OT: Mail delivery rant

You have that problem, too?

We used to live on Howe. I ordered a magazine and it somehow got into their system as Heow. Oddly enough, ALL the bills arrived and *none* of the magazines. Took me months to convince them that I was not paying a bill for a magazine that doesn't arrive, and that the magazines would probably arrive if someone would take half a second to change Heow to Howe.

"bungadora" ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with

It's incredible - with the advent of email, paying bills online you would have thought Canada Post would get smarter, but they have got worse if that is possible.

When I moved it cost $60 to officially have my mail (any that slipped through) re-directed, a service that used to be free because it was supposed to assist the PO and encourage people to see their mail went to the right place.

Not ONE thing was re-directed. Fortunately I had asked the people who bought the house to please give any that slipped through to my ex-neighbour. I picked up a parcel from Japan (that was pretty noticeable) from my ex-neighbour. At that point I called Canada Post and finally after getting all the way to the top, I had my $60 returned and relied thereafter on my ex-neighbour.

They are a bunch of idiots :)

I've moved about seven times in the last thirty years. Each time I've used the Post Office (UK) official "re-direction" service and each time it has worked very well. You can get "re-direction" for 6 or 12 months for a few pounds. On the subject of poor deliveries of correctly addressed mail, here in the UK we have a post code (e.g. KW17 2AR). Each post code represents about 6 or 7 houses. The Post Office delivery people rely on the Post Code and completely ignore the name of the person or organisation to which the letter is addressed.

Well e-mails for customer service are all very well, but they have to be answered not just disappear into the ether. There might very well be mechanisms chugging away in the background but I don't know if anyone has even read my e-mail. Talking to a customer service representative on the phone service is option 20 on the menu. And they aren't really able to tell you more than what is on the computer screen. Dora

"bungadora" ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with

I was meaning, or trying to say, that with the advent of email far fewer people are mailing letters and the PO should smarten up. Letters were an everyday thing to me, but not anymore, email all the way. I pay bills online, bank online and now, if the PO were to go on strike, I can't imagine it having very much effect on me!

Well not like it did years ago when they stayed out a few months and I had to pay people who were travelling to Maine to mail letters to my parents who lived on a small Mediterranean island with no telephone. I developed a hate for them at that time and remember being stopped at the red light opposite the main post office one day and the picketers approaching my car with placards saying "Honk if you support us" - so I flipped them the bird and they rocked my car lol

That's our Sheena. Stereotypical little old lady, no way! :)

I just read an interesting article about mail delivery in brownstone Brooklyn. Brownstones are the old buildings with usually 3 stories and a basement. The first (ground) floor is elevated about 6 steps from the sidewalk - the steps are called a stoop. The mailboxes for the building (most are converted into apartments) are inside the front door. The mail carrier has a master key that opens a special box on the outside of the building. The front door key and the key to the top of the mailboxes are in the box.

After this lengthy explanation, what the article said was that mail carriers are refusing to climb the stoops. They're leaving mail on the ground by the stairs. And the post office is trying to get rid of this type of delivery and want those multiple boxes on the sidewalk somewhere. My question is = where? It's not like there's a lot of free real estate in Brooklyn.

Alison

Alison ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with

No new houses here (Nova Scotia) get home delivery, it is all done to boxes now. I realize it is more practical but again I ask myself, how can Postal Services be so autocratic if they wish to survive ?

I often think that certainly Canada Post, and it sounds like yours too, is talking itself out of existence.

It's not only the brownstones that have that kind of mailbox. A lot of apartment houses have similar setups The two family house I lived in had the mailboxes at the top of 4 steps to the house and other dwellings in my neighborhood had anywhere from 4 to 10 steps to the entrance..

Those houses most often have some space at the bottom of the steps, or to the side, on street level and a mailbox could be put there on a pole.

I'm not sure I blame the mail carriers for not wanting to walk up and down steps, especially on a cold, icy Brooklyn winter day.

Lucille

Which is why they always strike before Christmas. I don't send much of anything by mail any more either. I'm still mailed my utility statements, etc. every month, but if there were a major strike, I would probably just switch it over to e-mail completely.

