So, I have this mailman...

Let me start this post by stating in all honesty and without any sarcasm usually associated with...well, at least SOME of my missives herein: I firmly believe the United States Postal Service is one of the great things about this country.

Seriously...you can mail a package across the country with Priority Mail in 2-3 days for like $4.00. That's amazing. And I use it all the time, since I do eBay selling all the time. That delivery confirmation thing they do has saved me a number of times from unscrupulous purchasers who email me and write "I never got my package." I whip out that little receipt, type in its number on the USPS website and voila! I can tell the douchebag liar when it was delivered.

So when it comes to sending packages, I have no complaints with the Post Office.

Receiving packages...well, not so much.

I have this mailman. He was the mailman for our building for a long time, and he's a real crotchety bastard, never saying hello when spoken to, always carrying with him a boom box in his letter carrier cart thingie, on which he plays opera. Yes. OPERA. In all caps.

He has a thing about delivering packages to our building. Well, it's not really a thing. He just doesn't do it. When I get a package, as I did Monday and today, he puts a little pink slip into my mailbox, which tells me he tried to deliver it, but gosh, gee, he just couldn't, and it's back at the local Post Office, and I can go pick it up if I want, or he can redeliver it.

But I know he'll never redeliver it, so why bother? Because I've figured out what he does. Using Amazon.com's delivery tracker and geometric logic, I know that my packages NEVER. LEAVE. THE. POST. OFFICE.

Yep. That's his trick. Before he loads up his mail cart and cranks up the opera music, he sits down in the PO and checks all the packages he's SUPPOSED to deliver as part of his JOB, and fills out his little pink slips. Then he brings all the mail he WANTS to carry, and drops off the slips for the packages he DOES NOT WANT to carry. And I know this because I check Amazon, and you can tell when the delivery was "attempted." It's always around 10:30am. And in all the years he's been a mail delivery person here, he never shows up in the building to actually deliver mail until AFTER 2:00pm.

I'm told Opera Mailman is going to retire soon. He was taken off this route for a while--I'm hoping because of complaints--but now he's back on this week. The other mail delivery people actually BRING our packages and drop them off in the downstairs office, which is open weekdays from about 9 to 5, minus lunch breaks. Tomorrow morning I will detour to the downtown Post Office to pick up my package before I go to work. I will feed the meter quarters, since the meters last 12 minutes only per 25 cents, and I will walk into the Post Office that time forgot, where sometimes you can stand for a half-hour waiting to even approach a window and hand over the fabled pink slip.

Last holiday season, I did this trip into Purgatory 11 out of 13 times to pick-up packages. The kicker is these are packages I paid delivery charges on, which to me at least, means they are supposed to come to MY HOME ADDRESS. I am stymied by the whims of a crazy mailman (this is a quote from one of his colleagues, told to a friend of mine in the building, not merely an observation of mine) who refuses to do his job and instead delivers pink slips asking us to do his job for him.

I have a nice pink slip for him. I hope the Post Office does, too.

Comments

[Sulat sa pilipinas]

It is always a pleasure to visit your site and learn more about people's life !

Daniel Roberts

[Gary]

In my experience, having the delivery confirmation state that the package was delivered to the address was a sufficient enough "threat" to have people back down--at least three times--on their claim that they never got the package. Now, 3 times in over 10 years of doing stuff on eBay is a very small amount, especially seeing that I have over 1,000 feedback replies.

[Maryanne]

Gary,
Just so you know, the delivery confirmation only confirms that they delivered it- not that it was actually delivered to the RIGHT place. I ordered $70 worth of stuff from an online company which was delivered by the post office - to someone else. But since they "delivered" it, neither the post office or the company would do anything for me.
The USPS is a great idea, but any place you have to pay extra (pay for insurance) for them to actually guarantee that the job get done properly is a racket.

[Elessa]

i feel your pain! what is it with lazy delivery men? it is their job to deliver packages!

i spent three days here waiting for the package with artwork i sent via Fedex from the Con. watched the tracking. on the second day when it said attempted delivery at noon, i called and went ballistic at 12:05p. i was here all day both days. never left. bastard didn't ever put a slip on my door, but the online tracking said he had been here.

on the third day i actually sat in front of my building for four hours waiting for the truck to drive past in the parking lot and ran after it. guy said he left a slip after trying to call from the gate and got no answer.

um, well hmmmm... the gate was open so no need to call for admittance. and because the gate was open, the call box was disabled so he couldn't have gotten an answer because the damn thing wasn't even live to begin with for making a call.

not to mention the bastard drove through the gate on the third day and right past my building. he wouldn't have stopped if i hadn't run out after him. even told me so!!!!!