United States Postal Service — Local services in Mountain View

TL;DR: It took me a total of 5 days, 3 trips and 3 phone calls to pick up a package of live animals. I was not impressed with the competence demonstrated at the office.

I had a culture of Trichorhina tomentosa held for pickup due to high ambient temperatures. The package arrived at this post office on Thursday morning, but the 5 PM closing time was too early to work with my schedule and I ended up trying to pick them up Friday morning.

On my first try, they refused to let me bring my road bike into the office - something that I've never had issues with in Colorado post offices or other Palo Alto / Mountain View stores. On my second try, I walked. The clerk who "helped" me was generally unhelpful; after getting my tracking number, he searched roughly half of the packages being held and returned saying that it was out for delivery. After I reiterated that the package had been marked as hold for pickup, the tracking information said it was being held for pickup, and I had gotten a voice message saying that it was being held for pickup, he relented and supposedly searched the remainder of the packages, turning up nothing and telling me to go home and wait for a delivery.

On Saturday, I called during posted business hours but nobody answered the phone.

On Monday, I walked over to the office again, gave a new clerk my tracking number, and started waiting. After about 10 minutes, I volunteered some extra information from another a voice message they had sent me earlier that morning. Apparently, something I said triggered a connection that hadn't been made before and I finally had my box ~20 seconds later.

The isopods were fine; they could have gone weeks in their little deli cup without issue. However, I ended up burning over 1.5 hours to do something which should have taken ~12 minutes. I don't know if the people I interacted with were incompetent or my box was shelved in an unusual place, but I was not...

My delivery was not in the mailbox while USPS claims that it has been delivered, I OPENED TWO SEARCH CASES AND THERE IS NO PROOF OF DELIVERY AND THEY JUST CLOSE THE CASE WITHOUT FEEDBACK. It was not often that my order is not delivered even though I checked for the package the same day. I waited it to show up patiently for two days, posted missing notice on building doors and asked my neighbors if they see it, still, the package is missing. So I had to call the USPS customer service, went through the automatic responding system, finally got a SMS customer service link. When I was using the USPS SMS customer service, the agent opened a service request on my behalf but didn't ask for related information, i.e., my email, which made it very difficult to track the status online later since that field is required online and it doesn't match anything in the system. The case was quickly closed the next day and I haven't gotten any feedback, I had to call customer service again to reopen the case. Meanwhile, my search for the package is also going on. I tried to talk to the delivery guy and he refused to answer my questions, like, if he can remember anything, if there was any possibility that the delivery went to the wrong place, and if anyone else might have a mailbox key, he asked me to call(which I already did) and walked away on my questions, extremely rude. This day my package is still missing, and it shows delivered on track, which makes my dispute on the transaction extremely hard, and USPS hasn't provided my any feedback or PROOF...

I ordered something perishable using USPS Priority Express (their equivalent of FedEx). It did not arrive in time, so I filed a claim. I should mention that the delivery person does not have your phone number like they do with Fed Ex or UPS, so if they have trouble with your address (which they may even if the address was written correctly), they will just not deliver the package. The USPS response to the claim was that I should present the item to "a post office" for inspection. I presented it in Palo Alto and was told that I had to present it to this post office since that is the one that was responsible for the item. Ok, but maybe be more detail oriented with your instructions. At the Mountain View post office, I was told that they could not help me because a supervisor had to be present to inspect the package (also NOT stated in the letter). They also told me that as the recipient I could not be the one to file the request for reimbursement even though that clearly contradicts the USPS website, and the letter regarding the claim made it clear they understood I was the recipient . At this point I had spent most of the afternoon in 2 post offices. There was NO empathy. And the worst part was they took the package to put on the supervisor's desk and I never heard from them again. DO NOT USE USPS PRIORITY EXPRESS. IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD A FEW EXTRA BUCKS FOR FED EX OR UPS, EXPECT THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE YOUR PACKAGE WILL LIKELY BE LOST. IF THAT HAPPENS, PLEASE DO NOT BOTHER FILING A CLAIM; IT IS A COMPLETE...