March 23, 2007
Kensington Post Office - the Worst Post Office in NYC?
Earlier this week, the Daily News looked at the YouTube video showing a classic meltdown at the Kensington Post Office. A man, frustrated about the service, yells, "Get the manager over here! I want the manager. We'll see how long you have your job, sweetie." An employee says, "Who the hell do you think you are?" only for the man to reply, "I'm the customer, you stupid bitch." Yeah, that sounds about right.
The video is from December (Curbed suspects the man was just trying to send a letter to Santa - dude, Santa totally needs to get online), which might be one of the worst months to go to the post office. Except the PO seems more staffed during December, so the lines seem extra long during the months after!
According someone's account of a community meeting, via Gowanus Lounge, residents were up in arms about the Kensington's Post Office's antics. One resident wondered why it was so difficult to contact anyone at the post office - there are no phone number, no email addresses, etc. - and Assemblyman Jim Brennan said, "“I used to list those numbers in my monthly newsletter. But the post office kept changing the numbers as soon as I listed them.” HA! Another resident said, "I’m from Vietnam. And I can tell you that the post office in Saigon works better than this one.” Which is funny, and since Jake went to Saigon last month, we believe the Saigon Central Post Office is also more beautiful than Kensington.
Do you think the Kensington Station is the worst (Ben Smith does) or do you nominate another? And the News reported last month that City Councilman Bill DeBlasio demanded "employee retraining, Web cam surveillance and customer representatives, among other upgrades" for the station. That actually sounds like good things for some other stations - going to the post office is a nightmare all its own.
|
9th Street, Park Slope, is hands-down the worst. They yell at you there.
i live in the kensington area.. never really had the displeasure of going to the post office, but ive had packages held there, ive called to request redelivery, never had one thing redelivered.
and i know this could have happened at many different points in the mail process, but ive had two holiday cards completely torn apart and delivered 2 months later, sans gift cards.
Seconded on the Park Slope P.O. The forms you need are scattered on the floor and the tables.
If that postal worker looked Chinese, she would have gotten her ass kicked.
My mail used to come to me so badly ripped, and stuffed into the mail slot via the Kensington office, that I called the post office to complain, and ended up getting into an argument with the mail carriers supervisor, who accused me of lying...
So much for customer service
I bet the PO agent was either
white or black.
Did anyone teach these federal agents that
the customer is always right, and its agents
need to have humility toward its customers ?
Both post offices in Park Slope (9th Street and the one on 7th Ave) are horrendous. If you have 40 minutes to spare, you too can mail your package. I went away on a long vacation and put a stop on my mail. When I went to pick up one month's worth of mail, all I got was three envelopes. They had lost most of my mail, including some paychecks. Fun times.
The one on 7th Ave rarely opens on time, meaning that going in before work is impossible. There are four windows, but never more than one or two employees. The line snakes out the door. It would honestly take less time to take the subway to 34th Street and conduct your business there!
I read Gothamist on my bloglines, but never comment. Until now.
I used to live across the street, directly, from the Kensington Post Office. I used to take the bus to Park Slope to avoid it. Employees were dead-eyed and seemingly confused by things like "letters" and "packages." If you showed up even 10 minutes after it opened, the line would be immediately to the door. Hands-down the worst post office that I've ever walked into.
So, what's the best post office then?
I send letters. and do all online banking, plus it saves a lot of paper. I refuse to go into any post office, they're all assholes—all of em!
if i need to send a package I use FedEx, they're much more reliable and have superior service compared to any post office.
it's all about private service.
Is there any other recourse than complaining to the supervisor? (who obviously doesn't give a rat's ass)
311 maybe?
seriously, if 'civilians' tampering with mail is a federal offense, shouldn't there be someone who cares about the whole post office screwing it up?
There ought to be some level of governmental accountability here.
The staff at the old Church Street Station post office were wonderful.
The concept of 9-5 delivery (Fedex, UPS, US Postal Service)and 9-5 window service (Post Offices)is ridiculous for anyone working a 9-5 job.
I lived in the 11218 for almost ten years and I have to say that I'm surprised at this. I always found mail delivery to be pretty good although I would occasionally not get my New Yorker magazines. I didn't actually go into the post office very often but in the ten year period I moved three times and they would always continue to forward my mail long after the forwarding window had expired.
Now the Park Slope post office, that's another story. That was hands down the worst post office ever.
