USPS is Unusable

I bought some sits from the USSR on Oct 30. They finaly arived in Atlantia at the USPS distribution center on Dec 16 where they still sits about 30 miles from my small town of Tyrone Ga. It's not fair that my Christmas present to myself after a 5,000 mile trip is stuck in the mail 30 miles from my house !
 
My second real computing job was multi carrier shipping systems around 1999. UPS and Fedex might provide you with a shipping system but you were not able to integrate it with other systems such as your order system. We provided systems that could transfer shipping data back and fourth between order systems. Some of it was screen scraping from mainframe terminals and some was direct SQL calls.


Some larger shippers may have an agreement with UPS where they will load a trailer with boxes and then close the shipment once the trailer is full. You get a tracking number at shipping time and the package might not leave the site for a day or so.

Another interesting thing I have seen is Fedex will bring and pack a container meant to load directly on a plane. Some presorting may be involved for sure. Just fun to see a shipping enclosure with one curved side to go in the plane.

In the 1990s, I worked on a project where we basically did screen scrapes from a mainframe. It seems so ridiculously clumsy.

As I understood it, the company, who is a household name, had legacy mainframe applications where they literally had no idea to modify them, and in some cases they didn't even have the logins and passwords. These ancient apps were just humming along, and they were working, but they couldn't be changed.

So the solution?

Just scrape the data right off of the mainframe screen, then send it over to some database.

Again, this was almost 25 years ago.

In the 25 years since then, I continue to get contacted by recruiters for this arcane software.

And after decades of that... I am once again working on one of these apps. In 2020, we're still doing screen scrapes off mainframes.

The funny part is that it now has all the bells and whistles of a modern app, such as a cloud based SAAS and real time monitoring and alerting and metrics and all that good stuff.

But it's still dependent on a mainframe.

They'll probably continue to do this for another 50 years.
 
My ebay speaker USPS shipment started in NY, went to Florida, then diagonally across the continent to Seattle in an effort to travel the maximum possible distance and receive the maximum possible amount of handling. It now sits in a lock box a few doors up the street.

As a direct challenge to my composure, the key they left in my mail compartment wont open the larger container containing my delivery. It's the only one of 4 such containers the key fits into; it's marked corresponding to the key ID, but the key will not turn in the lock.

Now I have to chase down the USPS delivery guy when he comes, or leave a note asking to drop it off on my front porch...
 
We sent a package to my sister on December 11th, from Port Townsend, WA, a small town northwest of Seattle, to Redmond, OR, which is about the middle of the state of Oregon. When it didn't arrive by yesterday we tracked it. The package went to Kent, WA, then to Des Moines, Iowa, then to Seattle, WA, then to Portland, OR, thereafter to Friday Harbor, WA which is a little island in the San Juan island group north of WA, then to Kent, WA again, then to Fort Worth, Texas as of yesterday. My wife was a little upset, but i told her that per mile, our shipping costs are really low. :D
 
I have a few static induction transistors waiting at a USPS distribution center after coming all the way from Russia. But while waiting on them I bought 3 books off Ebay 2 of them seem to be stuck in transit but the third one was delivered today. Only trouble is the seller shipped the wrong book !
 
My wife ordered some xmas presents a couple weeks ago. They shipped via Priority Mail from a location 25 miles from our house on December 15 and didn’t arrive until December 24.

UPS and Fedex have been very reliable for us lately, even with the combined pandemic/holiday surge.

Priority Mail used to be the best value out there in shipping. Sadly that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
 
Yes, I have also experienced delays and weird tracking.



If the tracking is to be believed I had a small parcel to be shipped Wisconsin to Michigan go to the East Coast NJ and I requested the Ebay seller to refund. I got the refund and then it showed up three days later.


I had a second small parcel declared lost in the system by the Ebay seller resulting in another refund.


I work with a guy who's wife just started about a month ago sorting mail at USPS. We live in Northern Lower Michigan. She's doing 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. This guy says she is required to work a 12 hour day on Christmas at 2.5 times pay rate. He says the system is so F'd up overloaded because of the influx of packages from Amazon, Fed Ex, and UPS using the parcel post system.
 
I'm getting downright feeble.

I expect a key to work in the lock provided. I inserted, wiggled and jiggled and pulled - the door opened! Package inside was addressed to someone else on my street...

There's two identically labeled boxes, so amidst frustration I tried inserting the key in the other one, the key and lock so beat up it wouldnt even insert. Half inserted, I gave a little pull and the door swings open - inside is my package.

The keys apparently dont do a damn anymore. It never occurred to me that the door's lock was busted in the unlocked position and the door would simply swing open, only being held shut by a hinge spring.

Grabbed my package, chucked the key in the box. You're supposed to leave it in the lock after use, but that wasnt possible -
 
Ok this happened years ago . I live about 20 miles form Atlantia Ga. and was ordering a speaker from a store in Kansas City. My mailman picked up the letter from my mail box using standard postage on Thursday. UPS using standard delivery delivered my speaker the following Monday. Of course this happened 40 years ago before the USPS had been modernized.
 
Based on my experience in using the postal systems of the world, i’d give them a good score. Yes even usps. Canada post is good too. I can do my customs, pay, print labels, track all from home and do not have to stand in line anymore for shipping. Insuring your packages is important. This year it has been slower for obvious reasons. many are impatient these days and expect the post to be as fast as the couriers which is premium shipping. This year we all know it is unusual and hopefully will get back to some sort of normal. Postal services get a good taste of the future in commerce
Getting pcbs out of China from jcbpcb has to be DHL as China post has become very unreliable.
Stay safe and a happy new year
 
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