Sunday, January 23, 2011

Snow Faces and a Rant

First I'm climbing up on my soapbox for a minute. I promise I'll be brief.

Remember the following: "Neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."


This used to describe the US Postal Service.
Don't get me wrong, I like the postal service and think it serves an important purpose. However, it seems that the US Postal Service whines a lot lately about how overworked and underfunded they are. Well, just maybe if they maintained the service part as well as the raising rates part, they wouldn't have so much to complain about. Members of my family work for the Postal Service and I'm not trying to trash it, but do they ever question why more and more companies and individuals turn to services such as FedEx and UPS? Do they ever question why people use e-mail instead of snail mail for communicating?

I sent all my holiday packages by US Mail this year. One never arrived. I have no recourse. It can't be tracked, it's lost forever.
This week we had about an inch and a half of snow. We had no mail delivery for two days. This also happened two weeks ago when we had about 3/4 of an inch of snow. Really folks! The mail can't get thru less than an inch of snow? What about that rain and sleet thing?

 OK, rant finished
Now for some cheerful snow faces.


Do snow faces make you smile? They make me smile and sometimes laugh out loud.

30 comments:

Elaine Pritchard said...

I'm glad you can still smile at the snow faces. They are cute as a button.

How dreadful to have a Christmas present lost.

My family once posted a christening present for a baby girl and it never arrived here in the UK.

Masybe it's a problem across the world.

Love and licks Winnie

SissySees said...

I'm not a USPS fan, so I'll skip right over to the adorable snow faces. They're darling! Of course, I don't have frozen beards thawing in my living room...

♥♥ The OP Pack ♥♥ said...

Our mail guy usually only brings bills and junk mail, so we don't worry about it too much. But last week we had two days in a row with deliveries after 7:00 p.m. AND the roads were all clear.

Gotta love those snow faces - ain't snow just grand?

Woos ~ Phantom, Thunder, and Ciara

the teacher's pets said...

I admire your honesty and I think you are "preaching to the choir" in this situation! I cannot tell you the amount of times a package did not arrive when it was supposed to and it was maddening. Also, the mailmen have told me that they will not deliver mail unless a path is shoveled directly to our front door....unbelievable, right?

Lapdog Creations said...

The service IS rapdily declining... I had an xmas package come from CA to us here in NH that took over 3 weeks.... but at least it did finally show up. We've had packages lost too...

Great pics!

Rocky Creek Scotties and Rocky Creek Ramblings said...

I love snow faces!!

But I'm not happy with the cutbacks in the postal system - they didn't ask my opinion though - but I gave it anyway at my local post office. It's such a shame your package got lost - I'm glad my package made it to you!!

Stella said...

While I know mail service is different everywhere, I gotta say, my PO and my Mail Carrier are the best there is! We are all on a first name basis, we usually have a good laugh when I come in with parcels, if I put something in my mailbox for Dave my mail carrier to take, he always does it, even though he may not have mail for me.
So I love those people, all of them!

Cheers and hugs,

JO

Bella Roxy & Macdui said...

Lost parcels are a pain! Maybe the dogs should become postdogs during the snowy season! The mail might get through.

XXXOOO Daisy, Kendra & Bella

We love those snowy faces.

Tracy said...

I ship UPS so it does have a tracking number....
the snow faces are adorable :) Thanks for sharing your smiles...and you know it's okay to rant!

Two French Bulldogs said...

The dreaded inch of snow...whoooa! Yes those snow funny faces would make any buddy smile
Benny & Lily

Marjie said...

Postal service rant: My youngest daughter and oldest left for college at the same time. Younger sister dropped older sis at the airport on her way out of town. Older sis dropped cell phone in the car of younger sis. She borrowed a phone to call me to get Kellie to ship her phone to Wyoming. It cost $21 and took 3 days. UPS would have taken it for $25, overnight. And USPS wonders why people don't use their parcel service? And our mail deliver has gone from being around 3:15 to around 6PM. Which is just when I want my Wall Street Journal to arrive, of course!

But your snow faces made me smile. Then I was happy that Thor doesn't have a snow beard to melt on my carpet!

Kristin G. said...

I understand your frustration. If a gift I sent vanished, I would be really ticked. We've had a couple of dinky snows this year, but our mail was still delivered, thankfully. Those snowy faces sure make me smile! :)

♥I am Holly♥ said...

The snow faces are beautiful!!!