Are you seriously posting this article without mentioning the Boerum Hill post office on Atlantic? The one the community has been fighting with for YEARS to get halfway decent service? THAT is the worst post office in the city, no question.
Kensington wasn't good, but I had more horrible experiences at the one on 9th Street in Park Slope. They NEVER had stamps in their stamp dispensers or, alternatively, they didn't give any change. The line wasn't to be believed. Thank God I work at a job where I can send things out from work without question.
The P.O. in Brooklyn Heights is great. You wait in line, but it's really only because there are a lot of people in line, not because the staff is wretched and insane.
i've had to go a few times to pick up packages...what a nightmare...by far the worst ive ever seen.
nice looking building from the outside, tho
the place is overwhelmed by immigrants who dont speak english very well...there for passport services, money orders, etc...it reeeeally slows the place down which leads to frustration from all ends.
What about the fact that Carroll Gardens doesn't really have a post office? Zip code 11231 has to cross the BQE and go to the Red Hook post office to pick up packages, etc.
I nominate Canal St. The Window 11 folks are great, but the rest...they only open 2 windows at lunch, the line is miserable and, the last time I was there, one of the clerks announced she was not going to take more than 6 packages. Of course, everyone in line had a pile of packages and when they questioned this, she said she didn't care and everyone could screw themselves. The person she was serving said, "Isn't this your job?!" To which, the clerk yelled that she was NOT to be questioned or told how to do her job. Really professional.
I've used both the Kip's Bay post office on 34th and the Williamsburg post office on Havemeyer and they are both incredibly bad - slow, understaffed, understocked, and contemptuous of the customers. I was away last summer and got the deluxe forwarding service, which is not cheap, and was on the phone to the Williamsburg office every week over the summer trying to get my gd mail. No one I talked to, at any level, had any idea how the service was supposed to work even though the rules/description were right there on the forms distributed by the USPS.
I used to live in Berkeley, CA, and thought the PO there was unbelievably bad, but NY post offices set a new standard. All the ones I've been to in New England, on the other hand, were great.
Dear Gothamist:
I just mailed you a letter giving the Post Office's point of view and defending that fine institution against angry critics.
You should be getting the letter in a month or two.
I second what clintonstreet said - the entire 11231 zip code - which is a pretty big area - has one post office that is very, very inaccesible to many parts of that zip code. I always use a UPS store when I need to send something - no lines, cost about the same as the p.o.
Shame on you. Regardless of the grievances people have against the post office in Bklyn (the branch PO on Seventh Ave. in Park Slope should be shuttered and sent to Baghdad), to repost this Youtube film is an affront. Anyone can see that this customer has a developmental disability. His tirade has as much to do with his maltreatment as a customer as it does with the nature of his disability: he has probably been treated poorly in many social and business settings and may, perhaps, have a low frustration tolerance. Despite his apparent rich vocabulary, he clearly suffers from a disability that impairs his judgment. The person who filmed him and anyone who laughs at him should be ashamed.
11238 (Adelphi station - Prospect Heights) is pretty awful. Most journals that I would get in the mail would arrive months late. Once, I received a special letter from the PO apologizing about a piece of mail that was completely destroyed (ripped in half). They included the destroyed mail in the envelope.
I've had them lose checks and not deliver packages. Even if you are home, they will more often than not just give you a yellow slip to go to the post office to pick up your package (which, btw, is NO WHERE CLOSE to the community it serves).
If you stop by the Adelphi station on a Saturday morning, it is not uncommon to have a line going out the door...
I have stood line at the Greenpoint post office for 45 minutes without it moving before.
ummm... why is that guy talking like that?
Famdoc - I hear you. This could definitely be seen as a cheap shot at the disabled. I was under the impression, though, that people were applauding him for saying what everybody else is thinking. That he's developmentally disabled and has a better idea of how the post office should be run than the staff really says something.
"ummm... why is that guy talking like that?"
Joe, see comment 22, above.
kensington is BY FAR the worst i've ever seen! thank you for posting this! i definitely used to choose the park slop post offices over kensington, despite the hassle of going to a different neighborhood. if you've nominated a park slope p.o., i challenge you to visit our friends in kensington--their slowness, meanness, and laziness will make your blood boil.
The POs in NYC seem to have the right - or take the right - to make their own rules. Particularly with package delivery, my PO in Queens used to leave the slips that said if you signed the slip and left it out they would deliver the package. I did so, they never took the slip nor delivered the package. When I finally went to the PO, the manager said, Well, you have to call us and tell us you want it delivered. Hello? Where's that rule printed? Unless you're a longtime resident, you just have no idea how to go about the simplest tasks.
