Minor things that bother you

[Molandfreak]

I had to return/exchange a large DVD set because some of the discs were defective.  The replacement is on track to arrive tomorrow - when I'll be out of town most of the day for a roadmeet, and have essentially no time to check the discs (there are 50 of them, so even just looking at the back and testing to see if they're recognized/play if they have scratches will easily take a whole hour) in the limited evening hours when I'll be home.  I can't find a way to force the post office to hold the package until Monday so I can deal with it then.

If you have home delivery of your mail, you can always request a hold on your mail. When I had home delivery, I did it a couple of times.

(Realizing that you'll see this too late to actually arrange the hold.)

He said its being delivered Saturday. He can go to his postoffice right now and put the hold on.

I'm sure this is unintentional, but vdeane uses she/her pronouns.

[1995hoo]

You can request a hold through the USPS website. I've done it many times, although it looks like they now require a login. A request submitted this afternoon is supposed to be timely for mail due to be delivered tomorrow—the site says you have until 2:00 AM for tomorrow's mail.

[vdeane]

You can request a hold through the USPS website. I've done it many times, although it looks like they now require a login. A request submitted this afternoon is supposed to be timely for mail due to be delivered tomorrow—the site says you have until 2:00 AM for tomorrow's mail.

They do, and I have one from when I was at my previous apartment (my current apartment requires a key to get regular mail, so I don't bother with anything less than a week now).  They also require that holds be a minimum of three days long (unless that changed again), enforced by the date picker, so unless I want to stop all mail until well into next week, that's not really an option.

[gonealookin]

They also require that holds be a minimum of three days long (unless that changed again), enforced by the date picker, so unless I want to stop all mail until well into next week, that's not really an option.

"Not really an option"?  You can't go three days without getting mail delivered?  I get all my mail delivered to a PO Box because USPS doesn't do home delivery here (they do give us the PO Box for free, with annual proof of current residency like a utility bill), and two visits a week is plenty often.

With so many items that formerly went via USPS now delivered via the Internet, I don't see why residential delivery needs to be more than three times a week at most.  Businesses should get mail every day, but not every single house.

[Rothman]

They also require that holds be a minimum of three days long (unless that changed again), enforced by the date picker, so unless I want to stop all mail until well into next week, that's not really an option.

"Not really an option"?  You can't go three days without getting mail delivered?  I get all my mail delivered to a PO Box because USPS doesn't do home delivery here (they do give us the PO Box for free, with annual proof of current residency like a utility bill), and two visits a week is plenty often.

With so many items that formerly went via USPS now delivered via the Internet, I don't see why residential delivery needs to be more than three times a week at most.  Businesses should get mail every day, but not every single house.

Internet, but no home mail delivery...methinks your neck is quite red. ;D

[mgk920]

Political powers-that-be who have conveniently forgotten that the 18 Amendment was repealed over 90 years ago.

Mike

[gonealookin]

"Not really an option"?  You can't go three days without getting mail delivered?  I get all my mail delivered to a PO Box because USPS doesn't do home delivery here (they do give us the PO Box for free, with annual proof of current residency like a utility bill), and two visits a week is plenty often.

With so many items that formerly went via USPS now delivered via the Internet, I don't see why residential delivery needs to be more than three times a week at most.  Businesses should get mail every day, but not every single house.

Internet, but no home mail delivery...methinks your neck is quite red. ;D

Heh.  Congress is the entity that has prevented USPS from downsizing in response to Internet delivery.  This is an area where Trump could use his power over the current Congress to do something I would fully support, which is to reduce USPS service to five days a week and have each residential delivery route run only on alternate days.

I would probably eliminate Monday service, so as to allow people who work Monday through Friday to easily be able to access full USPS service on Saturdays.  One week a particular residence would get mail delivery on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and the next week just on Wednesday and Friday.  It would eliminate a lot of make-work jobs that were necessary 50 years ago but just contribute to USPS bloat today.

[vdeane]

They also require that holds be a minimum of three days long (unless that changed again), enforced by the date picker, so unless I want to stop all mail until well into next week, that's not really an option.

"Not really an option"?  You can't go three days without getting mail delivered?  I get all my mail delivered to a PO Box because USPS doesn't do home delivery here (they do give us the PO Box for free, with annual proof of current residency like a utility bill), and two visits a week is plenty often.

