hang on i just gotta scream for a second
Oct. 25th, 2024 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doodlemancyin theory i would like to love and respect the United States Postal Service, a publicly funded service we all deserve and need that does vital and often thankless work
in actuality i fucking hate USPS
for the last six months i have been repeatedly contacting them about their tendency to cram packages into my tiny cluster box with no regard for how i'm supposed to retrieve them on the other end. the side the carrier loads the boxes from is 100% open, but the side i grab stuff from has this little metal lip around the inside, because... you need that... to have a latching box (the carrier side has larger sliding doors). so the result of this is that when a carrier has something that technically "fits" in the box from their side, sometimes it won't come out easily from my side.
the result of this is that i have to take a box cutter and scissors down to the mailbox with me in case i need to surgically extract my own packages from my own fucking mailbox. (i've hurt myself doing this before.) there are parcel lockers, incidentally, two feet away. i order a lot of books. comics/manga, drawing reference. and SO much of it shows up damaged because the carrier refuses to take a few seconds to put a parcel into the parcel locker.
a few years ago i lived at an apartment with the same type of cluster boxes. this was never a fucking problem. but USPS doesn't fucking train anyone consistently and doesn't enforce expectations consistently so you're really just at the mercy of whoever is delivering your packages and whether or not they're a total fucking jackass.
at first i was like... well, this person probably doesn't know. so i'll just politely inform and ask for this to not happen again please and thank you. i got a response telling me this was something management had been meaning to address with carriers and to please follow up if it kept happening. this was in April.
several more incidents and follow-ups later it was still happening. and it was September. i was like... so this is not stopping. is there something i can do on my end? can i put a sign inside my box? if i did that, what would be appropriate verbiage? and i got a response back apologizing for this continuing to happen and telling me that a carrier would place a label inside the box.
another month passed. no label. another crammed package, another damaged book.
so i wrote again. i asked where is my label. i asked when are you going to do something about this. i asked them to please just be honest with me about whatever is going on here.
what i got was a single-line response where they forgot to include my name (so it just said Dear, ) and said "We apologize this issue. Manager will discuss with carrier.".
so i guess next time this happens (and it will; they're obviously just lying about doing anything about it) i'm going to be talking to the postal inspector about how my carrier is intentionally and maliciously damaging my packages, because i don't know what the fuck else i'm supposed to be assuming here. like. at some point the barrier between incompetence/carelessness and active malice sort of dissolves.
this isn't my first rodeo, either. i've had a lot of problems over the years with USPS. one of my least favorite incidents was this one: there was a package i needed to sign for. they won't deliver packages to second-floor apartments, so they just left a little ticket in my mailbox telling me to come pick up my package OR sign the paper, leave it in the mailbox, and ask for redelivery online. the reference number they gave me didn't exist in the system for some reason so i couldn't do the online part and they ignored the paper i left in the mailbox. never got my package. they had already fucking sent it back to japan. other adventures include the many times they have magically made packages vanish, marked things as delivered that were very much not delivered at all, and the time i got someone else's mail-in ballots.
...at least it's been a while since the last time they mis-weighed one of my Etsy packages, claimed it was 10 pounds when it was 1 fucking ounce and retroactively upcharged me on the label i already bought (and then played keep-away with that stolen money for 6 weeks).
dickheads. i'm not giving up on this. it's going to the postal inspector next time, which is what i had to do when they kept pulling the ol' ounces-to-pounds conversion on me every few months. like sorry, i really have tried to be patient and empathetic, i get that they're overworked and understaffed and Louis DeJoy has ruined everything but as a former burnt-the-fuck-out retail worker i draw the fucking line at damaging other people's stuff. (and putting them in a position where they risk accidentally slicing their own fingers with a box cutter trying to get a package out of their OWN DAMN MAILBOX.) jesus fucking christ.
in actuality i fucking hate USPS
for the last six months i have been repeatedly contacting them about their tendency to cram packages into my tiny cluster box with no regard for how i'm supposed to retrieve them on the other end. the side the carrier loads the boxes from is 100% open, but the side i grab stuff from has this little metal lip around the inside, because... you need that... to have a latching box (the carrier side has larger sliding doors). so the result of this is that when a carrier has something that technically "fits" in the box from their side, sometimes it won't come out easily from my side.
the result of this is that i have to take a box cutter and scissors down to the mailbox with me in case i need to surgically extract my own packages from my own fucking mailbox. (i've hurt myself doing this before.) there are parcel lockers, incidentally, two feet away. i order a lot of books. comics/manga, drawing reference. and SO much of it shows up damaged because the carrier refuses to take a few seconds to put a parcel into the parcel locker.
a few years ago i lived at an apartment with the same type of cluster boxes. this was never a fucking problem. but USPS doesn't fucking train anyone consistently and doesn't enforce expectations consistently so you're really just at the mercy of whoever is delivering your packages and whether or not they're a total fucking jackass.