It's really bad when a Christmas present or something very important gets lost. They can't track it and won't or can't do anything which is sad and if it's a bill, you get a late fee charged on your bill. The last few years, we have been extremely lucky to have this fine young man who is our mail carrier. He goes out of his way to talk to everyone, get to know them and makes sure that the mail gets delivered. Before he arrived, we had some pretty bad ones and we were either getting somebody elses mail or none or it would all come at once and be late. We are thankful that we have our mail carrier and only hope and pray that he stays on this route because he is fantastic at his job. The other ones didn't seem to even care. Sometimes I would find my mail actually thrown on the porch instead of being put in the mailbox. That's bad. Lots of love, Debbie and Holly

Maggie Mae and Max said...

Snow faces make us smile but the USPS does not.

Woofs and Licks,
Maggie Mae

The Daily Pip said...

Don't even get us started on the post office!

Snow faces do make me smile. I played in the snow a little this morning and had the same face. You are right I don't tolerate the snow and cold very well - about 10 minutes is all I can take.

Your pal, Pip

booahboo said...

The snow faces surely left a huge smile on mine... they all sure love the snow a lot.

I don't quite like our local mail service too... and we DON'T have snow or anything to slow them down... we just have the occasional rain. They are slower... than snails.

Nana said...

Love the snow faces!!

~Kim at Golden Pines~ said...

HELLO!!! I know the frustration about packages getting lost. I've had that same thing...But thankfully as you know you have the adorable snow-faces to make up for it!!

I hope you're having a good day!

gMarie said...

Is that Tess or Norma Jean in the last photo? I know they both have white faces, but I can't keep them straight. Beautiful faces that they are.

And you're right about the snow and the postal service. However - if you send flat rates boxes, you can print postage online and get tracking numbers (for the same price) and insurance for an additional cost. g

LizzieJane said...

It does seem lately that sevice gets worse and costs a lot more with a lot of companies. Not sure what the solutiom is. Thank you for those adorable snow faces. They sure did make me laugh out loud. What a great way to start my Monday!
x

Scrabblequeen said...

Humph. Service isn't likely to get any better, as on the news tonight they announced the closure of many, many post offices coming...most of them in rural areas, which means those poor folks have to go to town to do anything, AND that my city of over 55,000 will go back to ONE PO...which will take all day to get in and out of. Grrrr....

Tina. said...

I agree totally with you Sue, about the PO thingy. Our little post office declined to deliver mail to a friends house because of the snow in the winter, their advice was you come get it! Now if the school bus can go over that road on a daily basis I really can't figure out what the PO problem is! And yes, your dogs' pictures make me smile too, but my favorite ones are still the water mellon pictures!

parlance said...

Lovely snowy faces1

Rose said...

I don't usually comment when there are already so many, but I just had to this time. They look so much like MaggieMae when she comes in from the snow I had to laugh on seeing these! I tell her, "Come on Snowface,time to come in!" when I call her in.

Sam said...

It's true - and I can speak from first hand experience, because my dad is a Postal worker.

Efficiency and organizedness literally changes from mail center to mail center. I can tell my dad that I'm mailing something to X destination, and he can instantly point out what places it's going to be processed at (and how well those plants do their job!).

I recently had something lost in the mail, too.. a $40 check for a trial entry. Now, what do I do? Do I pay the high check cancellation fee ($25), or simply wait and see what happens to it? Very frustrating. I am always weary about sending things in the mail.. yet sometimes the price of Fed Ex or UPS shipping is really, really high.

KB said...

We still have "small town" postal service here, where I know my carrier and they go to extra lengths to be very very nice. Of course, they don't control what happens to my packages before they arrive in my small town, and that's where the problems happen. I've had similar experiences as you with lost and very very late packages. I go with UPS or FedEx if something really matters.

Snow faces make me laugh and laugh and laugh. I think that they're particularly great on your dogs with all that fuzzy fur!

Janet said...

Your pups always make me smile. They're snow faces are especially cute!

Soggibottom said...

Beautiful snow faces they are too :-)

So sorry about your mail Sue.... grrrrrrrrr know how you feel. You paid for a service after all, they took your money.

Have lots of stories about postage. Normally we are lucky. Little the village post office might be, but most things get there. Not all sad to say.
Want help getting down from that box, or better still, help me up :-) X X X

Vivian said...

Love your pictures! Can't say much about mail service, they seem to only deliver bills, whenever they want! but not getting mail can be a real pain.

Steph said...

My dad works as a mailman for the USPS and I know how poorly the company treats the letter carriers. Something to keep in mind is, you never know who called in sick that day, if someone just lost a family member or had some other emergency that prevented them from being at work. My dad usually works 6 days a week, 10 hours a day. There are winter days he goes in at 5:30 a.m. and doesn't get home until after 7 p.m. I'm not sure where you live, but I can only remember one day when my home town didn't get mail, because there was a giant snowstorm that dumped over two feet of snow in the wee hours of the morning. I realize this post wasn't directed at my father or even the exact location he works for. But we all need to cut each other some slack in these rough times.