With so many items that formerly went via USPS now delivered via the Internet, I don't see why residential delivery needs to be more than three times a week at most.  Businesses should get mail every day, but not every single house.

Why should I have to wait for Wednesday when this saga has already gone on for far too long?  And hold up all other mail too (which, until this afternoon, included a baby shower invitation that I've been waiting all week for, seeing as Mom got her's Monday morning!)?  I find it ridiculous that the USPS doesn't have a way to say "please don't deliver a day early because it's not a good day for me".  And before you say "well you should have waited to order then", ironically I did.  I'm only in this situation because of the return/exchange process, since apparently DVDs can't be consistently made correctly.  I actually did wait to order until after I got back from the Maryland roadmeet specifically to avoid a worse situation - which, it turned out, was never even a possibility at all given the number of days this took to be delivered.  In hindsight, I should have ordered before I left for Maryland, and this all would have never been a problem.  Silly old me for thinking that the nearly two weeks between the two roadmeets would be enough time to have something shipped.

Quite frankly, stuff like this makes me wonder why online ordering is so popular.  It's such a hassle.  The ordering part is easy, but then you have to wait several days for delivery, deal with unboxing and disposing of packaging material (which in this day and age includes unfolding packing paper to go in the recycling bin, and boy is there a lot of it...), checking everything, printing return labels and hoping you can re-use packaging if there's any issues (and then taking it to a UPS store to be shipped), and having to stare at the collapsed box for a week until you take the recyclables out (at least for us apartment dwellers - homeowners may have the luxury of a bin in the garage, but I have to stare at things next to the basket in my living room/office).  It's a huge hassle, and this return/exchange process already had my blood pressure way up even before the slight chance of huge inconvenience became near certainty.  I already favored buying things in person before this, which has only increased, but sadly, there are many things that aren't available except online.

I truly wish I didn't have the worst luck like this.  It feels like the universe is against me.  The more I wish for it to not be delivered tomorrow, the more certain it will be.  The more I wished for clear weather on the day of the eclipse, the cloudier it got.  The more I wished for a dry move to my current apartment, the rainier it got (and my favorite umbrella got ruined that day too...).  I feel like I'm cursed.  Wanting something only decreases the likelihood that I'll get it, or increases the chance that it will be tainted like the medium place on the TV show The Good Place.

"Not really an option"?  You can't go three days without getting mail delivered?  I get all my mail delivered to a PO Box because USPS doesn't do home delivery here (they do give us the PO Box for free, with annual proof of current residency like a utility bill), and two visits a week is plenty often.

With so many items that formerly went via USPS now delivered via the Internet, I don't see why residential delivery needs to be more than three times a week at most.  Businesses should get mail every day, but not every single house.

Internet, but no home mail delivery...methinks your neck is quite red. ;D

Heh.  Congress is the entity that has prevented USPS from downsizing in response to Internet delivery.  This is an area where Trump could use his power over the current Congress to do something I would fully support, which is to reduce USPS service to five days a week and have each residential delivery route run only on alternate days.

I would probably eliminate Monday service, so as to allow people who work Monday through Friday to easily be able to access full USPS service on Saturdays.  One week a particular residence would get mail delivery on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and the next week just on Wednesday and Friday.  It would eliminate a lot of make-work jobs that were necessary 50 years ago but just contribute to USPS bloat today.

Or we could do things like bringing back postal banking (increasing banking access for undeserved communities and allowing the post office to make more money - win-win!) or admitting that government services shouldn't be run like a business or expected to turn a profit.

[gonealookin]

Holy smokes.  Nice rant!

I might come across as insensitive because I've been dealing with the nonexistence of USPS home delivery for 16 years now.  Sure, there was an adjustment period, but once I got used to the idiosyncracies I came to like not having the home delivery.  It certainly reduces the likelihood of porch piracy by 100%.

Per my current experience, when I leave this place and go some place where USPS delivers to residences, I expect I will pay to subscribe to some PO box service such as "The UPS Store" which gives you a street address for delivery and eliminates the occasional problem I have with "This item cannot be delivered to a PO Box".  Ways around that include using the full nine-digit zip code, which tells USPS which PO Box the street address is associated with, having the item delivered to Amazon Locker if it's an Amazon item, or having it delivered to the local store e.g. Home Depot, Ace Hardware etc. and picking it up at the counter there.

[JayhawkCO]

Late to the plastic bag conversation, but the entire country of Tanzania has banned them.