NICE WORDS from tBlooper ?

Damn ... that would be delightful to hear !

The entire business model for so many businesses is changing at such a rapid rate that it is incomprehensible.

I have a rather simple prescription for eyeglasses. I have nieces that go to Warby Parker to get glasses. So I decided to try them. I went to one of their stores on a Monday evening in the last month. By that Friday afternoon I had my multiple glasses delivered by USPS at my house. Very good quality for a bargain basement price. No need for me to go to a local optometrist to get glasses any more. Too bad for the local guy.

I used to have to ship out overnight packages several times a week for my office. "When it absolutely has to be there overnight." I have not had to overnight a package for years. It now costs basically nothing to instantly send information including very large files. A huge market has dried up for the FedEx's of the world.

USPS, UPS, FedEx; all basically the same shipping results for me. USPS being the most convenient and reasonable cost for a home shipper.

Don't like one of them or all of them? Be careful of what you wish for. The Amazons of the world are going to take over their own shipping. Pretty soon merchants will have to be part of their network to ship things, and they will have to pay to be in the network. If you are a small shipper your costs will be multiples of the costs large shippers will pay. Then you will really hear some griping from the small shippers. Plus small towns will eventually have 2nd or 3rd rate service compared to urban areas.

I'm very grateful for the local USPS staff. They put up with big time griping all the time. They are always pleasant. And it is a job that pays no money. I do not see how anyone can live off the pay scale workers there have.

I had ordered some emblems from Year One back in 2017 (68 GTS fender emblems). They were on major backorder, but finally shipped at the beginning of this year. I was in the process of moving, and had just put a forward in. The emblems were already shipped to my old address, but I figured they'd be sent to my new one. I watched the tracking, said out for delivery to my old address, then hit the forward, then "disposed of by USPS". They threw away my package because "the shipper didn't pay for forwarding, and the seller didn't want them back." I asked them if they had thought that maybe I wanted them, they could have asked me to pay for forwarding! I asked where they threw them away, I'd go dumpster diving for them! They wouldn't let me. Thankfully Year One customer service came through and sent me a replacement the next week. I couldn't believe it!

Do ya remember back in the dark ages when a thing called "faxes" was the way to send pages fast?? Would ya believe FedEx lost a boat load of money on that. Yeah, no doubt hit the overnight document segment pretty hard but I'm thinking R & D dollars. A few years before fax machines became affordable office machine, FedEx poured a pile of money in to a thing call the "Zap Mailer". Schedule a pickup before 10 am, have it delivered same day. Courier picks up yer doc, goes back to the service center, feeds it through a custom built machine, comes out miles away and gets delivered. No thermal imaging here - the system was built around an HP LaserJet that had been tweaked to scan as well as print.

As for my replaced door handle shipped USPS 11/25 out of San Jose, CA: Arrived in Allentown, PA on 12/5. Usually delivery time from there is next day, it arrived yesterday.

I wonder how many doses of covid vaccine will fall in to the black hole next week.

I sent a part to a friend that lives about 120 miles south of me. Priority mail USPS flat rate. I mailed it on the 8th of Dec. and tracking says its being held for delivery in a post office 20 miles south of him. I may have mentioned that I pissed off the postmaster when I told her the pony express was faster.

Doesn’t the USPS have to refund the PRIORITY CHARGES if the package is not delivered in a TIMELY FASHION?

I don't think so. When I ran the tracking number,it said on the top of the page there may be a delay due to Covid or a shortage of employees. Just an excuse.

Roger dodger... I’ve seen that covid excuse also

There are trailers of mail stacked 3-4 deep at the main CLE post office because of COVID-related absences.

STACKED DEEP ? ... reminds me of a news report years ago in Detroit.....

A mail carrier had his basement FULL of undelivered mail

Except that was a mail carrier not doing their job. This is mail that they can't get to fast enough because there aren't enough workers to sort the mail and deliver it.

Buddy of mine works for the post office. He says most of the covid absences occur during the weekend at the large mail distribution centers. The employees have the union covering their azzes..

You probably don't want to know about cop/firefighter absences.

Same thing?

Yep, but no one likes to talk about that for some reason. It really doesn't matter what the occupation is, though. If you have sick time, you're allowed to use it.

My last gig was in a distribution center that had almost 200 docks. Summer was peak and not uncommon to be 150 trailers behind on the inbound side. The fun part for the trailer jockeys was digging out the one we needed to complete an outbound order. Wonder how many they've got parked at the overflow lot?

I bought a new phone this week and since I'm rough on them I ordered a new otter box for it Wednesday night. It was supposed to be here tomorrow, Monday, it showed up today, Sunday, via Fedex.

I seen it posted and its seemingly true that they in some areas are even short on route drivers. Mid last week I was tracking a semi pricey insured usps box to the buyer and seen it was out for delivery then at noon was back at that po. So I was amazed I found a number and called and the guy told me it was... "In a pile on the floor waiting for a route driver to finish there normal route and go do these" even with $700 insurance on it and many fragile stickers on it. I am done till after Christmas, too much stress wondering if ones gonna punt a costly package to a porch.

I pack for guys like THIS!

I purchased something. Was sent from Indiana to Detroit, MI to Ann Arbor, MI to Pittsburgh, PA. I live an hour north of Detroit. USPS says delays due to COVID. Well, delays are fine, but it's getting sent all over.

That video seems to suggest this sort of handling is out of the ordinary. In fact that's pretty normal and has been for years.

Years ago I was working for IBM and we were having terrible problems with service parts getting broken in shipment. You can imagine a customer having their mainframe down, a customer engineer out to fix it who has to order a part which then arrives damaged. Talk about a pissed off customer!

Everyone was convinced all we needed to do was put 'fragile' or 'this side up' labels on packages and things would be better. I bought a device with accelerometers and recording capabilities. Packed it up just like a replacement part, put all the recommended labels on it and shipped it to a number of locations around the country. I would ship it to someone who would then relabel it an ship it back to me.

Virtually every trip the unit made, it came back with at least one drop from over 36" and upside down. Many times a drop of over 55" was recorded.