USPS Ground Advantage

[terracore]

dreaded SAN FRANCISCO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER


I've always thought that they packed shipping containers and then when they had enough for a discount from Madsen, they would all go out on the same sailing. Maybe they wait until they can fill an entire container ship just to get the best price.

Back in the day, a postal worker explained to me that parcel post worked that way.  They tetrised them into a shipping container until it was full, and then it got on the next sailing. If your package was on the bottom of that container with tons of other packages sitting on top of it, then better pray it was packaged well enough to withstand it.  

I can imagine that Ground Disadvantage works similarly, though the packages don't show up as mutilated and crushed as they did back in the parcel post days. 

Crazy thing about ground disadvantage is that if it avoids the dreaded San Francisco facility, it doesn't take much longer than Priority Mail to get here.  But if it goes there, it adds about a month.

In case anybody is wondering, I've recently been mailing a lot of documents to Oregon. I've been using a mix of first class mail (less than a dollar), Priority mail flat rate envelope (about $13), and Express priority mail flat rate envelope (about $31).  These are commercial rates so you would pay more at the counter. They all take ~5 days to get there.  There is literally no difference in the delivery time between $1 and $31.  The only difference is that priority and express priority have tracking information.  But the tracking information between priority and express priority isn't any different.  USPS used to offer a refund if express priority didn't get to the destination within a specified timeframe, but now they only offer a refund if the item is never delivered.  They also don't deliver on Sundays or holidays anymore under most circumstances, and never at the $31 tier.  Basically, the only difference between less than a dollar and over $30 is that the recipient sees that you paid more money to ship it.