Stamps!

[rubato]

I was running low on postage stamps recently so I did what I often, do go to the USPS website and click on the "buy stamps" link only to be jetted off across the internut to .... Amazon! Where I bought three different kinds of stamps from three different vendors (wha?). Over the following days I received each set posted separately. Jeff Bezos is our new lord and master certainly, but sending them separately tripled the postage costs so how can this make sense? And I LIKE the USPS, they do a great job I would rather do business with them.

Point numero Two-o! Buy a sheet of the new eclipse stamps. Just go and do it right now. When they arrive put the palm of your hand over them and see what happens, way fun!

yrs,
rubato

[RayThom]

Although this image won't change color when you touch it, I like to look at repetitive designs as I would a stereogram. These stamps move up and down, right and left. And it's like viewing them through a glass panel.

[Burning Petard]

The USPS is not the organization Ben Franklin knew when he was Post Master General. It has long since ceased to be a presidential cabinet post.
Now it is just another delivery service competing with UPS, FedEx, and many others. Around here, UPS is superior in every way. In Tulsa OK, UPS delivers only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So your local results may vary. Around here, Amazon will deliver my stuff to a nearby 7-11, with security guaranteed, and I can pick it up when I want. But Amazon seems to shot-gun their stuff to what ever service suits at the moment. My local post office has reduced services and number of windows til the lines are always long. The USPS tracking system seems to mark three points: first, yes we have picked it up, then we have it and it is somewhere in the known universe, but we ain't telling you where, and finally it is delivered. Frequently that tracking notice that it is delivered is flat out wrong; when I actually go to my post office where it should have been delivered from, they tell me it was sent to the wrong post office and it is over in New Jersey or Maryland and it will be back tomorrow.

I am not happy with USPS service, as you might guess. I do love their forever stamps. I did buy last time some of the charity stamps for wildlife.
Wonder who paid them off to produce the Wonder Woman stamp about the same time as when the movie came out?

snailgate

[Econoline]

Why would anyone have to pay them off? Popular commemorative stamps (most of which are saved rather than used) are an actual profit-maker for the USPS.

As for their service, I've had many more problems with UPS than with the USPS. (I remain agnostic re FedEx, though I do have the impression that they are more expensive for comparable services.) One service the Postal Service seems to do better than anyone else is their overnight Express Mail, which they will deliver on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays for no extra charge.

[Burning Petard]

That USPS overnite express is what used to be called 'special delivery', and express is what you used to get with first class.

As I said, local results may vary.

[datsunaholic]

Whenever I need stamps I prepare myself for abuse:

1) Park in a parking lot that looks like it survived the Battle of Britain, but just barely.
2) If it's raining, walk under the waterfall that is the door awning, of a building built during the Nixon administration.
3) Stand in a 20-person long queue in a room designed for 5 people
4) End up behind someone who didn't tape their boxes shut, didn't address their packages properly, AND were sending them international.
5) When I get to the counter, everyone goes on break
6) When they get off break, "speak" to a teller who doesn't speak English and gets surly because you don't understand her Vietnamese.
7) Get a book of stamps that was used as a coffee coaster.
8) Have to wind ones way through the queue in reverse
9) Find I am parked in because the lot is full so people just left their cars in the aisle.
10) Finally get to exit, requiring driving down a narrow, one way alley with garbage dumpsters rolled halfway through.

Or I could just buy the damn things at Costco.

[BoSoxGal]

It’s very hard to believe the above complaints regarding the USPS.

I have experience of USPS offices from big cities to tiny rural villages; I recall lines and wait times at the very busy Penn Ave. Capitol Hill office that was in my neighborhood, and definitely some big city attitude from the clerks, but my carrier there was friendly and reliable as I’ve experienced everywhere else as well - and at the dozen or more offices I’ve frequented over the years I’ve encountered courtesy and efficiency as the norm. A first class letter is still the biggest bargain going and USPS rates beat UPS and FedEx most of the time. In addition to regular mail, I’ve trusted USPS to move my belongings across country by parcel post and media mail 4 separate times and couldn’t complain about the experience - any breakage I experienced was definitely due to imprecise packaging, not mishandling. The last time the boxes took a bigger beating than ever before - but I mailed them a few days before Xmas and take the blame for putting them into the delivery stream at the highest volume time of the year.

It’s so easy for people to beat up on the USPS; I just don’t buy much of the bellyaching I hear.

[Jarlaxle]

My biggest complaint is their tracking-it sucks.

The fact they flat don't give a suit about lost parcels is another factor-and insuring something generally doesn't help.

