U.S. Post Office Customer Service

Here I go again with another rant that you probably won't care about. It's about our fabulous Postal System. If you are a fan the U.S. Post Office or don't like really long posts, you might want to stop reading now.

Here's a little background. For years I have lived in a town where the mailboxes are out at the curb. The type where the hard working mail person doesn't have to leave her vehicle to deliver the mail. On more occasions than I can count, I have come home after it has been raining and a package is sitting on the post, completely soaked. I have complained about this and I usually get the standard response, "your mailbox needs to be of sufficient size to accommodate your mail." I'm not going to go into this side issue but sometimes I would need a 55 gallon drum to "accommodate my mail."

I have also had to put up with the mail being delivered anywhere from 11 AM to 5 PM. I believe my mail person fancies a good garage sale. Usually the mail arrives closer to 5 PM when there are a bunch of garage sales in the neighborhood. I always know when there is a substitute delivery person. My packages are sitting at my back door and the mail comes before noon. This is another thing that I have complained about with no resolution. You need to understand something before I go on. I am not one of those chronic complainers. I usually can put up with a lot before something gets mentioned.

Anyway, back the situation that thrust this rant onto The Big Bald Blog. My mailbox got hit last week and broke the post off. I propped it up with 2 steel posts until I could get around to fixing it. It seems that the post was leaning a little too much, and my mail person, being the pleasant person she is, notified me in a very nasty handwritten note that I had to fix the post or run the risk of my mail being held. It seems that she had lean a little bit and reach a few inches further to actually get the mail in the box. Apparently this was too much work.

The problem is, I share the post with 3 other mail boxes on the opposite side of the street. I wanted to find out if I could move my mailbox to my side of the road. The others that share the post with me also wanted to have their own post by their house.

On Sunday, I knew I would have some free time. I could run to the local Home Depot and grab the supplies needed for the repair. I begin my investigation on the proper height and placement of a mailbox. Of course I started my research with the U.S. Post Office's website. You would think that the information would be readily available on the their site. After about 20 minutes of searching, do you think that I could find anything on the subject? There were several blogs that had information about it, but the information was for another state. The U.S. Post Office's website indicated that I would need to check with my local post office for the regulations.

I called Sunday, assuming they would NOT be open, hoping that they would have some information available via recorded message. Nope - It just said leave a message and listed their retail hours. Oh Yes, I forgot about their retail hours. I must digress here. Normally the term retail hours conjures up a notion of extended hours to accommodate shoppers. Not the U.S. Postal Service. 9 to 11 and 12 to 5. The USPS has retail hours that are inaccessible to those who actually work for a living.

OK, back to the picture I am trying to paint. I leave a message and decide that I truly have no hope of anyone calling me back, so I decide to go down to the post office. I get down there and fill the postal worker in on my story. The person behind the counter says, "You will need to call regional office to get that information." I thought he was kidding me. I asked, "Can't you just give me the information?" After all he was the "local" post office. He writes the number down on a Post-It and sends me on my way. I get to the office, look at the number on the official government document (the Post-It) and have no choice but to give the number a call.

A very unpleasant person answers, "Post Office"

Me- "I have a question about the regulations on mail boxes."

Post Office - "What do you need" - Yes he actually said "What do you need."

Me - "My mailbox was hit and I need to replace it, can you give me the proper dimensions for the height?"

Post Office - "The bottom of the box has to be exactly 42 inches from the street and it can not protrude into the street."

Me - "Exactly 42 inches?" (I may have to hire a survey crew to ensure proper height)

Post office - "YES!"

Me - "OK, next question"

Post Office - sighs

Me - "I would like to move my...."

Post Office - (interrupts) "You can't move your mail box!"

Me - "Why"

Post Office - "That's just the way it is and it's been there for years, what else do you need?"

Me - "Uhhh nothing I guess. Thanks for your.....(click)"

At this point I want to call his manager's manager and lay into someone. But then I figure, what good will it do. After years of experiencing a "don't care, don't help" attitude from this great division of our Government, I figured it would be an exercise in futility.

Years ago I was in the back room of the main post office and there was a banner hanging on the wall. It said something to the effect, "UPS claims that the USPS would never be able to survive in a truly free and competitive environment. Let's prove them wrong!"

Wow, I couldn't agree more. Since we have no choice on who delivers our mail, we have to put up with poor attitudes and poor customer service. This, of course, is why I will choose FedEx or UPS any day of the week over the USPS when I am going to ship something significant. I WOULD like to see the U.S. Postal service try and compete with the other carriers in a true competitive situation. If business owners provided the same terrible customer service and ran their business like the USPS, they wouldn't be in business long.

Well, that's about all I needed to say. If you read this far without bailing, I am curious to see what your opinions are? Let me know your thoughts.

 

Net Neutrality Part 2

Last week I wrote about what Net Neutrality was and asked the question; "How can there be true Net Neutrality with no competition?"

"First, the broadband market suffers from a pronounced and intractable lack of competition. At best, consumers have a choice today between a telephone company and a cable company. The Congressional Research Service has described the current market as a “broadband duopoly,” where telephone and cable companies face little real competition. The FCC’s own skewed July 2006 figures still showed an overwhelmingly concentrated broadband market, with telephone companies and cable companies controlling access to 99.6 percent of all U.S. consumers. The share of alternative broadband platforms also has been decreasing steadily over time, from a less-than-impressive 2.9 percent in 1999 to an anemic 0.4 percent today."(1)

As it stands today, some smaller markets don't have a choice in broadband ISPs. The FTC claims that everything is just fine. Net Neutrality advocates are in disagreement with the FTC, claiming that the status quo has the country in a stranglehold. Here are some interesting points that Jason Miller, a WebProNews writer, brings up.

1. There was a default on $200 billion in taxpayer contributions to build out broadband services. ISPs were supposed to reinvest ear-marked profits to expand the broadband infrastructure and services, but this never happened.
2. Broadband prices are 40 times cost.
3. There is a median download speed of 1.97 megabits per second in the US and Japan has 61 megabits per second.
4. There is a current telco/cable duopoly whereby nearly 100 percent of the public has two choices of (slow) broadband providers.
5. New providers experience enormous cost barriers to entry into the broadband service market.
6. Efforts to block competition by ensuring the soon-to-be-available 700 MHz wireless spectrum (ideal for true wireless broadband) is bought up and hoarded by incumbents."

A great example of this is happening here locally. Less than 5 miles away there is a local utility that provides 5-7mbps download broadband for about $40 per month. Here, 3-5mbps will cost you $110 per month. So where does this leave the American people? What is the future of ISPs and broadband connectivity? We will have to see.

1.Courtesy of Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel on the Google Public Policy Blog