The View from the Post Office

Once again I find myself defending the Post Office. I am a letter carrier and every time I hear a complaint about the speed of service I think of all the times I spent more time in the check out lines at stores than i did shopping, I don't remember the last time a doctor/dentist appointment started at it's scheduled time usually 20 minutes late and all the other places with slow service. I do agree the PO has it's problems with micro-management that drives carriers crazy slowing us down. We operate on an independent budget, no fed funding but gov run which can be aggrivating. I also loved delivering mail to apartment comlexes with no apt no. My route it's about 20% of the mail, but they get it. It's always fun on trash day when everyone feels obligated to put their trash cans in front of the mail box, unless a car is parked there of course. The food stained mail is always fun to read. I especially love the packages with no street number but you would be suprised how many make it anyways as we pass it around until a carrier recognizes the name. Customers make far more mistakes than they are willing to admit. We are just easy to blame.
A few numbers for you -- in 2007
- we handle 46% of the world's mail
- annual mail volume was 213 BILLION pieces
- There are 43,000 zip codes
- 9 million customers visit our retail outlets every day
- 216,000 vehicles travel 1.2 billion miles a year
- Every year 1.8 million addresses are added
- A letter carier delivers and average of 2,900 peices of mail to more thatn 500 customers on 603,400 routes nationwide
- we collect over 71 millions lbs of food on our annual food drive.
like every business we have to do it with fewer people every year.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience but it is not typical and yes I go a little slower when it's a 110 degrees here in Phoenix, Sorry.