[Joe Guy]

It must be a local thing. Other than the mail carrier occasionally delivering my mail to a neighbor, in my experience, the shipping and tracking of packages has been excellent. UPS has also been very good. Fed Ex and UPS work with USPS here in some situations. I don't know what triggers the process but sometimes they hand off packages to the local US Post Office for home delivery.

[datsunaholic]

Today was the second time in 3 weeks that my mail showed up INSIDE my locked, weatherproof mailbox looking as if it had been dropped in a puddle and run over by the delivery truck. The first time, the mail was still damp and had little chunks of bitumen embedded in it. Today, it was dry, but warped and looked like it had been dried out after being soaked, and had tire tracks on it. In both cases, it was only the junk mail- todays had actual mail wrapped up INSIDE the water damaged flyer, but those pieces were undamaged.

FedEx has been no better though. I've had several packages simply lobbed over the fence into the yard- even when the gate wasn't locked. One landed directly in a puddle, and even better wasn't even mine, but my neighbors.

[RayThom]

Today was the second time in 3 weeks that my mail showed up INSIDE my locked, weatherproof mailbox looking as if it had been dropped in a puddle...

These boxes can still get a condensation buildup. Could that be your problem?

[ex-khobar Andy]

I must be a special case; because for years I have rarely had a problem with the USPS offices. If you are lucky enough to live in a town with several zip codes there will be an office for each one and with a little planning you can figure out which one is never busy and use that one.

I might note that a Christmas card to the UK costs $1.15; while cards I received from the UK had £1.40 on them which equates to around $1.89 at today's rate.

I also have had no problems with DMV in the last 25 years in three states (NY, KY and MO). I have rarely had to wait more than a few minutes and I have always been treated with courtesy and efficiency.

[Big RR]

I've generally had problems with wait times, especially now that post offices with counter service (at least in my area) are being consolidated, and especially after they started doing passports (there usually seems to be at least one clerk who does nothing but that, and one window dedicated to passports no matter how long the post office service line is. That aside, I have generally not been treated badly, and have usually found the clerks willing to help with whatever my problem is (which is one reason why the line is so long--helping someone tape a box closed or filling out the certified mail form rather than sending them to the end of the line takes time). For the most part I find the post office as a place to avoid, but better than other governmental offices like the DMV. (I've spent entire mornings there to renew my license because of the byzantine system of waiting in successive lines--one to check in, another to check you paperwork, another to accept the paperwork, another to take the photo, and yet another to get your license--and any misstep sends you back to line 1).

[datsunaholic]

I haven't seen DMV "standing" lines for a while- they all have "take a number" systems now for the most part. A few of the vehicle licensing places still have lines, but not the driver's license ones. Take a number, wait for that to be called. Then once the paperwork is done, they call your name for the photo. But the vehicle license agency here (which is a private subagent) has a similar problem to the post office in that it was designed for a population of 2500, not a city of 20,000. The waiting area only has 3 chairs and standing room for maybe 7 more. But there are always closer to 20 people there. I have to go there at least one a year because one of my vehicles cannot be renewed online due to the weight certificate.

[MGMcAnick]

I remember being in a tiny post office several times many years ago. It had eight P.O. boxes with only three of them rented. It was open all day M-F and until noon on Saturdays. The town had 10 (yes ten) people, and a grain elevator. It was closed in the early '70s when the post master retired. Well past due. Mail was then delivered by a rural route carrier from the county seat.

[Big RR]

Datsun--we use the multiple lines--the last line is followed by a wait for the completed documents; they call you by name (and almost always mispronounce it) when they are ready. Numbers would be an improvement, but then so would renewal by mail.

[rubato]

As we discovered in Portland, every international airport has a USPS office open 24-7!

I love the USPS.

yrs.
rubato

[dales]

Depends on the location.

The Concord USPS was a hit or miss affair (mail was sometimes forwarded sometimes not).

The Pleasant Hill USPS is GREAT!

Friendly and helpful staff and very short wait times.

[ex-khobar Andy]

As we discovered in Portland, every international airport has a USPS office open 24-7!

I love the USPS.

yrs.
rubato

Agreed. Same when I lived in Buffalo. They had two flights a week to Toronto (about an hour and a half by car on the QEW) so they were strictly speaking International - thus a 24/7 USPS office. Very handy.

I'm disappointed - I thought this was going to be a philately thread. I was going to show off my 11th day cover of which I am very proud. Another time perhaps.

[BoSoxGal]

Back to the original post; rubato, you must’ve clicked on an ad link, because when I went to USPS to find those eclipse stamps, I found and purchased - directly from USPS.com - numerous options for sheets of stamps, as well as lots of other merchandise.

I’d also been meaning to pick up a sheet of the very nice WPA posters stamps, which a fellow history nerd former law school classmate had posted about on Facebook recently - they’re very cool!