A friend was an efficiency consultant for 2 or more years at the large facility in Queens (JFK or LaGuardia, I forget). He said the dysfunction there was legendary.

I wonder if this is a problem anywhere else in the Los Angeles area. Every place I've ever lived, I've always been able to throw mail in those blue boxes and had them delivered.

The worst experience I had with UPS was a couple weeks ago..

Package that needs signature. I log into web and set to hold a local office. Next update, it's back to "deliver by end of day Fri." I set to hold again. Early Fri there are exceptions alerts that amount to, "oops, we forgot to put it on the plane to CA, now it'll get there Sat." updates early Sat morning show it in town, out for delivery (they lost the "hold" order, again).

I sigh and figure I'm hosed. My phone rings moments later (I was still in bed and had looked at the status on my ipad).. I don't answer because I don't recognize the number. Person does leave voicemail, and it's the UPS guy out front. I jump up and look out, he's still there filling out the slip that he missed me. So I get dressed really fast, and run out to catch him, and get my package, and thank him for calling me, which they're not required to do.

So even with screw-ups in their system, package was delayed a day, and the guy was good enough to call.

Anyone think the USPS would ever come within a mile of that?

Though don't get me started on when Amazon was using OnTrac more.. they sucked big time!

There is a zoning issue near my home, and all owners near this zoning issue were sent signature-required mail about a meeting dealing with it. This is fine. Except that I was home and within 20 feet of the door the entire day they "missed me."

I had to go to the post office (which is not the one close to me, but rather a 20 minute drive away) and get it. I didn't know what it was, or I wouldn't have bothered.

When I was there I told the guy that nobody had knocked at my door at the time that note was left in my mailbox (a cluster box, so it's not right near my house). He basically said, "Oh yeah, they don't always knock." So, they "miss me" by not seeing if I'm in and leaving the note in a box a block away.

Living in a small town has benefits. Everybody knows somebody who knows you. And vice versa. The mail dude knows I WFH and knocks when there's a pkg, so I get things hand-delivered.

I think it's another manifestation of what Amy talks about regularly - we (royal we) lose our sense of connectedness when our cities get big, and we no longer feel a responsibility to treat others around us as if they matter.

Maybe you had a bear at your door.
http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/canadian-postal-workers-apology-delivery-bear-door/story?id=25779177

I've had this problem at work. I'm the accountant; when my bills suddenly start coming up late I realize I haven't been getting them. I actually called the post office to complain and had them try to blame it on a "fill-in worker". I told them no, this had been going on too long for that, and lo and behold, all my mail starts showing up again.

Now we're back to the spotty delivery, so I'm going to have to call again.

Somewhere in this town is a postal worker with a living room of undelivered mail.

I wonder if this is what happened to me on the receiving end. I was supposed to get a package be a trip...a few days to spare beyond the estimated delivery window. It was 4 days beyond. The shipper insists they put it in the post box on time.

And UPS...I had a shipment that was 3 boxes (I have no idea why the merchant did that but they did), first day 1 is delivered two are not with a note....I am supposed to sign for all three but oh well. I go on the computer to put a hold on it, great. I go the next day to pick up the 2 packages and one is there, the other is out on a truck for a delivery attempt so I race home and by some amazing luck the delivery truck pulls up right behind me. And no I could not just sign a note a leave it -- it was some specially delivery category that they actually have to see you sign for it. The one guy figured it was from Apple because he says they do that all the time.

I'm in a small town. For 3 years, I've had to go up about every 9 months and complain when a package is listed as "not home".

There's *always* someone home.

"Oh the fence was closed" *12 foot gate*. I took a picture of the tree growing through it to the postmaster that time.

It's a very narrow driveway, long, hard to turn around. I understand.

Everytime I've gone to complain, there's a new postmaster. I'm suspecting I see a trend.

This is the same problem that will persist across elections. Employees, of some service or another, who will never pay a penalty for their poor service. They are entitled to their job, see.

A while back I had such a person "parked" in my office due to a "medical problem" (she grew fat from years of not working, that's all). Despite being an "operator", which class of worker operates this hardware daily, she had never been troubled to learn the difference between globe, gate, ball and needle valves. It's the equivalent of these postal workers not knowing what postage is.
Diversity - protecting jobs, feeding... families.

Whenever someone sends me something I always make sure that I keep an eye on the tracking.

Once it shows as being "on the truck for delivery" I make sure that I keep my ears opened for the truck, if I'm at home.

On more than several occasions they will do the "no knock" thing," just leave the note.

So, I make sure when I hear the truck that I go open the door and wait for them - heading them off at the pass, so to speak. This way they cannot leave a note without me seeing them.

How do you even call your local post office? Here, the local numbers are all non-pub. The only published number is an 800 number that makes you wade through a lenghty sequence of voice menus before it connects you, and then, about half the time, nobody answers.