11–20 of 61 posts
The article makes a claim that it is no better in Canada and proceeds to remark about financial conditions. The mail is being delivered just fine, just not profitably. I've not had issues with the USPS, but I don't doubt that it is getting worse. Private delivery (Amazon and the like) has been pretty much flawless. Order from McMaster, and it almost invariably arrives within two days (continental US) I just don't exp…
This sentence sounds straight out of ChatGPT (along with the general substance-less nature of the article).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's that we're paying more for objectively worse service than we had a decade ago. > I'm not asking for magic, I'm asking where went the reliability we already had, at the prices we're already paying. My god thank you! My partner and I have been talking about this for the past 2 years in the context of food service and delivery service industry. Greater than 50% of all our restaurant orders are straight up wrong o…
I hear a lot of stories like this; but the question I always come back to is - what incentive is their to discard the working system? In your case its the 3qc step process, why is that just gone now? The more I look into these systematic changes the less sense it makes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's that we're paying more for objectively worse service than we had a decade ago. > I'm not asking for magic, I'm asking where went the reliability we already had, at the prices we're already paying. My god thank you! My partner and I have been talking about this for the past 2 years in the context of food service and delivery service industry. Greater than 50% of all our restaurant orders are straight up wrong o…
I hear a lot of stories like this; but the question I always come back to is - what incentive is their to discard the working system? In your case its the 3qc step process, why is that just gone now? The more I look into these systematic changes the less sense it makes.
Decades ago, when OP worked there, I'm guessing Texas Roadhouse only took takeout orders over the phone and in person, and didn't receive that many. It was less common to order takeout from sit-down restaurants. There was one procedure, the steps made logical sense, it could be implemented entirely within the restaurant without a lot of IT. And it worked, and it probably didn't take that much staff time on a normal night.
Now, you can still order by phone, but I see you can also at least order online for pickup, order via UberEats for delivery, and order via DoorDash for pickup or delivery. They've likely added these various modes over time, and I'm sure each has its own subtly different procedure reflecting various IT systems nobody in the restaurant has any control over.
The three-part QC process might still work for phone orders but those are probably rare. Orders picked up by the actual end customer could use a two-part QC process, verifying the items against the receipt and presenting them for visual inspection. But orders getting picked up by a delivery person can practically only get a quick check as they're loaded in the bag, because the delivery person is in a hurry and won't want to stand there and help check the receipt against what's in the bag. They also may not be able to effectively do so if they don't know the menu (for instance, there are several sides that could be "steamed vegetables" at a quick glance https://www.texasroadhouse.com/location/457-countrysideil/di...) and aren't sufficiently fluent in English.
Rather than have a complex flowchart for the overworked staff maximizing QC for every case, it's very easy to default to the minimum which works in every case, which is hurriedly comparing the menu items that come out of the kitchen to what's on the receipt as they're loaded into the bag. It's very easy to get this wrong, especially if you're overworked and distracted and loading multiple bags at once.
The article makes a claim that it is no better in Canada and proceeds to remark about financial conditions. The mail is being delivered just fine, just not profitably. I've not had issues with the USPS, but I don't doubt that it is getting worse. Private delivery (Amazon and the like) has been pretty much flawless. Order from McMaster, and it almost invariably arrives within two days (continental US) I just don't exp…
Where there use to be separate facilities for processing first class, bulk mail, and packages; the new facilities deal with everything. And where the old system of 50 NDC (National Distribution Centers) are being consolidated to ~30 RPDC (Regional Processing and Distribution Centers) leading to a whole new strategy of how mail moves East to West and West to East. And mail sorting for delivery used to happen by mail carriers at local Post Offices, is now happening at LSDC (Local Sorting and Delivery Centers) set up service all mail carriers in a 50 - 70 mile radius.
And all of these changes are happening while still having to deliver mail (It never stops Jerry. It just keeps coming and coming)
So if you’re in the Midwest like Chicago, stuff coming from the Midwest or Eastcoast has been getting stuck in Indianapolis-taking 10 to 15 days. Stuff coming from West Coast gets here in 5.
There are 42,000 active zip codes and 640,000 employees. Making changes to that organization is hard and takes time.
What’s really cool is the work going on with Amazon, Walmart, Target and others for them to deliver packages directly to LSDC for same day delivery. Once you get away from the cities, no one can compare with the USPS for last mile delivery.
TLDR USPS is changing. Things may get worse before they get better.
I had some dramatic episodes. Surprisingly, FedEx is very bad in Germany too. Once I had to retrieve a laptop from a FedEx station to prevent it from going back to China. The trick is, it was addressed to a different name. The truck just went by the door for three days, "nobody home". That was a situation.
I find the withdrawal of post services very unsettling. How do you enforce anything with fintechs, banks, insurance companies? You realize that they can freeze your funds and accounts at will, ignore emails, and outright lie over the phone?
The article makes a claim that it is no better in Canada and proceeds to remark about financial conditions. The mail is being delivered just fine, just not profitably. I've not had issues with the USPS, but I don't doubt that it is getting worse. Private delivery (Amazon and the like) has been pretty much flawless. Order from McMaster, and it almost invariably arrives within two days (continental US) I just don't exp…
The USPS is in year 4 of a 10 year overhaul of its infrastructure. New facilities with new equipment optimized for the current mail mix. Magazines and catalogs used to be huge. Now they are a fraction of their volume. First class letter volume is crashing as everyone goes paperless. Where there use to be separate facilities for processing first class, bulk mail, and packages; the new facilities deal with everything.…