mail was dropped off on Sunday and Monday morning and was picked up and sorted by 3PM. There are very few mailboxes with 3PM pickup and also Monday was a business day so there shouldn't be too much mail to sort through by the time they got my envelopes. So what could possibly happen that would cause two pieces of mail that were sent at the same time to arrive a day apart? Incompetence. Let's not forget this is the same branch where I had to wait for around half an hour each time I came there, regardless of time of day, day of week or length of line.

USPS incident - Part 2

Tuesday night I filed a complaint online about what happened in the previous post. Today I received a callback from, I assume, the manager of the local post office, Midwood branch, on Coney Island between I and J. In no uncertain terms the manager informed me that my beliefs are my problem and they will not change their policies to suit me. He told me that not being able to sign because of a Jewish holiday is not their problem but mine. I asked him what would happen if the addressee would have a broken arm. He told me that he'd have to have someone there at the time of delivery to sign for the package. That's right, if you're disabled, too bad for you. It's your fault you can't sign for the package and the post office will not accommodate you because maybe you should have took this into consideration before deciding to become disabled.

I emailed Simcha Felder, felder@council.nyc.ny.us, and Michael Nelson, nelson@council.nyc.ny.us, regarding both incidents. If you live in Brooklyn and don't want the same thing to happen to you, do us both a favor and send them an email, referencing these two posts, and ask them to change the USPS signature policy.

USPS discriminates against religious Jews

Today, June 10, 2008, 2nd day of Shavuot, a USPS employee has shown a great insensitivity to Jewish laws and customs.

While I was in shul, a USPS worker attempted to deliver a package. My wife answered the door and informed the man that it's a holiday and she's unable to sign for the package. A UPS or FedEx delivery man, as they have done before, would have graciously left the package inside the door. The USPS delivery man told my wife that if she won't sign for the package, he's not gonna give it to her and that I'll have to go tomorrow and pick it up myself. Now I'm gonna have to waste at least 30 minutes tomorrow, waiting in line, to get something that was supposed to be delivered today.

You should all be very careful about breaking the arm with which you write. If this guy comes to delivery your package, your package will go back to the post office and even may be shipped back. Broken arm? Cast? Too bad for you. No signature, no delivery, no soup for you!

No one's faster than USPS

When people hear "Government Employee" what they see in their mind is long lines and workers barely doing anything. I've seen DOT, on a daily basis, come to work at 10AM, leave at 4PM or 4:30PM and probably take at least an hour for lunch. I've seen five MTA workers install floor displays, where two of them were doing the work and the other three were standing and looking at what their co-workers were doing.

Today, I'd like to talk about the fastest of the city employees, the USPS package delivery. Yes, I did in fact say USPS. The Postal Office has lines whenever you come there and at least a 30 minute waiting period. When I needed to pick up a package, I tried coming there at 9AM, 10AM, 12PM, 2PM, etc. with the exactly same result. No matter when I came, there was a line and I had to wait for 30 minutes or more to get my package. You may ask, "now hold on, you just said that the USPS package delivery is the fastest of the city employees." You're right, I did say that. The problem is, their speed is in how fast they run from your door after ringing the bell.

I live in the basement and my door is not at the front of the house, but rather on the side and close to the back. Whenever I get a delivery from UPS or FedEx, I have ample time to walk upstairs and open the door. The delivery person is always there waiting for me. Not so with USPS. It seems that the USPS delivery guy, as a kid, used to be one of those pranksters who would ring your bell and run away. Unlike UPS and FedEx, when the delivery is from USPS, when I open my door the driver is either getting in the truck or driving away. It takes me 30 seconds to a minute to come to the door and as I mentioned before, my door is towards the back of the house. The only way that the delivery guy would have enough time to ring the bell and be in his truck by the time I get to the door is if he waited 5 or at most 10 seconds before leaving.

Next time you hear someone say that all government employees sit around and do nothing, you can confidently say that there's one exception, the USPS delivery guy.