Priority mail
gtstang
Posts: 1,758 ✭✭✭✭✭
I got a priority mail package delivered today that was supposed to have arrived this past Saturday. I called the p.o. two days ago and inquired if priority even means anything anymore, and got a big fat "NOPE".
Honestly first class was better and now ground shipping is pretty bad too since the changeover.
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Priority mail has no guarantee on delivery date. Only express (overnight) mail has a guarantee to arrive at a certain time and date. Always the case for many years. Not that big of a deal if it arrived safe!
I'll never really understand how the postal system works. Ive shipped many priority mail packages that have taken 2 days as promised. Some have taken 4-7 days. One time I shipped a PM that took 1 day to get from Florida to California, and I simultaneously shipped a PM express that took 4 days to go half the distance 🤷♂️
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Priority used to be 2-3 days, now it costs twice as much and means when we are good and ready, horrible service today.
My Collection of Old Holders
Never a slave to one plastic brand will I ever be.
My USPS always come earlier.
Now that you said that, it's going to be the opposite of fast! 😆
Waiting for packages can be stressful no doubt about it!!! 99% of the time all goes well in the end.
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Me too.
It might be a San Diego thing.
peacockcoins
USPS....I love and hate 'em...
Priority Mail was always reliable pre-2020. Now not so much. Now nothing is reliable and there is no rhyme or reason to how deliveries happen. I have been waiting on an eBay package that is being shipped "USPS Ground Advantage". In only 3 short days it went from GLENDORA, CA to BOSTON, MA. The last 4 days it has been sitting in the BOSTON MA DISTRIBUTION CENTER less than 10 miles from my house. I don't get it.
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While not priority mail, I had unfortunate situation of a stolen content from a priority package. PO Box to PO Box and sliced open package. So I’ve just sent a registered package to the same person, said it was in their area, then all of a sudden got scanned in Bismarck, ND. While it said that’s where it was, it arrived that day in CA with the tracking still saying it was in ND!! Who knows!
for a few cents more, I like to put the small priority box inside the padded flat rate envelope it gives me the security of double wrapped and the protection of more bubbles. There is even a slightly larger small priority box (1096L) that was designed for VCR cassettes and is available free (not available in post offices) at the USPS website, it is not flat rate on its own but it fits snugly into the flat rate padded envelope. I use this when I need a little bit more space than the small flat rate box offers. You can order all sorts of free priority supplies in bulk at the USPS website.
Repetition of ignorance is ignorance raised to the power two.
Seems like so many things are basically mediocre now in comparison with the way things once were...it's almost as if we've all awoken from a slumber, and can't be bothered to get back into the routine of things. I've had media mail take 2 days coast to coast, but Priority take almost a week to go 1/3 the distance.
Early American Copper, Bust and Seated.
Post-Covid USA is basically an alternate universe, I hate it.
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You should be in the education business. It's getting weird.
I can only imagine...I feel for you lol
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Getting?
Yes my daughter tells me this all the time.
She recently got her teaching and masters degree in education.
She started teaching kids on the Internet a few years ago during the lockdown and now teaches in class elementary school. She's basically has seen it all in her very short career so far.
When I started 20+ years ago, about 5% of the class might have some kind of accommodation, usually just 1.5x for exams. Now, 15 to 20% of the class have accommodations and they are getting weird and complex. I have one girl who has 14 different accommodations including everything from permission to photograph the board, record the lecture, leave the room for breaks (even during tests), prior notification of loud noises (including fire drills) as well as extended time on tests, extended deadlines for assignments, etc.
I have 150 students in one class. I'm up to 22 with accommodations, and I still get one new one every day or so. And some of them are multiple pages long.
Students with anxiety disorders are automatically given permission to miss at least 15% of classes without prior notification, including exams. When I asked what I was required to do if a student missed the exam and then the scheduled make-up, they told me to accommodate. I said, what if they miss two or more scheduled make-ups since, of course, exams add stress and trigger anxiety, I was told to "use my judgment". So far, I haven't had to schedule more than 2 make-ups for any one individual.
I've had students change their name and gender identification TWICE in the same semester. And they don't always officially change the name so I have to find them in the gradebook by process of elimination.
Most students will come up to you and introduce themselves and automatically provide their preferred pronoun. [As though I can memorize all 150 names AND pronouns.] But God forbid you accidentally use the wrong pronoun. I had a lab with 8 students last Spring and two of them used "they" as their preferred pronoun.