9th St Park Slope is bad, and they are generally unintelligent when it comes to delivering mail. We had the unfortunate fate of living on 6th St, while there is also a 6th AVENUE nearby with the same numbered address. We always got their mail, I would circle the "ave" in red ink, and two days later, it was back in my box. I started hand-delivering it. Once we got something posted to North Carolina, again twice. And something my roommate sent to CT went to Arizona. Wtf.
7th avenu park slope is horrible as well. One teller usually, 10+ people in line, stamp machine always broken. I must say though, there are always a lot of dumb people in line too. Bring your own pens and tape people!
P.O.? post office or pissed off? i've had consistently good and fast service at the post office on 42nd st. and 9th outside of the port authority, and the one on 43rd st. between 5th and 6th. you get the usual surly bunch, but a lot of the staff at these two branches, that i've dealt with anyway, are quite friendly.
you'd think with park slopers penchant for complaining, something would've gotten through about this branch. you can send a complaint through the usps website. i've actually gotten a quick response from them - will that result in anything? maybe not, but if there's enough people pissed off about them, who knows.
are you sure that video isn't from the 9th street park slope p.o.? i feel like i was there and witnessed that whole outburst.... or that guy is just making the rounds.
on another note, i happened to be there this morning around 9am. and it was EMPTY. bizarre.
canal street is terrible. i feel like i've been shipped into a terry gilliam movie there, with the attendant time distortion. also, it is miserably hot in the summer. they really have pinpointed suffering down to a science at canal street.
now i use chelsea station, which is much more lovely, however the lines are still long. i don't wait in the lines, b/c i ALWAYS use the automated postal machine.
"Kensington wasn't good, but I had more horrible experiences at the one on 9th Street in Park Slope. They NEVER had stamps in their stamp dispensers or, alternatively, they didn't give any change."
The Kensington office has had an "out of order" stamp dispenser for over a year and a half now, and that's only as long as I've lived in this neighborhood. Could be longer. There is no automated service whatsoever--you are at the complete mercy of the self-absorbed, chatty bitches who work there.
No matter how long the line is, there's only ever one person attending to customers while she gabs bullshit to the three other workers who are sitting behind the counter, admiring their nails and doing jack shit else.
i have had many problems at the 9th street post office in Park Slope. Lost packages and they never ever redeliver. they would rather sit on there ass and have you come in to pickup.
Screw the USPS. This is why I pay bills online and use private delivery.
Most post offices in the city are terrible. I have had countless problems with mail not being held, not being forwarded... etc...
It all comes down to employeee incompetence. Most of the workers are of very limited intelligence. Add that to the fact that there are very few repercussions for below average job performance, and few reasons to excell.
It's a nightmare, but there are no other options for basic mail service.
i second male man, everybody thinks their own PO is the worst, we'd do better to list the 'good' ones. if there are any. the problem is, the postal service doesn't really seem to be accountable to anyone but itself.
For the time I lived in Park Slope, the office on 9th street was horrible. Always wait in long line, rude service, etc. My favorite part about that is that they won't let you "recycle" boxes that have a company logo on them (ie reusing Fresh Direct boxes). Who knew they can make up their own rules for what can go through the US mail! Now I'm on the other side of the park, which has it's own difficulties, but I've met some very caring mail carriers (one who lives in my building).
YES!!! This is the worst post office in NYC!!! I used to live in Park Slope/11215, and they are rank amateurs in incompetence compared to 11218.
If someone ships me something USPS, I will let it bounce back to the shipper and then pay at my own expense to get it FedEx or UPS.
John
Adelphi 11238 is terrible.
But now I have seen in post offices machines that can do everything you need the window for.
Hopefully this will shake out all the lazy, incompetent, useless and rude employees.
If you think the 11211 (havemeyer) post office is bad, try 11206 (debevoise st) in bushwick/east williamsburg. the service unbelievable, and they are extremely unkind (screaming at tiny old black ladies). I've called the USPS several times to complain and spoken with the manager who gave me the most ridiculous ghetto-bureaucrat speak. I am glad that others have horror stories as well. I really thought mine was the worst.
That gay dude reminds me of the gay teacher on South Park.
If anyone is deserving of 50 shots from the police, that man does.
