The United States Postal Out-Of-Service

As the United States Postal Service implements a First Class mail postage rate increase on January 8, it's worth considering whether Americans are getting the best service possible from one of the largest monoplies around.

My typical experience with USPS personnel has improved since the time I visited a downtown post office in the District of Columbia ten years ago. I walked up to the service window, ordered less than $3 worth of stamps and handed a $20 bill to the clerk. "This is not a bank!" she practically yelled at me, pointing to a hand-written notification sign and demanding smaller denominations of United States currency. It was not the last time that Postal Service employees in the District were impeccably rude to moi.

Today, the issues extend to cyberspace. About a week ago, I was trying to locate a package that had not arrived in time for Christmas. I performed a search on the USPS.com website for local post offices in the 20002 area code (the search is "powered" by switchboard.com). But several calls to these locations, such as the large facility at 2 Massachusetts Ave NW, resulted in the message that the numbers were "out of service."

So I called the customer service phone number (800) ASK-USPS, navigated the automated phone system bureaucracy, and spoke with a human being who gave me another out-of-service number. Only when I visited the post office in person did I receive the correct number.

On Saturday, when I tried to determine how late the post offices were open that day, I discovered that there are two duplicative entries for the 900 Brentwood Road NE location. One entry indicates that the location closes at 5 p.m. on Saturdays, while the other states that it closes at 4 p.m. There are two different phone numbers given for this location as well. One number is constantly busy, while the other is out of service. So I had to drive to the post office to determine whether it was still open. It closed at 4 p.m., and I was out of luck.

Because my complains in person and via the customer service phone number resulted in no corrections, today I e-mailed USPS from its website and will be monitoring its progress.