I think the staff at the Lady Lake PO does care about their responsibility to deliver the mail. Obviously, maybe not all of them as I found out, but probably the vast majority.
The LL Post Master wasn't in when I got there. I was directed to her next in line who is actually the person who communicates with all the Carriers every day regarding delivery issues. He was for many years a Carrier himself and he's very helpful.
As it turns out, the LLPM (Lady Lake Post Master) had come in at 3am this morning as she was out directly dealing and getting to the bottom of these same issues at another location in her jurisdiction.
Here's what I learned.
1. He and the LLPM take misdeliveries very seriously; however, need specifics to be able to address and misdeliveries by Carrier are tracked at the district level (i.e., 800 number or on-line). (Sounds reasonable).
2. He said as specifics & timeframes need to be established, the best method to do that is via their 800 number for complaints and/or on-line at USPS. I'll post both of those below.
When I asked if that would really help, he told me that he obviously couldn't disclose any details, but did say that they had just spoken to a Carrier that morning who had 6 complaints filed with the 800 number in the last month. This first conversation he said was a warning. More complaints filed for the Carrier will result in probation. He told me that the 800 number or on-line complaints are tracked by Carrier / Location and even though the results aren't shared with the person who filed the complaint, they are handled internally as performance issues.
Let it also be noted that on-line you can also COMPLIMENT a Carrier in a specific area. If you have a really great Carrier, go on-line and post that as well.
Here's the number to call: 1-800-275-8777 (you may have to wait on hold or leave a message and they'll call you back).
On-Line filing:
Email Us
(Once submitted, you'll get a notification in your email as well).
Note: This above on-line filing is where you can also leave compliments. There's an icon that says "Personnel" and you can click on that for individuals. A few people in the previous post mentioned they had great Carriers, this would be a nice place to recognize those people officially.
Well, I'll see what happens with my package complaint. As it turns out, I spoke with the sender who I ordered from and they got it back marked "Return to Sender / Refused". They said the package is too long to probably even fit in a parcel locker (where the tracking said it was delivered, but no key in my mailbox). I suggested to the guy at the post office I was speaking with that the Carrier probably found it wouldn't fit in the parcel locker, didn't want to bother delivering it to my door and just marked it refused. He told me to definitely file a complaint on-line with the info from the tracking, dates, etc. so it's of official record. His look and comment told me that what I suspect happened is probably exactly what did happen. The business is resending to me.
Well, that's it. If you have more than a few misdeliveries, please report them. If you have a great Carrier that goes out of their way for their customers on their route, report that as well. This should work both ways.