USPS Ground Advantage Gripes

[MikeinRome]

Check out the information on this page about Louis DeJoy, from what I have read DeJoy was appointed by the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service unanimously May 6, 2020, the previous Postmaster General Megan J. Brennan retired from the USPS, it is hard to remove someone from that position, President Biden was not able to remove Louis DeJoy, too many legal problems that block POTUS from replacing the Post Master General.
https://about.usps.com/who/leadership/officers/pmg-ceo.htm
I did a search on the web for USPS employees arrested, after reading some of the information I am happy that the hats that I have shipped out were delivered to my customers, however the package that was lost was delivered 3 months later and from what I seen from the photos of the package, I don't see how the package was even lost, I am glad that I put a copy of the shipping label inside the box with the hat and I will continue to do that when I send out a package using any carrier service, I do that with any returns to Amazon, so far that practice has paid off.

I have it in mind that Trump appointed DeJoy.

 

[rogueclimber]

I have it in mind that Trump appointed DeJoy.

From the USPS Inspector General page:

How is the Postmaster General selected?​

Like many companies and organizations, the Postal Service has a board that oversees operations. This board is called the Board of Governors. One of its roles is to select the Postmaster General.
The Board of Governors itself is made up of as many as nine governors, who are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. No more than five governors at any one time may be from the same political party. The governors select and have the authority to remove the Postmaster General. The Postmaster General is a member of the Board, and participates in the selection of the Deputy Postmaster General by the full Board.

Now back to me:

The USPS is so f ed up as to be beyond politics

It takes professional bureaucrats to mess something up this bad

 

[MikeinRome]

From the USPS Inspector General page:

How is the Postmaster General selected?​

Like many companies and organizations, the Postal Service has a board that oversees operations. This board is called the Board of Governors. One of its roles is to select the Postmaster General.
The Board of Governors itself is made up of as many as nine governors, who are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. No more than five governors at any one time may be from the same political party. The governors select and have the authority to remove the Postmaster General. The Postmaster General is a member of the Board, and participates in the selection of the Deputy Postmaster General by the full Board.

Now back to me:

The USPS is so f ed up as to be beyond politics

It takes professional bureaucrats to mess something up this bad

Somehow Trump was involved, because there was a big stink about it at the time.

 

[Darrell2688]

Since the Governors of the USPS made the selection unanimously, President Trump may have voiced his approval, and Louis DeJoy filled the position. Either way Louis DeJoy has been screwing things up with the USPS and postal workers stealing things just doesn't help.

 

[MikeinRome]

Looking back, it seems like Trump appointed members of the Board, who in turn made DeJoy the Postmaster, he being a Trump mega-donor. And I think DeJoy owns a business that competes with the Postal Service, or there's some kind of conflict of interest. I distinctly remember that one of the first things DeJoy did was to order the destruction of millions upon millions of dollars worth of mail sorting machinery in Postal facilities all over the Country.

 

[rogueclimber]

Somehow Trump was involved

Dejoy was a big republican donor

https://time.com/6263424/louis-dejoy-trump-election-postal-reform/

Everything the PO has done over the last several decades has been to eliminate customer service -- Group mailboxes as opposed to individual home delivery??? Just one example.

I remember chatting with my carrier (back around 2008) he said sorry can't chat, I have to hit certain spots on my route by certain times or I get written up.

When you get written up for being friendly that is an issue (also leads to carriers throwing mail away to speed up their delivery) also leads to packages being marked delivered as the carrier puts them onto their truck (faster to only scan the package once)

Bureaucrats seemingly seek ways to say no to their customers

 

[shopkin]

Maybe we should let Bezos privatize it all.

 

[Darrell2688]

I do not agree with that idea, I have Amazon Prime, when we signed up for Prime, we were informed that our orders would be delivered in 2 days time, Amazon has gotten so big that can no longer make deliveries in 2 days time and when I get a notice of 2 days delivery I expect it to be delivered in 2 days, not a week or so after the promised delivery time. Amazon has gotten tricky when you are looking at an item that states 2 days time read all of the print before the final check out, sometimes there are 2 different delivery times and the Amazon system will pick the longest delivery time of the two options, I always change that to the second day delivery time.

 

[Woodtroll]

I do not agree with that idea, I have Amazon Prime, when we signed up for Prime, we were informed that our orders would be delivered in 2 days time, Amazon has gotten so big that can no longer make deliveries in 2 days time and when I get a notice of 2 days delivery I expect it to be delivered in 2 days, not a week or so after the promised delivery time. Amazon has gotten tricky when you are looking at an item that states 2 days time read all of the print before the final check out, sometimes there are 2 different delivery times and the Amazon system will pick the longest delivery time of the two options, I always change that to the second day delivery time.