Because of Covid, every student will email you to TELL (not ask) you that they will be missing class (even exams) because they "may be coming down with something".
And it is probably worse for the K-12 teachers, or at least different. They have the parents to deal with as well. We get helicopter parents call and show up, but we are legally barred from talking to them unless their child authorizes it.
UPS and FEDEX fly a lot of USPS mail on their planes. Around 10% of UPS volume was USPS mail pre-pandemic. FEDEX now flies the majority of contracted USPS mail. Maybe this would explain fast delivery on some USPS mail. USPS no longer has its own fleet of aircraft.
I use USPS PM for 90% of my shipments. In general, they are fairly consistent but every so often this happens:
Tim
Wait 'till the EV changeover at the PO gets completed. Then we'll have charging and power outages as excuses.
bob
vegas baby!
Avoid fed ex ground. Consistently 10-14 days at our location anyway.
USPS free shipping materials are often abused. I see people packing up their whole house for a move using USPS boxes. Flea market vendors use them for storage. People cut them up to use for non-postal packing material. I do not understand why USPS does not at least charge up front and then rebate when actually used for intended purpose.
On a related note, I recently had to re-order envelopes and boxes 4 times. One shipment stolen en-route, one evidently never left St Louis at all, and porch pirates got one. Stealing empty packaging materials has got to be a new low. Organized criminal gangs trafficking in empty priority boxes now?
I like priority a lot. We have small, medium and large flat rate boxes at work. Sometimes I put a small inside a medium box. Self serve kiosk at the post office bypasses the line. “If it fits, it ships”. If I mail Wednesday, recipient has it Friday. I think the standard boxes streamlines it.
Last UPS ground was $95 to CA. It was a laptop, odd size, needed extra packaging, took 5 or 6 days.
Welcome back.
It all changed when a new postmaster general cut out over time. Subsequent PG didn’t reinstate the OT needed to drive their delivery commitments.
In general USPS mail is ok, not worst than FedEx or UPS. I prefer to use usps when ship something less than 10k. More than 10k I will use FedEx priority or two days.
Be thankful it makes it.
Someone was asking how the claim process has been since Usps ground advantage began in early July. I’ve had 3 claims for missing packages since ground advantage started less than 2 months ago. Two paid claims, and the third package showed up after 22 days. Just a normal part of buying coins I suppose.
My advice would be not to ship any unique items. Fly and hand deliver if they are irreplaceable.
I can recall people who cultivated a pilot or flight attendant, got them to pack it in their personal grip and the recipient meets them at the other end. Legit things now frowned upon. Now grab a street person and pay them to stand in line at the world of money. That is OK.
Hire a mule to act as your courier just $49 each way, but $100 more if they add a grip. Go figure.
Where do you live??? I've shipped 750 packages in the last 2 months, including overseas, and none hand been lost or damaged. Half of them were media mail and most of the rest were GA.
OMG!!! Wait till they hit the working world. That kind of crap won’t be tolerated.
Back to USPS. The reason Media Mail is sometimes fast is it travels “space available,” so occasionally it get put in with Priority Mail if there’s room.
I taught public school from 1984-2005 and I could see things coming to a head then. This was before student cell phones. I am semi-retired and recently signed up to work as a substitute. I can only imagine. Our school system is a microcosm of the future of our society. Very few people wish to work anymore and it is only going to get worse.
Concerning USPS, I sell coins frequently on eBay and generally have had good luck. Fortunately, I live in a very small town and I know the postal workers personally and they do a great job in helping to investigate and resolve problems.
I like USPS. I always plug the tracking number in and get regular updates based on what notifications I check off. Even when an item gets delayed or misdirected, I follow the journey until I get the delivered message.
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Priority has slowed down in some of the mail corridors I ship to and from. I'm thinking since they changed first class to "Ground Advantage" some hot shot in their R and D department will be coming up with a new name for it as well.
Express has gone from two times with guarantees, 10am or noon to now end of day, 6 or 8pm. I don't see any reason for usps and other companies to not return to normal performance but unfortunately bureaucratic inertia can be very hard to overcome.
As long as gets to destination don’t sweat it. We live in different times. Have bigger things worry about.
Outgoing shipments - just print out label, package it, drop off at USPS. Track as necessary.