Comment by icelancer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by icelancer | Hacker News Reader

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USPS is government-run (please, spare me the "it's a private business" and everyone else that's about to chime in with "well actually") so what do you expect when it comes to customer service? They're the cheapest option in general and deliver faster than UPS/FedEx using Priority Mail (though their Express Mail product sucks compared to the courier services of UPS/FedEx), so people are going to go with them due to Ebay sellers and everyone else abusing flat rate packaging.

Getting USPS to care is impossible. I actually got a reply from Jeff Bezos in addition to a "?" email because Amazon was using USPS on Sundays for delivery, but USPS is unreachable on Sundays and Amazon has no way of contacting them either, so when USPS deliverymen refuse to deliver packages to my very obviously open business on Sunday citing that we weren't there (bullshit), there's nothing I can do. I wrote it up, sent it to Jeff, and they blacklisted USPS for my route on Sundays and now use Amazon drivers.

Unfortunately, if you go through USPS, they don't care. Much like any other government service you use.

I posted my account above, but in my case, USPS cared very much, but was ultimately unable to get my awful apartment company to install more secure mailboxes since they kept getting broken into.

Please don’t derail the thread with political rants. In addition to being off-topic it’s based on logical errors, such as assuming your limited personal experience is globally true (for me, s/USPS/UPS/) or that quality is an inherent trait of the concept and constant (this is why Comcast is not usually cited as proof that capitalism cannot work).

It's not a political rant to point out that the USPS operates on a different (and often insensible) plane because it is a government bureau. The poster's comment isn't off topic. Although her/his post is merely anecdotal and not statistically significant, it may ring familiar to others' encounters with that organization. Your post is more of an interruption here than is hers/his. Consider my post as a vector of your derailment.

There was actually a panel discussion on Friday about modernizing the USPS with many different stake holders (Union workers rep, small business owner, European logistics expert). You can check it out here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?447082-1/panelists-discuss-pre...

> It's not a political rant to point out that the USPS operates on a different (and often insensible) plane because it is a government bureau.

Sure it is, that's an inherently political argument to make.

My counterpoint: I ordered a few things from a vendor (Waytek) recently. Waytek ships via UPS exclusively. I chose UPS Ground service which would've gotten the package to me in about a week. UPS got the package to California, to the regional sorting center in California, sent me an email telling me to expect a delivery, and then got the package to Massachusetts that same evening. UPS said they'll deliver the package in another week or so (assuming they don't bounce it back to the east coast). Despite being able to ship it on their dime cross-country in less than a day, they've put the package on the slow boat back to its intended destination. The UPS response has been: keep an eye on the tracking number and take it up with the vendor if you have any issues. Waytek's stance is that it's officially my property and their duty ended when they dropped the package off with THEIR shipping vendor (UPS).

Tell me again how private corporations are inherently more accountable?

Oh, and how about the time UPS accepted a package from a vendor with multiple shipping labels on it. They got the package to the local distribution center (different than my previous post) and kept rescheduling delivery without ever putting it on a truck, contacting myself, or the vendor.

Meanwhile I've ordered replacement parts for the Waytek order from a vendor that ships USPS. The tracking information is showing an estimated delivery date of two days from now (Tuesday), but they're also showing that the package has left the local regional distribution center. That gives me about a 95% chance of having the package in my box 10 AM tomorrow morning (one day early).

> It's not a political rant to point out that the USPS operates on a different (and often insensible) plane because it is a government bureau.

There are two reasons why I called it a rant. The first was begging the question of whether that’s true, as you also made the mistake of doing, since there was no attempt to introduce data or analysis showing that the USPS is substantially worse. Since Amazon famously does that kind of analysis, cares a lot about customer satisfaction, and uses a number of carriers it seems especially unlikely that there’s some huge problem they haven’t noticed.

The second reason, however, is the error of treating the quality of government as constant and inalterable. That’s effectively arguing that there’s no difference between South Sudan and Norway, and it’s what really made me regret wasting space on a lazy rant. Even if it was true, the grownup discussion would be how we should have better management and incentives rather than assuming it can never work, just as reasonable people react to a bad experience with a company by supporting boycotts, regulation, or legal improvements rather than saying the private business model can never work.

The fake missed delivery notices USPS sends are widely reported in the media, Amazon is powerless to do anything and probably doesn’t care much to begin with, they change items from guaranteed to “expected” when USPS ships them.

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