Neither rain nor snow...money that's different.

[Burning Petard]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/supreme-cour ... 27452.html

The Supremes announced today that a mailman does have the right to refuse to work on Sunday because he regards that as a day of religiously mandated non-work.

The US Post Office dropped Sunday deliveries a long time ago. They do not even offer 'Special Delivery" any more. Where my daughter lives, USPS will not even deliver six days a week. However, they signed a contract agreeing to actually do Sunday deliveries just for Amazon. The case that went to the Supremes was about doing work to deliver only for Amazon.That has been very unsatisfactory for me. I live in a big apartment complex. Mail is delivered into banks of small locked boxes. If it is too big to go in the box, it is deposited on the concrete below the boxes, in an open stairwell with slight protection from rain or snow. For that reason, I get all my Amazon stuff sent to a UPS Store mail drop. Amazon has a place for customers to give special instructions for delivery. I have specified NO SUNDAY DELIVERY. The USP store is closed on Sunday. Amazon has ignored those instructions. The tracking says it is out for delivery on Sunday, and then the USPS system manages to lose it, many times. One package was shipped from Peoria, IL, Sunday delivery attempted and then the package went back to a central processing center that sent it to California (I am on the East Coast, in Delaware)
then back to the sender. The innocent merchant in Peoria then emailed me asking if I still wanted it.

But my real problem is: How does the USPS get away with doing Sunday delivery for only one customer? Perhaps they do it so badly that nobody else wants it. I suspect Amazon also gets a special rate not available those of us who just walk in to the local post office. One more reason ol' Ben Franklin, member of the president's cabinet as Post Master General, is spinning in his grave. Our founding fathers recognized reliable and neutral means of communication is essential to the welfare of the people and to the government. But we preferred to privatize it make all that a profit center

snailgate.

[ex-khobar Andy]

This does not answer your question but Amazon has what they call a 'hub locker' service under which you can specify delivery to somewhere who partners with them - in my case the nearest location is a Whole Foods but there are plenty of non-Amazon companies - and apparently it's free. Whole Foods is close but there are four or five within a mile or two from my house and it seems that most of them are 7-day operations.

Amazon will be the death of retail stores. I see that the nearest Barnes and Noble to me has closed down. There is an irony of course there because B&N caused many smaller independent bookstores to close down 25 years or so ago.