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In Germany mail was delivered two times a day, in the city district even more often, up until the 1960s.
Nowadays the mailpeople show up two times a week.
It blows my mind that they don’t pick mail up from peoples houses. I live in a city, so it could be different in more rural areas, but I my closest mailbox is almost a half kilometer away.
I mean if nothing else, the need for it has just utterly collapsed. Even in a largely still print-driven country like Germany.
Parcels, that's an entirely different thing. And you will notice that DHL, UPS, they all do at-home pickup. Or DHL and Hermes have drop of spots in what feels like every single little kiosk, bakery or ice cream parlor.
But mail? Actual, proper, snail-mail? That's mostly on the way out, actually. It's no longer a big need for virtually anybody. Most people I know check their physical mailbox at most once a week, sometimes once a month (since invoices arrive monthly usually).
I can't believe that DHL is popular in most places, because in the U.S. you would be better off handing your package to a random crackhead on the street.
Here in Germany it's more or less the best service. UPS is costly and unless you need highly insured parcels is annoying because they don't even deliver on Saturdays.
Meanwhile Hermes is alright but they kick parcels around really badly, even more so than usual. DPD is similar but even worse, but hey, cheap in return so if you got something that's resistant they're an okay choice.
Some years ago, someone half the globe away announced to me he'd sent me a package that day, via DHL. It arrived at my address less than a week later. I've recently had packages delivered from across the country that arrived within days.
In my experience in the U.S. shipping with USPS is the best for smaller packages and UPS for heavier packages. UPS doesn't run on weekends, but they are still very efficient and they're unionized, which I support. They also have convenient dropoff locations/lockers inside pharmacies and office supply stores as well as their own storefronts that will accept dropoffs later in the day and on weekends. USPS has dropboxes in their lobbies, which are usually open 24/7. Not sure why anyone would use FedEx unless they get a volume benefit. I'm really not sure why anyone would use DHL in the U.S. unless maybe they're shipping internationally.
Yeah, I was a little shocked too.
Especially in apartment complexes. There's usually a communal outbox for anyone to send out mail. But no, you'll have to go all the way to a post office to drop off mail. The nearest one is a 20 minute walk for me.
That is crazy. In the USA they pick mail up at everyone's house, and there are big mailboxes every couple of blocks.
looks hard at Louis Dejoy
Yeah, it's kind of weird that this is one of the things the US got right compared to most other countries. If you're already sending a guy to every house in town, why not pick up their mail while you're at it.
But you need to wrap the letter or parcel and pay for postage anyway, so unless you're regularly sending things it's still easier just to go to a post office.
And that means the postie has to check every single house even if they don't have any mail which slows things down a lot.
In the US we have flags. You don't have to check the box. Just look for a flag when passing
Your carrier can sell you stamps or other services. For security reasons they had to stop carrying cash (because nobody wants to be a mobile robbery target for what the Post Office pays), so transactions will have to take a couple days between the request and the delivery if you initiate the transaction in person. But you can also purchase postage online for delivery. Boxes for flat-rate Priority Mail are free and can also be ordered for delivery.
I delivered mail for a while. It's a surprisingly complicated and difficult job, especially if you deliver on foot. One of the reasons for it being complicated is how much flexibility USPS offers people, meaning there is a lot to know and remember for everyone.
Mailboxes are locked over here, that's pretty much it. Nobody but you can take anything out of your mailbox:
there's locked mail boxes here. like at apartments with a shared lobby. the owner just gets a key.
This, and the outgoing box is locked too. Anyone can put mail in, only the postie can take it out
Yeah I explained the flag thing to my German friend and they thought it was brilliant. I always took it for granted.
Don't they? I live in the US and I remember putting mail in the mailbox for the mail carrier to pickup.
They said Germany
Britain still had this until early 2010s I believe, early post and late post. Daily in the city, not Sundays, is the norm now. You still find prioriry post boxes which are collected twice a day too
It certainly ended somewhere between 2001 and 2007. I remember where I was living when they stopped it.
When mail came twice a day, I used to get my post in the afternoon, consistently, and none in the morning, ever.
When they changed it, my post started turning up earlier, in the morning.
So it was weirdly an improvement. It seems strange now that there was ever two deliveries a day, given I get one letter a week at most now. (parcels are another matter, but again you don't need Royal Mail delivering parcels twice a day even if you get a lot, so the fact they did this with letters is weird)
There were 3 deliveries a day in Paris and probably elsewhere until the 70s.
The original article by the NYTimes:
The Birth of Cheap Communication (and Junk Mail) - By Randall Stross
I’m lucky if I get mail once a week. I literally get a pile of stuff with a rubber band around it once a week at best. I’m not in a rural area.
Ah, the good old days!
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2024
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