"For 41 cents a letter, you'd think they'd have better customer service"

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Said by a woman standing in line at the Post Office this afternoon.

I just smiled and laughed at her. How much customer service can one buy for 41 cents a letter?

2

Not much: A rude mailman - should I report him or blow it off? - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board

3

Well, get the service cheap while you still can rates are up again next month. :mad:

4

How about for $50 billion (annual income for the USPS is just a bit more than that).

5

I myself think it is a bargain that I can put less than 50 cents on an envelope in Florida and have it arrive in California three days later.

6

And that I can put maybe triple that and get a letter to India in less than a week. Where it will languish for a month until someone decides to cycle it out there.

Honestly people in developed countries never appreciate what they’ve got. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Moan, moan, moan.

7

I don’t have issues with stamp prices.

My problem with them is that I live in a town without street delivery. The solution? Everybody rents a PO box. It is their own damn fault, yet they still make us pay for said boxes. I would think that given that we don’t have another choice if we want our mail, they could at least heavily discount the things, at least the tiny ones that most people have.

8

I marvel at that myself, and I worked at HQ for 4 years!

[/left handed compliment]

9

I lived in a town like that for a number of years, and I always found it ironic that the sign on the exit doors of the PO said “Thank you for your patronage!” Like I had a choice. (I guess I could have told everyone to address their mail to me “General Delivery,” but I still would have had to go to the PO to retrieve it.)

My biggest complaint with the new rates is that not even the poor dudes/dudettes working the counter can figure it out sometimes. Is it a letter? Should the non-machinable surcharge be tacked on? Maybe it’s a flat. Or is it a parcel? I’ve been having this issue mailing applications to art shows. The outgoing envelope with a sleeve of four slides is one whole issue. Then there’s figuring out the postage on the SASE to return the slides. I think I’ve been told something different every time I’ve mailed one. (So far so good, though, as far as things getting to their destination.)