At least you still have the two-day option. For us, Prime delivery choices have run 4-5 days or more for at least the last year. We do live in a rural area, but are less than an hour away from a major population center that has major shipping hubs for USPS, UPS, and Fedex. But often Amazon still insists on sending our delivery via UPS Surepost, which involves UPS and USPS and is guaranteed to add at least two days to the travel time. Or they mess around and don't ship it for several days, even though their ad page says "Sold by Amazon" and not one of the private vendors.

As far as shippers, UPS and Fedex both usually do a good job here, and our local USPS carrier/mailman does well, but overall USPS is a horrible service, and has gotten even worse over the last year or so.

 

[Darrell2688]

Having the 2 day option and actually getting your order in 2 days there is a big difference, I have ordered using prime 2 day and the order didn't get to me for a week. Basically the Prime 2 day option is a maybe or a good luck choice, I guess it could be listed as a maybe.

 

[Zombie_61]

Looking back, it seems like Trump appointed members of the Board, who in turn made DeJoy the Postmaster, he being a Trump mega-donor. And I think DeJoy owns a business that competes with the Postal Service, or there's some kind of conflict of interest. I distinctly remember that one of the first things DeJoy did was to order the destruction of millions upon millions of dollars worth of mail sorting machinery in Postal facilities all over the Country.

I have a friend who formerly worked for the U.S. Postal Service here in California. He no longer works for them, but some of his former workmates have kept in contact and provide him intel that we, the average non-USPS-workers, aren't supposed to know. For example, when our current PotUS was previously PotUS he actively made sure that DeJoy would become Postmaster General in return for DeJoy, while "acting" as Postmaster General, sabotaging the USPS. You see, both Trump and DeJoy have invested in other U.S. based courier services, and their plan was to destroy the USPS so that "their" couriers could take it's place. The one thing they didn't expect was the loyalty of the USPS staff to do their jobs to the best of their abilities, and when some of Trump's/DeJoy's plans were obviously moronic the employees refused and continued performing their tasks as they always had. Yes, this led to some layoffs and firings, but the majority of the members of the USPS had tenure and seniority and were, therefore, "untouchable".

Anyway, I'm told there are still warehouses around the globe stuffed with undelivered mail from DeJoy's first two to three years as P.G., and nobody really knows what to do with it at this point.

 

[MikeinRome]

I have a friend who formerly worked for the U.S. Postal Service here in California. He no longer works for them, but some of his former workmates have kept in contact and provide him intel that we, the average non-USPS-workers, aren't supposed to know. For example, when our current PotUS was previously PotUS he actively made sure that DeJoy would become Postmaster General in return for DeJoy, while "acting" as Postmaster General, sabotaging the USPS. You see, both Trump and DeJoy have invested in other U.S. based courier services, and their plan was to destroy the USPS so that "their" couriers could take it's place. The one thing they didn't expect was the loyalty of the USPS staff to do their jobs to the best of their abilities, and when some of Trump's/DeJoy's plans were obviously moronic the employees refused and continued performing their tasks as they always had. Yes, this led to some layoffs and firings, but the majority of the members of the USPS had tenure and seniority and were, therefore, "untouchable".

Anyway, I'm told there are still warehouses around the globe stuffed with undelivered mail from DeJoy's first two to three years as P.G., and nobody really knows what to do with it at this point.

None of this surprises me, but thanks for confirming my suspicions. I knew that Trump had lobbied for the privatization of the Postal Service before his first term as President.

 

[alanfgag]

In my day job as a greeting card publisher, I've been around a lot of folks who work with and care deeply about the U.S. Postal Service. Way too nuanced a topic to speak at length about it here, but suffice it to say that unlike other delivery services, it is obligated to service all addresses in the United States and to deliver first class mail at the same price to all.

We used Ground Advantage service to deliver all direct to consumer orders - not the largest part of our business, but a meaningful part that grew quite a bit during the pandemic when many of our retailer customers were forced to close their stores. From our sampling, although delivery times have more variation than Priority Mail, I don't believe we have any instances of a Ground Advantage package not reaching its destination. We compare three services for fulfilling direct to consumer orders and will use Priority Mail if the order size can support the higher price. UPS Ground service with the residential surcharge is usually four times the cost for small package service - sometimes more.

There is much more variation in how eBay sellers process and prepare items for shipment than there is in the service provided by the U.S. Postal Service. When I was actively purchasing hats on eBay I would always write a note to the seller saying "thanks in advance for careful packaging and shipping of this great vintage hat." Most sellers care about their eBay rating and would go out of their way to package carefully. If transit time is important, request Priority Mail service over Ground Advantage and be sure to let the seller know this is important to you and that you are willing to pay more for it.

just my personal .02,

Alan