July 2, 2007
From The Editor's Inbox: The Mission Post Office
From time to time, we get entertaining stories from you the readers. Here's the latest, on the woes of postal service in the Mission!
So it seems that the Post Office in San Francisco, or at least the Mission District, is so inept that local branches no longer handle package pickups after a failed delivery attempt. Now anyone who misses a certified letter or an Amazon package in the Mission needs to trundle down to the Postal Annex at 16th and Bryant.The reason? The post office was so bad at getting packages and letters back to stations like the one at 23rd and Van Ness after an atttempted delivery and leaving a notice that it just decided to stop even trying. Now all of the Mission's packages go back to the Postal Annex. What fun that is for folks without cars in the Mission.
Our reader says there's a sign up to that effect in the post office itself, but, as always, by the time we got to the post office to take a picture of it, the post office was, of course, closed. Maybe we should've stopped by the 16th and Bryant Postal Annex instead.
Thanks for the story, reader Ryan!
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how said is that. i'd guess you are having problems with the local carriers for your route. they are probably always different people, no regular carrier, since nobody wants that route and they haven't hired someone to take it on fulltime. go to the post office, ask for a manager, ask about the status of a regular carrier for that route and demand answers and accountability.
Why are comments on SFist now unreadable? As of today, they show up as light grey on dark orange. Fix your CSS!
I'm not sure this is anything new. I've lived in Hayes Valley for almost three years, and whenever I'm not home for delivery of an oversized package, I've had to head down to the wildly inconvenient facility at 222 Harrison Street to pick it up (open weekdays from 9-5, and for a few hours on Saturday). Friends of mine who live more in the Lower Haight area go to a post office in the mid-Haight area.
Looks like anyone who signs in as a "guest" gets the grey font treatment. Get yourself a name, boy!
My favorite: After waiting a week for redelivery of a package that I had signed the slip for, I went to the Clayton (upper haight) post office to see what was up. The nice lady there said she'd go find out but most likely it had been returned to the sender. But she came back with it - and said "Lucky Lucky Lucky!!"... all I could think was - it's their f*cking job to deliver packages ... why should i be lucky to get it in the end? You hear about ups and fedex taking money away from the post office - well it's easy to see why. It's so sad that you can absolutely count on getting unwanted direct mail garbage delivered every day, but when it comes to things that count, that you signed for, you have to get "lucky!"
Just today I went to Clayton to get a package only to be told it wasn't there. Found my mailman who said it was there. So I go back and tell them that both the mail man and my little piece of paper said that Clayton had the package. The bloke gave me a load of BS and wouldn't even go and look for it in the back. They rock.
Not to rub it in, but thanks for the reminder that of what a fiasco it is to chase down a package UPS or USPS on any given day. There are definitely some advantages to having a door man to accept these things on first delivery attempt. Back to the caviar.... (just kidding of course)
If you have a bike, take the Harrison Street bike lane to Mariposa, and make a right (or a left if you are coming from above 17th street). Bike up a couple blocks (really nice back road, not a bad grade) and make a left on Bryant. Bike a couple blocks to the 16th and Bryant station.
I know it sucks, but please, please stop driving in my neighborhood.
JE
It's not just the Mission Post Office that sucks. Everytime I've tried to call the Sunset Post Office for anything--missed package, passport appointments, etc.--they always transfer my call to another post office. At Random. They've transferred me to PO's in the Richmond, downtown...once even the Excelsior (which picks up on the first ring and gets your business done right). Half the time, they don't even tell me that they're transferring me. They put me on hold and BAM! I find myself talking to a different part of town.
I live in the Mission (16th St) in the 94103 zipcode (which includes Civic Ctr and SOMA) so I also get to chase my packages down to 222 Harrison St.
I'd love to be able to get them at 16th St and Bryant. Actually I'd love them to be delivered to my own address, but I guess that's asking too much.
The worst thing is missing a FedEx delivery, their customer center is way out there off Third St. At least the UPS customer center near 16th and Potrero is on a bus route.