Postal Service a model of customer-unfriendliness

It never ceases to amaze me how clueless the U.S. Postal Service is when it comes to customer service. The long lines around Christmas, Saturdays and weekday lunch hours are only part of it. The invariable screwups with vacation stops and starts. The inability to call the Post Office if you have a question or problem (Decisions about whether to list a phone number in the phone book and/or the U.S. Postal Service are up to the local postmaster/mistress. Most of them choose not to). The bankers' hours at most of the branches - hours, incidentally, which also are determined locally.

Another indication of how little the Postal Service cares about the customer is how so many of the branches have inadequate parking. That's compounded by the large "employee only" areas of parking lots and the prime spots reserved for the postmaster/mistress with the "violators will be towed at their own expense" warning signs. During busy times, why can't the Postal Service require that the scarce spaces be reserved for customers, not employees?

The final insult? If you want to complain to someone in authority, try finding the name and phone number or e-mail address of someone - anyone - on the Postal Service Web site http://www.usps.com/. I gave up after about 10 minutes.

I did find the snail-mail address of Postmaster General John "Jack" Potter on another site: Postmaster General and CEO, United States Postal Service, 475 L'Enfant Plaza SW, Washington, DC 20260. Snail mail, fittingly enough, is apparently the only way to get in touch with him.