On the whole, looking at the past twenty years (about as long as
I've really been paying attention), USPS seems to mostly get things
right.
On the other hand, a few particular post offices reek, it's possible
to get stuck with a bad mailman, and there are glitches here and
there in the system.
Since moving to Baltimore I've had no end of trouble getting
packages delivered to my house by USPS. A few come on the
first try; once in a while I'll be out and they'll leave a
little pink slip, I'll request redelivery, and get my package
on the second try; more often they don't bother to try to
deliver the package at all -- just leave the "sorry we missed
you" slip without ever ringing my doorbell, then ignore the
redelivery request hanging out of my mail slot for the next
few days, and it takes phone calls and shouting to get the
package ever delivered -- there are some lazy gits working in
my local post office, and the postmaster won't do anything about
it. (But once one of the carriers who does seem to care about
doing her job went out of her way to get me a package that the
carrier on my route the previous day had been too lazy to
deliver.) Recently they didn't even bother to leave the little
pink "sorry we missed you" slips on three alleged attempts to
deliver the Pentax posters!
I've had friends complain about stuff like that in the past,
and worse -- such problems tend to be very localized: one
office, or one _route_.
Other glitches are harder to explain: having my paycheck
mailed from Beltsville, MD to my credit union in Merrifield,
VA takes anywhere from ten days to four weeks. Having it
mailed to me in Baltimore takes two or three days, and mailing
it from Baltimore to Merrifield takes three days. Je ne
comprend pas.
But _on_the_whole_ the USPS does a pretty impressive job.
-- Glenn
