Anonymous wrote:USPS is awful now compared to what it used to be. Delivery is unreliable and walk up service at the post office is ridiculously slow and unhelpful.

The post office has never been helpful at the fronnt counter. It's been the same for the past 30 years.

It's part of the plan to destroy the post office before the 2026 elections

Anonymous wrote:Mail has been slow since the dejoy destroyed it.

When he was in charge, you could literally lose mail on a regular basis. People stopped using mail for important things.

This time around things aren’t getting lost, but it’s definitely slow.

With all his changes, they’re still degradation in service and instead of fixing it, they decided to have a different measure for what it is consider considered a successful delivery.

When he stepped down, they tried to reverse some of his really really, really, really really bad decisions, but you couldn’t reverse everything and you can’t always fix the broken vase.

+1

USPS is awful now compared to what it used to be. Delivery is unreliable and walk up service at the post office is ridiculously slow and unhelpful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, service has degraded. What used to be 3 days to get to 6 hours drive away (2 states) has become 4-5. California is easily a week.

I ordered a book from Amazon itself (with last mile delivery by USPS) a few years back (I think during one of the troubled periods) and it was lost for a while but did show up.

Worse yet, I had a replacement credit card stolen directly out of the U.S. mail system a year ago (I have a locked mailbox). And a friend's kid in another town had a package of gift checks he was depositing by mail stolen from the U.S. mail system. His mother had to deal with the official fraud investigators.

The Post Office was a gem. Technological change destroys industries. I'm glad it still exists at all for now.

There's a lot of limerence in this thread. How about a blast from the past. It's sucked since at least 2012.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/279098.page

PP. You think I'm infatuated with the postal service? That's odd.

Nope, it just used to be better. And when mail fraud is cropping up in my environment after zero problems for 40 years, that's a flashing red light.

I'm sure the situation varies regionally.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, service has degraded. What used to be 3 days to get to 6 hours drive away (2 states) has become 4-5. California is easily a week.

I ordered a book from Amazon itself (with last mile delivery by USPS) a few years back (I think during one of the troubled periods) and it was lost for a while but did show up.

Worse yet, I had a replacement credit card stolen directly out of the U.S. mail system a year ago (I have a locked mailbox). And a friend's kid in another town had a package of gift checks he was depositing by mail stolen from the U.S. mail system. His mother had to deal with the official fraud investigators.

The Post Office was a gem. Technological change destroys industries. I'm glad it still exists at all for now.

It’s not technology change that destroyed it.

PP. There are a lot of factors but the loss of first class mail due to the rise of computing is a big one. When there is less paid mail going to every address, but you need to service all addresses 6 days a week, that's quite a burden. Also when you can't price discriminate to fully cover costs of servicing less profitable addresses. Like Alaska.

Also, as you may have experienced, it costs little people far more to mail packages USPS than to get them shipped by vendors. About 15 years ago, I started purchasing all my Christmas presents online from Amazon and having them direct shipped by Amazon "for free". The USPS rarely offers good deals on shipping to retail customers. Yet Amazon uses them to get "free shipping" Prime orders to me and my gift recipients.

The rise of Amazon is also technological change. It's internet marketplace technology. Just like Google's search engine represents technological change.

Yes it’s slow. I shipped my Victrola off to RCA Victor to be serviced, & it took 3 weeks to get it back! What a load of malarkey!

Anonymous wrote:Yes, service has degraded. What used to be 3 days to get to 6 hours drive away (2 states) has become 4-5. California is easily a week.

I ordered a book from Amazon itself (with last mile delivery by USPS) a few years back (I think during one of the troubled periods) and it was lost for a while but did show up.

Worse yet, I had a replacement credit card stolen directly out of the U.S. mail system a year ago (I have a locked mailbox). And a friend's kid in another town had a package of gift checks he was depositing by mail stolen from the U.S. mail system. His mother had to deal with the official fraud investigators.

The Post Office was a gem. Technological change destroys industries. I'm glad it still exists at all for now.

There's a lot of limerence in this thread. How about a blast from the past. It's sucked since at least 2012.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/279098.page

Yes. Lots of mail taking a week or more that used to take 2 days. Flat 9 x 11 envelope mailed at a Post Office in Philadelphia on Monday 1/12 got to me in Maryland on Tuesday 1/20. I know there was a holiday in there but a week is a long time for that short of a distance.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, service has degraded. What used to be 3 days to get to 6 hours drive away (2 states) has become 4-5. California is easily a week.

I ordered a book from Amazon itself (with last mile delivery by USPS) a few years back (I think during one of the troubled periods) and it was lost for a while but did show up.

Worse yet, I had a replacement credit card stolen directly out of the U.S. mail system a year ago (I have a locked mailbox). And a friend's kid in another town had a package of gift checks he was depositing by mail stolen from the U.S. mail system. His mother had to deal with the official fraud investigators.

The Post Office was a gem. Technological change destroys industries. I'm glad it still exists at all for now.

It’s not technology change that destroyed it.

In addition, delivery is sporadic, at least to my house. Not that I usually get a lot of particular interest, but for example, my street got no mail yesterday, so it’s been since Saturday since we had mail delivery.

When it snowed six or 7 inches last January, we didn’t get mail for four days despite the street being plowed and many walks shoveled.

Yes, service has degraded. What used to be 3 days to get to 6 hours drive away (2 states) has become 4-5. California is easily a week.

I ordered a book from Amazon itself (with last mile delivery by USPS) a few years back (I think during one of the troubled periods) and it was lost for a while but did show up.

Worse yet, I had a replacement credit card stolen directly out of the U.S. mail system a year ago (I have a locked mailbox). And a friend's kid in another town had a package of gift checks he was depositing by mail stolen from the U.S. mail system. His mother had to deal with the official fraud investigators.

The Post Office was a gem. Technological change destroys industries. I'm glad it still exists at all for now.

Mail has been slow since the dejoy destroyed it.

When he was in charge, you could literally lose mail on a regular basis. People stopped using mail for important things.

This time around things aren’t getting lost, but it’s definitely slow.

With all his changes, they’re still degradation in service and instead of fixing it, they decided to have a different measure for what it is consider considered a successful delivery.

When he stepped down, they tried to reverse some of his really really, really, really really bad decisions, but you couldn’t reverse everything and you can’t always fix the broken vase.

No, not noticed this at all.

Is it just me? A couple incidents recently make me wonder if mail is a lot slower these days or if I just had some funky things happen. I used to assume mail generally takes 2-3 days to get to its destination in the continental US.

- Mailed my holiday cards the Saturday before Christmas. Brought the stack of cards directly to post office. Received texts from friends saying they’d received my card, no joke, the first week of January. One friend told me card was postmarked Xmas Eve. I literally put the cards in the mail 5 days before Xmas Eve! None of the recipients were in Alaska, Hawaii, or far flung locations.

- Yesterday (Jan 20) I received a few cards in the mail postmarked Jan 9. from neighboring states, again, not far flung locations.

Got me wondering if I should get bday cards and time sensitive items into the mail much earlier than I’d assumed.

Anyone have thoughts?