Welcome to the world of Post Office budget cuts

[easysurfer]

I've been out of town all week and placed my mail on hold. When I returned to pick up the mail (I live right next to a post office), the one clerk there tells me that I need to go to another post office about 2 miles away to pick up mail. I asked, was there some sort of mistake and she said "nope" new way of doing things. I was ready to do my John McEnroe imitation and say "You cannot be serious!" when she said did I want her to call and just have the mail delivered tomorrow? I said, "Please do". Frankly, I wouldn't mind skipping Saturday delivery for better service. Or skip Sat and Wed for really good service

 

[haha]

I've been out of town all week and placed my mail on hold. When I returned to pick up the mail (I live right next to a post office), the one clerk there tells me that I need to go to another post office about 2 miles away to pick up mail. I asked, was there some sort of mistake and she said "nope" new way of doing things. I was ready to do my John McEnroe imitation and say "You cannot be serious!" when she said did I want her to call and just have the mail delivered tomorrow? I said, "Please do". Frankly, I wouldn't mind skipping Saturday delivery for better service. Or skip Sat and Wed for really good service

Dude, it's the government. Best to skip the whole thing and go back to Pony Express.

Ha

 

[pb4uski]

Same thought. It's a quasi-government operation - why would you expect common sense? That said, where else in the world can you send a letter 3,000 miles (or more) for 46 cents.

I thought it was a shame that they haven't curtailed Saturday service. Seems like they are just deferring the inevitable to me.

 

[FUEGO]

Maybe I missed it, but wherein lies your complaint? The fact that they consolidated the holding of mail at another post office? If so, maybe they decided to streamline their operations by moving that sort function/activity to a more central facility (or do that step of their operations at a single facility instead of distributed across all facilities).

It sounds like from a customer service standpoint, you got great service - they offered to deliver all held mail to your door the next day. If consolidating activities keeps operating costs down and it doesn't significantly adversely impact their quality of service, seems like a smart move to me.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Our local post office flips the mail hold back and forth to a bigger more corporate location. You never know which one is going to be holding it. That's why we have it delivered to our house the day we get back.

I have to say I am super impressed with this service that could easily be fee-driven as it is not within the normal delivery that postage pays for.

 

[ERD50]

Maybe I missed it, but wherein lies your complaint? The fact that they consolidated the holding of mail at another post office? If so, maybe they decided to streamline their operations by moving that sort function/activity to a more central facility (or do that step of their operations at a single facility instead of distributed across all facilities).

It sounds like from a customer service standpoint, you got great service - they offered to deliver all held mail to your door the next day. If consolidating activities keeps operating costs down and it doesn't significantly adversely impact their quality of service, seems like a smart move to me.

Agreed. I'm not normally defending government operations, but I try to be fair. And in this case, w/o knowing the details, this could well be the most efficient method.

One improvement to customer service would be if they informed you of this at the time you placed the hold. Would have saved you a trip, and saved them time explaining it after the fact. You probably would have thought that was great - 'hey, I can just call and have it all delivered the next day - great!'

-ERD50

 

[REWahoo]

I thought it was a shame that they haven't curtailed Saturday service. Seems like they are just deferring the inevitable to me.

"They" being the fine folks elected to represent us in that building located just up the road from Foggy Bottom:

Congressional action forces post office to keep delivering Saturday mail

 

[easysurfer]

Maybe I missed it, but wherein lies your complaint? The fact that they consolidated the holding of mail at another post office? If so, maybe they decided to streamline their operations by moving that sort function/activity to a more central facility (or do that step of their operations at a single facility instead of distributed across all facilities).

It sounds like from a customer service standpoint, you got great service - they offered to deliver all held mail to your door the next day. If consolidating activities keeps operating costs down and it doesn't significantly adversely impact their quality of service, seems like a smart move to me.

I really wasn't complaining as I really wasn't going to rant like John McEnroe. That as more for effect of my post .

Had the post office not offered to have the mail delivered the next day and forced me to pick the mail up miles away, then I'd think it silly, at best and a big inconvenience at worst.

I guess the post was mainly to point out, yes the post office budget cuts are here.

 

[FUEGO]

I really wasn't complaining as I really wasn't going to rant like John McEnroe. That as more for effect of my post .
.

Gotcha!

 

[grasshopper]

Wait a minute you get your mail delivered.

 

[mickeyd]

Frankly, I wouldn't mind skipping Saturday delivery for better service. Or skip Sat and Wed for really good service

I'm OK with getting my accumulated catalogs, junk mail and bills on a weekly basis if I can wrangle some kind of special deal from the USPS, maybe franking privileges...

 

[bUU]

This is almost surely a reflection of the trade-off between efficient use of resources and having local offices where you can interact with a human being to mail packages and purchase stamps. It's been at least eight or nine years, now, if not more, that our mail goes from the regional distribution center (Worcester, where rent is cheap), to the distribution office (the Woburn Post Office). It never visits the local post office in our town. That makes the motor pool more efficient, since the trucks are all managed and maintained from one spot, for a number of towns, and it makes distribution itself more efficient, since there's only two stops before the mail gets to my letter carrier instead of three.

Even in towns with far less than 25,000 people, they're not going to let the post office close their town post offices to improve cost efficiency, and they're not going to let them stop Saturday delivery, so they're going to have to bridge the budget gap in other ways.