Not a unionista huh? According to my former neighbor, a posty, part of the problem is that they don't really have enough workers. Too top heavy with mba's and administration who don't know anything about the mail. I don't think it's that simple, of course, but I do believe it isn't that good a place to work if you're a peon.

Dora

"bungadora" ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with

I think that is probably true - they set out to break the union when the Inside Workers Union became too strong, and I thought, stupid. The Letter Carriers Union was sensible but once amalgamated, became tarred with the same brush.

The end came when, as a Crown Corporation, they allowed stupidmarkets etc. to have postal outlets in them. Prior to that one had to go to postal stations and be treated like dirt under their feet.

The letter carriers to this day are great, and your former neighbour is correct.. Our mailman here could not be nicer, more helpful and kindly in many instances but he can only be as good as the backup he receives, which isn't much as far as we can see.

Your last remark was one I was just about to make....our local carrier, Tony, is a gem. We live on a rural route so I can leave packages with checks and he will ship them for me. I can leave envelopes with checks and he brings me stamps - even brings me change if I make the check out wrong! He brings all our packages up to the front door. He is always cheerful and friendly and I make sure he gets lots of homemade cookies at the holidays and homemade jam during the summer :)

Because I can get most services I need at home I very rarely have to deal with the Post Office in person and thus my opinion is mostly based on the great service we get from our carrier.

Just don't ask me about my opinion of the US Postal Service when I was supporting them as a client - :(

MelissaD

Sounds a bit like the setup we have here. The island has just one sub postoffice run by an extremely pleasant and helpful lady. There are two people who take it in turns to deliver mail six days per week (and empty the mail boxes that are scattered over the island). Just one collection and one delivery per day. Anything that does not go by post will be brought over by the local carrier, Jim, who travels on the ferry to Kirkwall every morning and returns in the evening (that's at least 90 minutes each way). He takes everything onto and off from the island, even the mail bags from the post office, and is very cheerful and obliging.

sounds lovely - mail delivery by ferry...except of course when the weather is blustery - might not be so enjoyable then.

As I said, Tony gets lots of goodies - which he told me he loves since his wife isn't a baker .

Food bribes always work :)

MelissaD

I phoned Canada Post this afternoon when I saw that they were holding my parcel for verification again, and was told they had already returned it to the sender. According to the report, the driver said the street ended "in a hill". Not mentioning, of course, that there were HOUSES on the hill. Anyway, I contacted the sender and told them it was coming back. They got the parcel ready, but then when I got home I had to phone them again to stop them from sending it. My tulips were sitting on the doorstep.

Boy these tulips better be good.

By the way Sheena, got your magazine yet?

Dora

"bungadora" ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with

They will be lol I am glad they finally reached you. Clearly nothing about that parcel was meant to go smoothly for you!

No, I am off to the UK Wednesday night so I don't expect to see it before I leave. So I have not left any feedback for her and I have asked the super who will be taking in my mail, to email me when it comes and tell me how much the actual postage was on it. So I can fix her muffler for her if she is ripping me off lolol

$12 is a bit high. It's 250 pages though. I was reading it the other day. It has some good articles, and interesting to read how the magazine changed over time.

Too bad it's so cold and wet outside tonight. Otherwise I'd be out there planting. I'll be hauling in all my plants in pots instead, so they don't freeze. Dora

UPS finally brought my stuff today, too. Both the stuff I ordered last Sunday from Website #1 (and cancelled on Friday), and the identical stuff I ordered on Friday from Website #2 after cancelling the first order.

So, I sent half the boxes back with him, with the comment that I'd cancelled the order and they apparently re-shipped it anyway. So, it's obvious that the local delivery company didn't want to deliver here because it's a "residential area" (even though I'm directly across the street from an office building), and dumped the job on UPS, who delivers everywhere.

Well, we'll see how cocky they are about "we get to choose who we want to deliver to" when the corporate president gets my letter calling them on all their lies about "attempted delivery".