I Pine for the Days of the Stagecoach

Here's a small anecdotal measure of the efficiency of the U.S. postal system.

So a product I ordered from Hong Kong was shipped on October 3rd and arrived at a New York sorting facility, after an 8,000-mile trip, on the 5th. Then our "neither sleet nor rain nor snow" paragons took over, unfortunately producing eleven days of zilch (and counting). As of right now, the status on the postal service's website still shows that my package is "in transit."

To call that "tracking" is to call Stephen Hawking "a silver-tongued orator."

By the way, the distance between New York and Downeast Maine is about 400 miles. An arthritic donkey could have covered that stretch by now.

More fun: The manager at my local post office says I'll have to wait at least another week before he's willing to begin making inquiries.

Comments

[Kimberly]

I was in a post office the other day, getting TERRIBLE service, when the man behind me asked for a piece of tape (he needed about 2 inches). The postal worker said they only provide tape for priority customers, but he could by a roll (ata ridiculous mark up) if he would like.

As he checked out, he said "There's our tax dollars at work". The charming, brilliant (sarcasm) postal worker said "Your tax dollars have nothing to do with it. The post office doesn't receive a penny from anyone and is completely self-sufficient.". Ok, sure. If a government granted monopoly, tax benefits and CONSTANT deficits count as self-sufficient, they sure are.

[Dan Hill]

Because they don't face the true discipline of the commercial market (give customers what they want or watch your competitors steal them), the post office, like all government organisations, is only interested the form rather than the substance, basically as an exercise in CYA.

UPS and Fedex have tracking, and sooner or later a voter will complain to his congresscoward who will then complain to the post office. This lets the post office respond "we've now got tracking".

[JHZ]

You wouldn't happen to be up in the Hamilton Heights area, would you? I've yet to successfully get an Amazon package delivered there (dollar value of missing items now stands at around $90) and of three different magazine subscription attempts, one issue of one title has so far arrived in 11 months.

Needless to say, I've learned to route things elsewhere. I'm still waiting to hear about a book that was to have been delivered almost three weeks ago. They gave me a "tracking slip" that they later told me was basically meaningless.

Asses.

[Lee]

I send back my Netflick on Monday and it sometimes it takes ALL the way until Thursday until I get my new one.

Occasionally I get them on Wednesday.