The USPS is cool.
And they put up with a lot! A while ago a group tested the limits. It’s pretty entertaining.
@Mindysan33 that eagle gif is just wrong. A true American would never wear speedos! 
What? They do really well at tracking parcels. You get a tracking number and look it up online. You can even get it for a regular old letter if you want. Not sure we’re talking about the same postal service here…
I already buy my money orders there. Much cheaper than banks or other providers- and accepted globally.
I think of them as great service providers- cheap. A great provider of union jobs with good benefits & a pension.
And the place where lots of people who get shit trying to enter the job market get a chance. Like my grandfather from Puerto Rico.
For items that eventually get delivered, a tracking number has little benefit other than knowledge of where your item is in the pipeline. I had an incident last year in which I mailed several letters and got tracking numbers for them. Two of the letters never arrived, so I opened an inquiry with the Post Office and provided all the relevant details, including tracking numbers. After several weeks they concluded that they had no idea what happened to the missing items, and could help me no further. So in my experience they are 0 for 2.
Have you ever waited on line at a post office? My original point was that the USPS is known for slow service and lost mail, so perhaps you’re the one moving the goalposts. I’m not complaining that the government and private corporations are tracking me. I’m saying that if the government is so good at surveilling people, why are they so bad at tracking packages? Over the years I’ve had many important things get lost in the mail, both sent by me and sent to me. I am far from the only person with this experience.
Yes I have. It was very similar to the kind of experiences I’ve had waiting in line at a UPS store.
I would be curious to see if you have any data to back up your anecdotal assertion that the U.S. Post Office loses letters and packages at a substantially higher rate than private companies like UPS and FedEx.
I’m sure it varies by region and individual USPS/UPS/FedEx location, but my experience is that wait times at the USPS are usually significantly longer, even during non-peak times.
I never asserted that the USPS loses items at a substantially higher rate than private companies.
Methinks you aren’t even trying to make a good-faith argument anymore. Good day.
IIRC this bill was passed around the time the USPS was going to switch over to greener postal trucks which pissed off some in the petrol industry. I’m sure that’s just one of many factors in this attempt to hobble the USPS.
The USPS was known for slow service and losing mail way before UPS and FedEx were in business.
Compared. To. WHAT?
Come on, it’s common knowledge that the USPS is America’s most-hated institution. Isn’t that completely self-eviden…
Oh.
Well surely this favorable reputation is an odd new phenomenon, and generations past knew that the USPS was a poorly-operated bureaucratic mess, right?
Compared to how people expect it to be from past experience. Ask an old person and they’ll tell you that the USPS used to deliver mail twice a day. Ask a really old person and they’ll tell you that they delivered up to nine times a day (at least in downtown NYC).
Now you’ve just pivoted 180 degrees from “the Post Office had a reputation for terrible service long before UPS came on the scene in 1907” to “talk to any old person and they’ll tell you how amazing the Postal Service was when they were young.”
Y’know, I used to work in shipping; USPS Domestic was one of the most reliable services among the courier services the company used.
Personally, I never had any issue with snail mail and getting my packages… at least, not until 45 and DeJoy started dicking around with it.
You wait in line LITERALLY EVERYWHERE!
Which STILL has nothing to do wit surveillance. And once again, you can pin that shit on direct attacks by the right wing, who are seeking to destroy every functioning public service in the US. How about NOT help them do that?
So does surveillance mean something different now than it used to?
Private companies aren’t better, and they can always just tell you no.
Maybe put pressure on your representatives to ensure that the USPS is properly funded from now on?
Right? It STILL is, even with the BS Dejoy tried to pull.
and we’re supposed to be convinced that the poster has only mailed 2 letters in their lifetime, and both were lost.
“After several weeks they concluded that they had no idea what happened to the missing items, and could help me no further. So in my experience they are 0 for 2.”
I only speak in the past tense because I no longer work in shipping.
Oh sure.
I think what people are missing is that no service is going to be perfect… But the USPS is really the most reliable, even post Dejoy.
Thank you. For a second I thought my head was spinning, but really it was the commentary that was spinning.
@kmoser if you do have a point, it’s obviously not coming through. clearly there’s no obligation on an Internet forum, but maybe try restating?
And going back to the question “why would the public trust this Federal agency with their money”… recall that the private banks where most people keep their life savings are all FDIC insured by the Federal government, not the other way around. This implies that the Feds are widely recognized as the best bet for keeping your money safe.
