Inspired by your post I just tried to research the etymology of “fucknut”. Turns out there is absolutely nothing on the internet on this. Fascinating.
I consider myself the Shakespeare of my generation.
But with a shittier goatee.
There are a number of postal employees who do not know how to work their machines. It only takes one in the process to ruin the tracking.
And much more hair.
Yeah my experience is similar to @malkav11. I’ve lived all over the Chicago metro, and it’s always been solid with USPS. And, like @ArmandoPenblade, I’ve had instances where I get them leaving a note for ‘we tried to deliver but you weren’t here’ but it’s like, no, you did not try because I was right here the whole time. Mostly with FedEx.
I’ve had generally solid experiences with USPS, UPS, and FedEx. OnTrac, however, is a consistent shitshow. Packages are routinely delivered 12-36 hours after their tracking shows it was dropped at my front door, and frequently between 11pm and 2am.
Indeed, I have lived in places where UPS has been horrible, and the Post Office has been good. I just happen to have spent the last twenty years in a place where it’s the opposite. But I think we can all agree on one thing: it’s a crap shoot as to whether your location will have good delivery from anyone.
I suspect that there is some aspect which is just dependent on the actual driver you have in your area.
But from a systematic view? The USPS is just straight up worse. It’s objectively worse.
Their tracking is total garbage. Most of the time, their tracking doesn’t work at all.
I think someone once said, “some people don’t pay for tracking,” or some such nonsense.
If that’s actually true, it is itself a flaw with their system. Tracking should be universal. It costs zero extra for them to do it, assuming there have anything approaching a modern logistics system for shipping crap.
The USPS, as an enterprise, is garbage.
I disagree that it is objectively worse. Especially when your only given example of why is tracking.
Here are just a few ways they are superior to UPS and Fedex:
- They have access to apartment buildings and can directly deliver packages to apartment residents (like me). Granted, my understanding is that the reason UPS and Fedex don’t is that only USPS is legally allowed to have that access, so it’s cheating. But it’s still a huge advantage.
- They have a much larger network of offices and they are conveniently located for public access. By contrast, UPS and Fedex operate out of singular giant shipping facilities in the middle of nowhere. As time has worn on, UPS and Fedex have begun to offer shipping services out of other locations and vendors, but your deliveries are still processed through the giant facilities and they will actively charge you to have your package pickup accessible at any other location.
- With the exception that UPS now, instead of attempting redelivery, will arbitrarily route missed deliveries to a random location without consulting you and let it sit there until you either yell at them or they decide to return to sender. Meanwhile USPS just delivers.
- The USPS delivers on Saturdays as a regular service day (technically UPS and Fedex will deliver on Saturday but it is a separate delivery track, costs extra, and is set at time of shipment) and for certain clients will deliver on Sundays, which UPS and Fedex will not do at all.
- They offer extremely inexpensive flat rate options for several sizes of package, often $10+ less than UPS or Fedex would charge for the same package.
- They deliver packages in the amount of time that it takes the package to get from the shipping location to the destination by the chosen means of transportation. This may seem like standard procedure, but UPS and Fedex have more than once held a package so that it would take the listed number of days to arrive even though it was coming from a location close enough to arrive at my doorstep in a day or two. After all, if you’re paying for 3 day shipping, you’re not paying the extra $20+ to get one day. Even if that’s all it would take.
- USPS provides the phone number of local post offices on their website. UPS and Fedex require you to call the national number and I’ve never been able to get them to let me talk to the local facility, ever.
Now, it does seem like USPS has a number of policies very similar to the ones I most hate in UPS and Fedex, but I have never had to deal with them because I just get my packages.
You have to use their special boxes though, right? This is a PITA
If you say so. The once or twice I have had cause to ship something I found using their boxes to be much easier than figuring out my own solution. In addition to being cheaper than the competition by a huge margin.
They also offer it as an option where the other companies don’t. You don’t have to use it. It’s like if there was takeout at a restaurant and you complained that it’s just so much better to sit down and have someone serve you. It’s still a feature in the favor of the place offering it.
And I agree with malkav, it’s pretty awesome. It also just so happens there are a couple of them boxes which are perfect for boardgames so shipping games around (which used to be a big hassle with me, I had always used Fedex) became really easy to do at the post office.
I suppose it is if you just want one box to ship one thing…then you need to go to the post office and get it. However, I used to buy and sell a lot of PC/console games on Ebay a few years back, and I could go on the USPS website and literally order a box of boxes, and they would be delivered to my house in 2 days, FOR FREE.
USPS was BY FAR the cheapest and most flexible shipping option as an Ebay seller. They even have a service you can set up to have them pick up outgoing packages from your home/business on a regular schedule provided you have someone there to hand them off. I never did this myself because I work a block from the major downtown post office in my city, so walking my packages over there myself cut an entire day out of the shipping process, but I can see where it would be so much easier for a home-based business than constantly carting your packages to the nearest UPS/Fed-Ex drop off.
Remember when the postal service was discussing ending saturday mail delivery, but shortly after they started delivering packages on Sunday for amazon, and they haven’t brought up cost cutting measures since? Pretty crazy world we live in now. I’m guessing the drones will launch from Whole Foods stores, with 4 automated trucks from distribution centers to each whole foods daily. In 5 years it won’t be a two day delay we’ll be complaining about, it’ll be a 2 hour delay on a prime plus 6 hour delivery guarantee to 90% of the US population for items weighing 15lb or less.
The USPS is regulated by congressional act - in exchange for exclusive rights to use mailboxes for delivery they can’t be as competitive as they otherwise would be. But some articles suggest that this results in lower prices for Amazon - at though the USPS is subsidizing delivery. https://www.freightwaves.com/news/2017/8/1/amazons-sweetheart-deal-with-the-usps
I am those Sunday deliveries are part-time workers, not part of the union and are basically screwed when it comes to wages and insurance compared to their regularly delivery peers. Getting Sunday deliveries though, makes me pretty happy. I am hoping the extra business is keeping them in the black. No private company is going to deliver mail down the Grand Canyon on an donkey for 47 cents.
As I understand it, USPS has been operating at a profit pretty consistently. The problem is Congress has forced them to prefund 70 years worth of retirement, which is a huge expense that makes them look like they’re failing. It’s certainly true that their original core business (mail) has been dropping dramatically but packages have been growing for many of the same reasons.
This is my understanding as well.