I agree. My old mailman (actually, mail woman) was great (back in Ohio). She always was so nice and would even have a quick little conversation whenever we where outside and she delivered a package.

Now, I have mixed emotions with our current one. He can sometimes be good, sometimes be bad. It’s annoying a lot of the time. We live where there is a collection of boxes (about 30 boxes for 30 houses. We live in a super small development). I get that the mailman might want to leave a package there, but it specifically said “Leave on porch.” Our black box gets up to 140 in the summer. So, when my parents sometimes send a box of treats for the kids, everything melts.

The on good thing about Arizona mailboxes is that I’ve always wanted to bake cookies in it, haha!

And yeah, shipping is sooo expensive

I'm so annoyed with my carrier right now. The last two days he has left mail hanging out of my box when there is plenty of room inside the box. I think it's revenge for my report of missing mail.

Amen, amen, amen. I have heard every excuse in the World (except...Sorry, it's

our fault). And, I have subs every other day...so my neighbors and I usually

spend time "re-delivering" mail to each other. Sigh. Used to be a respected

job....not anymore.

We must be extremely lucky. If we have a package, our mail person drives it up to the house (about 1/4 mile), and brings it up on the deck. And the people at the post office are friendly and nice.

My package arrived at the post office again this morning. I sure hope it changes to “out for delivery”. My poor plants.

A friend one state away from me sent me a card TWO weeks ago and it still hasn't arrived. Iris I sure hope your plants aren't dead by the time you receive them.

As has been written before, blame Congress who still insists the p.o. have enough money in reserves to pay pensions for many years (I forget how many,) out. Some people would love to privatized the p.o. and this is one way to force it.

We had a different carrier every week (usually in street clothes) for a several years, but now I'm seeing the same nice man (in uniform) most every day--I'm holding my breath with hope. He's reliable and careful with packages, leaving them on our porch.

My sister sent my dd a bday present from Portland, OR to nyc and though she sent it priority, it took ten days to two weeks to arrive. Sister is very mad and I hope she follows up on it. She only saw movement of the package via tracking number after checking with dd and finding out it was very late.

Its not any better if you use fedex either. One package I ordered through Amazon, took forever to be shipped, and finally I got the shipping notice, and kept checking on it, moving very slowly through the system. It eventually got delivered to some address in New Jersey. I didnt re order, and Amazon credited my cc. A month ago, I ordered a small size vacuum cleaner to have something portable for smaller areas, from Walmart. I got a notice it was shipped the same day as I ordered it, and a fedex tracking number. I watched it move in all sorts of odd areas, and eventually, it came up delivered some place in Indianapolis. Since I dont live in either New Jersey, or Indiana, obviously, it was not delivered to me. I called Walmart, and they checked on it, and saw where it was delivered in Indiana, and immediately credited my account, after asking if I wanted to reorder. Nope, I dont, I will go to the store next week and buy it and bring it home. I have friends, who have had the same problem with orders shipped fedex. Its like somewhere along the line, the addresses are getting changed and they are sent elsewhere.

A friend just passed along this service offered by the post office.

You sign up and get an email with photocopies of all the mail you will be getting for that day. There is another tab for packages. It took about two days, and now I look each morning and it is nice to see what will be coming.

They will say 11 pieces f mail, but they don't seem to be including mailers from supermarkets etc.

In years past we had a few good mail carriers. Now, not so much. She puts the wrong mail in our box, and what is even more disturbing is when the address is all the way across town. I kind of can understand getting a close neighbor once in a while.

For those who are interested: https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action 

We have a P.O. box so never have to worry about when the mail carrier will come, where packages will be left, that our mail/packages will be stolen or if our mail is being exposed to extreme heat/cold. Occasionally a piece of mail gets put in the wrong box, but it's rare that happens. But, I realize that using a P.O. box doesn't work for a lot of people so I feel for those who are having problems with home delivery.

I guess I've been lucky with the postal service. I mail a lot of packages due to jewelry sales and have never had one lost and they also are delivered amazingly quickly. I just sent one to Pennsylvania and one to New York and both packages arrived at their destinations in two days via first class mail.

Eld6161, I use informed delivery. That’s how I knew that a mailpiece was missing. Of course, the only action you can take is tell the P.O. that the piece was missing. They don’t really do anything except ding the carrier. However, at least I know to contact the sender so that I can take any needed actions.

We had the best mail carrier for about two years, always provided friendly error-free delivery. Unfortunately, he died and his replacements have been abysmal. I am constantly getting mail from people outside my zip code and wondering who is enjoying my undelivered magazines. No recourse here, the PO supervisor is never available and unreachable by phone or email. Grrrr.

One of our replacement PO carriers delivered all the odd numbered mail to the even side and the even numbered mail to the odd side. Twice. Our regular carrier is wonderful. He actually cares and comments if something goes wrong.

Re tracking. We were waiting for a kayak last year. We purchased through LL Bean (we live nearby), but they were out of the one we wanted. The manufacturer insisted on sending it by a national trucking carrier. After several weeks of waiting, we were told that although the shipping paperwork documented the kayak made it to the local facility, the kayak itself was not on the truck. It "fell off" somewhere in upstate New York. I finally was told that often paperwork gets scanned, but items do not to save the carrier time. We had to start over and finally received the kayak that we purchased in April at the end of August. Next time we will go with something in the store no matter what the color is. Sigh.

eld6161 THANKS for the link. your link doesnt qtracking ite work because I think you are signed in, but found it with

https://informeddelivery.usps.com

I have a great mail carrier, but I have my own complaints with the mail delivery including priority mail. In the past 2 months, I've had at least 2 packages "take a vacation" route on the way to their destination. Some of it was just ridiculous: one page went from boston to pittsburgh where it was supposed to be delivered. They sent it to Florida. Came back 2 days later, They sent it to Louisiana this time. It took a week for my 2 day priority mail package to be delivered...and the "live plants" were mostly dead, with a bit of roots left in the pots. Sad! And that's just ONE of my stories!

Mine finally arrived yesterday. Dropped in front of the garage in full sun and 90 degrees. Luckily I was home. The plants are in a sorry state. Potted them up and put them in the shade. Hope they will make it.

Last year we we ordered an item coming from Connecticut...we are in NJ. Tracking the package, it went from CT, to Kansas City, Kansas, then to Alaska, then finally made its way back to NJ. It took two weeks to make it back here and fortunately it wasn’t live material.

just this week I received an order from a company in California. All the reviews had commented on how fast their shipping was; many said how shocked they were that they received their cross country packages in 3-4 days. Mine took 9 days after the shipping notification (which was several days after the order) tracking it shows that in sat in a facility in California for several days. Glad it wasn’t something I vitally needed.

I was having issues also, and then I signed up for informed delivery. There is a little check box for "I didn't receive this". I checked it even if it was missing junk mail. After about two weeks, I haven't had any other problems.

I avoid the post office whenever I can.