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I live in a small town and I have my postmaster's personal cell phone number. She's very professional and attentive,. Based on our conversations, I don't belie

I live in a small town and I have my postmaster's personal cell phone number. She's very professional and attentive,. Based on our conversations, I don't believe USPS maintains the level of rigor for reliability that software engineers would expect (fire drills, KPIs for reliability, incident review, root cause analysis, etc). We started having serious issues with valuable mail turning up missing. Car registration tabs, checks, statements , priceless letters . Informed delivery was inconsistent with physical delivery -- and the postmaster said that's expected. Some valuables were delivered to the wrong address and forwarded weeks later by conscientious neighbors. What I came to discover is that USPS does not maintain quality controls , neither e2e or at the last line. The post office does not have any sort of log of delivery issues that I could tell. No real testing or auditing is being done (auditing, red-teaming, e2e testing). I doubt they could provide a quantitative measurement of reliability at any level of the system. If a zip code or subdivision had 5% mail go missing over a week, I doubt they would notice or have a protocol for resolving it. The postmaster and staff did do their best to address the issue, with good customer care and attentiveness. But the issue was never resolved. I now send valuables via other vendors , and rely on USPS for junk mail.

jonathanlydall 1y ago
USPS risks becoming irrelevant if they don't actually start to care. In South Africa we have the South African Post Office which has consistently and increasingly been made redundant/irrelevant by the actions of one particular organization far more so than any other: The South African Post Office One of their biggest self-inflicted loss of relevance was due to a large strike by their workers in the early 2010's. Because of the prolonged strike people were not receiving their statements in a timely manner. At the time the law required that financial institutions send statements by post, due to this incident the government allowed the law to be changed and they were now allowed to send them by email instead. For decades now the Post Office has had a reputation of stealing from mail. When my grandmother was still alive she used to always send a birthday card with a cheque by post to all her grandchildren for their birthdays, for around the last 10 years she was still alive the envelope I received had always been slit open and clearly "inspected", fortunately it seems they didn't feel these low value cheques were worth the effort. Something else which used to keep the Post Office slightly relevant is that it was about the only place you could go to get your annual car license renewed. Every time you'd go there would be a huge queue waiting for the single teller who could process these while there were like 4 other tellers sitting at the other counters doing nothing. A few years back the organization which manages the licenses (not the post office) made a very surprisingly completely painless online system where you could pay by credit card and have it arrive at your door within a couple of days by courier. In 2013 when I moved into a new house, I went to the local post office to arrange a P.O. box. To which they said "Sorry, we have none available, we can put you onto a waiting list for if one becomes available", it seems it never occurred to that branch's post master to perhaps look into making additional P.O. boxes available. I have other stories of their general incompetence, but you get the idea. They've only been able to get away with it due to it being a government owned organization with seemingly zero effort by the government to hold management accountable for the grossly poor management, something that's pretty much the norm with most of our government and government run organizations.
- tonymet 1y ago
  I appreciate this story. Institutions are made of people , and their service is only as good as the culture. The most important factor is whether people actually care . Leadership can then guide them in the right direction.
elif 1y ago
Same experience here. Informed delivery showed me a picture of the envelope containing my child's social security card, along with 2 other mail pieces for the day. You can guess which one somehow didn't reach the mailbox. It's been months trying to get a replacement and now at under a year old my son already has to worry about identity theft his whole life.
nyarlathotep_ 1y ago
Across two apartments in the last 5 years, I've received mail for no less than 5 different previous residents. Every week I'd end up with someone else's medical bills, bank statements, debt collection, the list goes on. I've zero faith at this point.
- arantius 1y ago
  Receiving mail correctly at the address on the label isn't a problem with the post office.
philjohn 1y ago
Do they have the money to do that? Are the people in charge (through political appointment) incentivised to make the service better?
- tonymet 1y ago
  The apathete's plea

jonathanlydall 1y ago

USPS risks becoming irrelevant if they don't actually start to care. In South Africa we have the South African Post Office which has consistently and increasingly been made redundant/irrelevant by the actions of one particular organization far more so than any other: The South African Post Office One of their biggest self-inflicted loss of relevance was due to a large strike by their workers in the early 2010's. Because of the prolonged strike people were not receiving their statements in a timely manner. At the time the law required that financial institutions send statements by post, due to this incident the government allowed the law to be changed and they were now allowed to send them by email instead. For decades now the Post Office has had a reputation of stealing from mail. When my grandmother was still alive she used to always send a birthday card with a cheque by post to all her grandchildren for their birthdays, for around the last 10 years she was still alive the envelope I received had always been slit open and clearly "inspected", fortunately it seems they didn't feel these low value cheques were worth the effort. Something else which used to keep the Post Office slightly relevant is that it was about the only place you could go to get your annual car license renewed. Every time you'd go there would be a huge queue waiting for the single teller who could process these while there were like 4 other tellers sitting at the other counters doing nothing. A few years back the organization which manages the licenses (not the post office) made a very surprisingly completely painless online system where you could pay by credit card and have it arrive at your door within a couple of days by courier. In 2013 when I moved into a new house, I went to the local post office to arrange a P.O. box. To which they said "Sorry, we have none available, we can put you onto a waiting list for if one becomes available", it seems it never occurred to that branch's post master to perhaps look into making additional P.O. boxes available. I have other stories of their general incompetence, but you get the idea. They've only been able to get away with it due to it being a government owned organization with seemingly zero effort by the government to hold management accountable for the grossly poor management, something that's pretty much the norm with most of our government and government run organizations.

tonymet 1y ago
I appreciate this story. Institutions are made of people , and their service is only as good as the culture. The most important factor is whether people actually care . Leadership can then guide them in the right direction.

elif 1y ago

Same experience here. Informed delivery showed me a picture of the envelope containing my child's social security card, along with 2 other mail pieces for the day. You can guess which one somehow didn't reach the mailbox. It's been months trying to get a replacement and now at under a year old my son already has to worry about identity theft his whole life.

nyarlathotep_ 1y ago

Across two apartments in the last 5 years, I've received mail for no less than 5 different previous residents. Every week I'd end up with someone else's medical bills, bank statements, debt collection, the list goes on. I've zero faith at this point.

arantius 1y ago
Receiving mail correctly at the address on the label isn't a problem with the post office.

philjohn 1y ago

Do they have the money to do that? Are the people in charge (through political appointment) incentivised to make the service better?

tonymet 1y ago
The apathete's plea