at first i was like... well, this person probably doesn't know. so i'll just politely inform and ask for this to not happen again please and thank you. i got a response telling me this was something management had been meaning to address with carriers and to please follow up if it kept happening. this was in April.
several more incidents and follow-ups later it was still happening. and it was September. i was like... so this is not stopping. is there something i can do on my end? can i put a sign inside my box? if i did that, what would be appropriate verbiage? and i got a response back apologizing for this continuing to happen and telling me that a carrier would place a label inside the box.
another month passed. no label. another crammed package, another damaged book.
so i wrote again. i asked where is my label. i asked when are you going to do something about this. i asked them to please just be honest with me about whatever is going on here.
what i got was a single-line response where they forgot to include my name (so it just said Dear, ) and said "We apologize this issue. Manager will discuss with carrier.".
so i guess next time this happens (and it will; they're obviously just lying about doing anything about it) i'm going to be talking to the postal inspector about how my carrier is intentionally and maliciously damaging my packages, because i don't know what the fuck else i'm supposed to be assuming here. like. at some point the barrier between incompetence/carelessness and active malice sort of dissolves.
this isn't my first rodeo, either. i've had a lot of problems over the years with USPS. one of my least favorite incidents was this one: there was a package i needed to sign for. they won't deliver packages to second-floor apartments, so they just left a little ticket in my mailbox telling me to come pick up my package OR sign the paper, leave it in the mailbox, and ask for redelivery online. the reference number they gave me didn't exist in the system for some reason so i couldn't do the online part and they ignored the paper i left in the mailbox. never got my package. they had already fucking sent it back to japan. other adventures include the many times they have magically made packages vanish, marked things as delivered that were very much not delivered at all, and the time i got someone else's mail-in ballots.
...at least it's been a while since the last time they mis-weighed one of my Etsy packages, claimed it was 10 pounds when it was 1 fucking ounce and retroactively upcharged me on the label i already bought (and then played keep-away with that stolen money for 6 weeks).
dickheads. i'm not giving up on this. it's going to the postal inspector next time, which is what i had to do when they kept pulling the ol' ounces-to-pounds conversion on me every few months. like sorry, i really have tried to be patient and empathetic, i get that they're overworked and understaffed and Louis DeJoy has ruined everything but as a former burnt-the-fuck-out retail worker i draw the fucking line at damaging other people's stuff. (and putting them in a position where they risk accidentally slicing their own fingers with a box cutter trying to get a package out of their OWN DAMN MAILBOX.) jesus fucking christ.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-26 12:00 am (UTC)But yeah it's tough for an agency if the person in charge is actively trying to kill it.
Thoughts
Date: 2024-10-26 01:34 am (UTC)in actuality i fucking hate USPS <<
Well, it used to be a lot better. 40 years ago it was great. 20 years ago it was okay. 10 years ago it was tolerable. In last several years it has become ... "YOU SORRY SACK OF MEDIOCRITY!"
What infuriates me is that this is not an accident, but deliberate sabotage of vital public infrastructure. In a word: treason.
>> the result of this is that i have to take a box cutter and scissors down to the mailbox with me in case i need to surgically extract my own packages from my own fucking mailbox. <<
Huh. I never thought of that. I just go to the window and bother the staff to pull out a package that won't fit. Fortunately it doesn't happen often at my office. You might consider further embarrassing them by keeping a loud verbal tally of their mistakes in front of other customers, opening the package in front of them, and demanding that they document the damage.
On the flip side, there are numerous types of "tattle" attachment that can be stuck on boxes, and in some cases envelopes, that will show if something has been dropped, shaken, tilted, frozen, taken out of a freezer, etc. for use on products that would be damaged by those actions. You can get stickers that say "Do Not Fold Or Bend" for things like photos or magazines, but the most effective there is to ship them with a slightly larger rigid backboard so that people can't bend it. That's what I do when shipping something like a scrapbooked poem, although I also write "Do Not Bend" on the envelope too. Plus of course the post office has to ask if you are shipping anything fragile, and they have official Fragile stickers if you say yes.
Also, this whole mess could be prevented cheaply and easily. Go to any metalshop or woodshop with the measurements for your bank of mailboxes, and ask them to make a frame for the staff side that makes the back end of the boxes the same size hole as the front end hole. It would save a lot of bother.
We wound up getting a small drawer-size post office box because we so often get packages that won't fit a tiny letter-size one.
>> it's going to the postal inspector next time, which is what i had to do when they kept pulling the ol' ounces-to-pounds conversion on me every few months. <<
Sometimes you just have to harass people back. If they can't manage basic competence, quit giving them extra chances. Switch to "Fix this now, or I am going to the postal inspector with a list of all the OTHER mistakes you've made."
If you really want to be mean about it, holiday season is coming up. Demand that they fix a problem when there are 20 people in line all listening to how the post office damaged your package for the 15th time.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-26 03:22 am (UTC)KILL.