More to the point, this would be an open letter to the Woodway (Texas) Station of the US Postal Service, although I suspect this applies to the USPS nationwide.
Dear US Postal Service:
There are many reasons that your service is in trouble, over and above the threat of technology and e-mail. The biggest threat to your continued survival (much less success) is your own abysmal implementation of customer service. If you are in the business of providing a service, you must pay attention to your customers, and tailor your business model to satisfying your customers. That seems like a no-brainer to me, but increasingly I have seen that very few businesses are paying attention to their customers these days. When you eventually go out of business, it may be some consolation to you to know that you are not alone.
Specifically, I have in my possession, a badly copied, extremely poor quality notice from the Supervisor, Customer Services of the Woodway Station. It was folded up and tucked under my windshield wiper. It looks very unprofessional and low-class, which is an appearance that does not speak well for the USPS. But the cheap quality of the notice is only the beginning.
The notice is the result of my having parked too close to the mailbox of a postal customer. It begins with a transparent lie: To provide you with faster and more efficient delivery, we are requesting your help.
That sounds on the surface like good customer service. Kind of a With your help, we can do the best delivery job possible! sort of statement. But it is actually a transparent lie betrayed quickly by the threat of punishment for noncompliance, which is that if the mailbox is blocked again, the Post Office will withhold all mail for 10 days to punish the customer, whether the mailbox is blocked or not. Either you keep the street in front of your house clear or else we just won't even try to deliver your mail.
I was, fact in, in front of that house for 38 minutes, which unfortunately coincided with the arrival of the postman. And in fact I was not in front of the mailbox. Apparently I was parked too close to the mailbox for the mailman to swoop up in his vehicle and then continue forward in a smooth arc, since I was parked at the curb to the left of the mailbox.
Now, if I had been parked smack-dab in front of the mailbox in a manner prohibiting a delivery person from accessing it because my car was in the way, I could understand the problem that would present. But the mailbox itself was completely unobstructed.
I could also understand the issue if the mailbox was permanently or semi-permanently blocked in some manner. The examples they use on their low-rent notice are ridiculous. The first one shows that postal customers need to remove snow for 30 feet on each side of the mailbox so the postal vehicle can cruise up unobstructed and proceed on, also unobstructed. Like we will ever see snow like that in Woodway, Texas.
The second example shows curb-side trash cans sitting in front of the mailbox. Well, city ordinances require that trash cans be removed from curb-side except on trash collection days. So this might be a problem one day a week. In fact, it might be a continuing problem one day a week. God, what an imposition that would be for the poor, put-upon postal carrier.
I suppose I am miffed that the postal delivery person is so lazy or complacent that getting out of the vehicle to deliver the mail is an imposition on him or her. It so happens I live in a neighborhood where the mailboxes are next to the front door, so my mail carrier walks his or her (depending on the day of the week) route daily. Are vehicle-delivery-only routes a reward for senior carriers? Or for out-of-shape carriers? Are carriers on primarily vehicle-delivery routes exempted from having to leave their vehicle? What?
It is a common misconception that the creed of the US Postal Service is: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. In fact, although the USPS did refer to that line that in a self-serving advertisement in 2001 following 9/11 and the anthrax attacks, the organization has never publicly aspired to that level of service.
But I think there is a middle ground between that admirable goal and the reality of current mail delivery service.
