Going Postal

I have had it with the USPS. The Ravenswood post office is quite possibly the biggest bunch of lazy idiots, and here's proof I'm not the only one who thinks so... http://www.yelp.com/biz/united-states-post-office--ravenswood-chicago
(First 5 reviewers' sentences...
1. Slothful, indolent...just a few adjectives that cross my mind when I think of the employees the USPS has serve us at the Lawrence Avenue location.
2. rude rude rude.
3. This is the worst post office in the history of post officedom.
4. Worst service in my life.
5. (And personally my favorite) You know, I've lived in a few really poor third-world countries, where the post offices are about as well-funded and well-run as a garage sale on Skid Row, where queuing is a foreign concept and mail is tied up with twine and takes about five months to arrive . . . and I can recall getting better customer service there. )

It's unbelievable they can get away with this. When your job is to deliver mail to an address, how can you twist that to... I'm lazy, I'll just return all mail to sender stating the address is unoccupied?

Since we moved into the bungalow, we've experienced this a couple of times in the past. Most noticeably in December when my birthday cards were returned to senders!

Now it's happening again. Our neighbor's next door hand delivered some mail from Friday which was delivered to them instead, and we never received anything Sat, Mon, or Tues. I saw the postman walking by and asked what the deal was. He looked down and grabbed some mail to hand to me. What the hell?!!? He had no answer for me by the way.

Of course, early last week we ordered the new $116 city stickers plus permits (grrr on the increase). Michael's was in this batch of mail, but mine wasn't. I have a dreadful feeling that will be the next battle... the lost sticker I'll have to fight about with the city. But first, back to this battle...

On Monday I tried calling the branch only to be met with a busy signal on about 5 tries within an hour. Giving up, I decided to call the Toll Free number, and gave my complaint to Rick, a seemingly nice fellow. He told me they would find out what was going on, and get back to me no later than 24 hours (Tuesday afternoon).

Fast forward to Tuesday afternoon. After no call, I decided to call back. I didn't get to speak with nice Rick, I spoke to someone else who told me their computer system is down, and they can't help me. I'll have to call back later. What? Are you kidding me? OK. 3 hours later, I call back and get the same answer. They can't help me. Now I call back my local useless branch... they tell me they'll speak with the mail carrier and call me by 11am. Nothing.

Oh, how I hate the United States Postal Service.