TF Views

A friend of mine who trades online, and has a relative who works in the post office told me a distressing story over the weekend.

Apparently, the post offices (at least in and around Boston) are now hiring temps to handle some routes. (Not just sorting, but actual deliver routes.) He had a package (with tracking and delivery confirmation) go missing. He was able to track it from its starting point to Boston itself, and then it went missing. The PO has it listed as being sent out from the station it was at, but not being delivered. The package was either stolen, or more likely lost.

This leaves my buddy out 3 SW figures. And, it also means that mail-order trading may get spottier. Just something to consider. (I know JT has some great PO stories as well, but his local station seems exceptionally bad about things.)

Dom
-thinking, UPS, DHL or Pony Express?

USPS has always been so good to me though! Why U.S. government, why do you fail me now?

However, that actually does suck a lot.

My best post office story: http://www.geocities.com/jeditricks/usps/

JT, that seller was VERY good to you. O_o I don't know if I'd be so forward-thinking (and pessimistic, almost) as to package a small item in so much darn packaging. But, evidently, in worked in your favour. Phew!

And I thought the mail was bad over here (ours is in the name of an English Queen, after all, so you expect it to be lazy, shallow and ultimately pointless).

JediTricks wrote:My best post office story: http://www.geocities.com/jeditricks/usps/

Holy shit!

Decepticon Spike wrote:

JediTricks wrote:My best post office story: http://www.geocities.com/jeditricks/usps/

Damn!

Don't ship anything DHL. I worked for them a year ago, and I've seen guys just toss crap in the trucks, with the loud sound of breaking glass. I've seen guys open packages and go though stuff. I even saw a guy on a lift lift truck run over a box marked "fragile".

My mom's live in boyfriend is an ex mail carrier cum Postal Union executive, and he constantly lets me know of how the post office is cutting corners by hiring temps, who are not covered by the union. The fact is, email is killing the post office, and even though online shopping has increased packages, the post office shipping a package is less profitable than them shipping letters.

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but most MAN-101 (or whatever it is called nowadays) classes use precisely this secenario as a case=-study. If a business is having trouble, simple cutting costs by letting the service/product deteriorate only makes the problems worse in the long run, forcing more cuts, making the trouble worse......

The trick is to cut custs through efficiency, not through doing less.

Unless a company has a monopoly, which the Post Office does not, customers will simply leave for other prospects.

Dom
-cannot feel bad for companies in this scenario.

Nothing new in my neck of the woods. My post office either loses or takes their sweet time getting packages out. Been this way for some time now.

Really, the PO needs to shrink its workforce. They're saying that people are communicating more via email, then they shouldn't need as many employees to work there since there is less mail to process. But cutting quality instead of quantity is a bad call, and eventually it's going to bite them hard.