Should I go to work for the post office?

Though in NYC, there's an ordeal involved. You gotta pay a fee to apply for the exam. Then take the exam. Then hope to pass it (apparently it's extremely difficult and 75% of the people who take it fail because it's mostly crazy memorization). If you do pass, you gotta wait around till they select you from the list.

Like I said, though, we're moving, so maybe it'll be easier in either Chicago, LA or Louisville.

I think he was one of the last to come along with the serious civil service benefits - he got six weeks off to recuperate from heart surgery with almost full salary, and he managed to put four kids through private school without my (useless, lazy) aunt working a day.

so after I moved my complex told me I needed to get my mail key from the post office. so I did on Monday, and they told me by Thursday I'd be able to open it - longer than I hoped to wait but good enough. Naturally, last night I go to it to get my mail and the key doesn't work.

I try to call eight times this morning, nobody answers (just rings endlessly). the 800 number refers me to Consumer Affairs, who tries to call them with no luck, and emails them to call me.

by early afternoon, I hear nothing and I'm waiting on an important package, so I drive down there, and get told "ahh <name> hasn't done any of the lock changes this week. we'll get to it tomorrow".

someone calls me back from the post office after my visit in the afternoon, and asks me to call back (the same number nobody answered earlier). I do and...nobody answers. so I go by my mail box and out of curiosity, try the key again, and it works. and I open the box and it's packed to the gills with mail, crumbled, creased, jammed in without regard to the condition (mostly from past tenants accumulating prior to my move in).

there's so much mail that stuff fell off the back of the mail slot, and yet dude just felt compelled to keep overstuffing it. after putting the previous tenants mail in the Outbox "return to sender", I find 3 pieces for me, and....no package, despite them confirming it was delivered. I'm guessing the key to the parcel box fell off the back of the slot too due to the post officer overfilling it.

tried to call them again five times, no answer, Consumer Affairs has a 20+ minute hold, so I have to drive back there again only to be told "oh it must have fell off, we'll put it back tomorrow".

getting replacement contact lenses has never been so difficult.

This was going to be the big year I applied to be a mail carrier, haha. I still might!

Feel like there needs to be a "Defend the indefensible: USPS" thread.

I really want to defend it but every time I've gone lately its been such a stereotype. Today it was a mid-transaction "I'm going on break" followed by a fire alarm that cleared the building.

My old man worked at the Post Office as a sorter for something like the last 15 years of his working life. It was the perfect job for him, because it was routine and predictable, and he could just clock out and go home at the end of the day. Plus, the benefits were outstanding. Even then, though, they were under tremendous budgetary and personnel pressure. He used to complain about the then Postmaster General, whom he referred to as "Carvin' Marvin."

Normalize service workers being able to go on break mid-transaction IMO.

I guess if they'd handed the work off to someone who could complete the transaction, I wouldn't mind. But the person who'd been given the work was both reluctant to do so (lots of questions as the orig person went away, "I don't know why she asked me to do this...") and couldn't figure out how to charge us for our passport photos or do a money order. The line was building, so we were asked to instead wait for the person who'd gone on break. The fire alarm went off ~10 minutes later, before the break finished.

My wife is at a different post office now and is going to ask them to charge her for the photos. We'll see.

it's not USPS that needs defending. it actually works brilliantly when it's funded properly. this is precisely why the right wing hates it so passionately.

The post office here is actually so understaffed its just not even open except for the automated kiosk and all mail is very delayed to the point that I would nto advise anyone to mail anythin gimportant.

https://web.archive.org/web/20231130170741/https://www.pressherald.com/2023/09/13/federal-audit-finds-widespread-deficiencies-in-maines-postal-operations/