I've lived in the Kensington and Park Slope PO areas, but Park Slope is worse BY FAR. I found Kensington to have lots of minor annoyances (lines, lack of supplies, etc.) but I had few problems with my mail service.
The Van Brunt station on 9th Street in Park Slope, however, should not even be able to be called a "post office." Mail service in the Slope sends me into a rage - my blood pressure is rising just typing this.
They ignore change of address forwarding and I would daily get mail for various neighbors as far as 6 blocks away. I've had numerous packages go missing after tracking them to the Van Brunt station - then poof! Gone! At best, they're mishandling an alarming amount of post -- at worse, stealing it.
My favorite fury-inducing instance, while tracking down a missing overseas package, I was told (with attitude) that I'd already come in, showed ID, signed for it and taken it. When I insisted on seeing my signature, it turned out it was signed for by (and presumably given to) someone I'd never heard of! I was then lied to by a "manager" just to get me out the door. My reimbursement never appeared, which is probably because they never filed the claim form, I discovered later when I called the national 800 number. Beautiful.
The Long Island City post office (11106) has a perpetual line all day every day. And they are s-l-o-w.
I'm going to have to throw in another nomination for the 11238/adelphi station as the worst. I've had mail stolen, credit cards stolen, magazines opened and read (if they show up at all), lost packages, and even had my bank account frozen twice due to their ineptitude.
Even though my name is on my mailbox, and I've lived in the same building for 8 years, they bounce mail back to my bank as 'undeliverable', and as a result the bank freezes my account. What happens when you go to the PO to complain? You get a blank stare.
I nominate the post office on 23rd street and 10th avenue as one of the worst. On several occasions Ive seen postal workers stop helping customers to answer personal calls from their cell phones. The line is always out the door and naturally there is only one or two windows open. The last straw for me was when I tried to mail a stack of 15 packets and after the 10th one the postal worker told me that they can only process 10 items at a time and I would have to get back in line and wait to mail the remaining 5.
My neighborhood P.O. (on East Broadway in 10002) is okay as long as you haven't had the misfortune to go on a day when every single person in Chinatown has decided to send an oversized package overseas.
All the midtown post offices suck: 3rd/54th, Grand Central (HORRIBLE, especially the totally incompetent French (?) lady who looks like a little pig - if you've been to that branch you'll know who I mean), even the tiny one at 2nd/47th. The workers there yelled at me when I asked to borrow a pair of scissors. Nice, right?
ok, so maybe this postal agent wasn't nice. we don't really see anything in this video that shows us WHY this guy is flipping out like that. i don;t understand why nobody here is talking about how INSANE this customer is! if i had to deal with people like this every day, i would start asking who the hell they think they are too.
9th Street Park Slope wins as worst.
Regarding the boxes that someone else mentioned, I have come across that too:
They wouldn't allow me to mail a package in an amazon.com box, because apparently it is advertising amazon and the post office doesn't want to give free advertising, even though it was mailed to me.
Federal monopoly + unskilled unionized workers= incompetents with a sense of entitlement.
Our tax dollars at (almost) work.
Lol, I can't remember the last time I went too my local Post office . Mmmm, It seems about right though, I think it really depends on what Post office you go too . If these employees are really that bad then they should be replaced . The basis of customer service is courtesy, & that ain't what's happening here !
I'd be the first to agree that NYC postal service is the worst (especially Brooklyn), but this video hardly showcases it. All I see is what appears to be a mentally unhinged man acting out and generally behaving like a douchebag who enjoys a good powertrip.
The Park Slope post office on 9th Street had been one of the very first places I had visited after moving to New York.
Sleepless and exhausted--I had just endured a red-eye with delays into La Guardia--but still wide-eyed (This was New York! after all), I sleepily agreed to accompany my Uncle, whom I was staying with, to drop off a package at the nearby post office. My uncle lives in the Gowanus area and it was a breezy summer morning, why not?
Maybe it was the exhaustion, or maybe just the alien newness of everything, but my abnormal mindstate made the ensuing scene seem surreal, almost cinematic. The line, of course, was out the door, and bodies packed the flourescent-lit space like teenagers packed into a basement to see a college band. In the front, though, a woman I presume was a mother--a toddler was nestled into a stroller she gripped onto--was, there's no other word for this: flailing. Flailing and screaming. The clerk stood steely-eyed behind her plastic, bulletproof partition, devoid of response. "F--k you! F--k ALL of you!" She pointed not only at the clerk, but at the rest of us. Her kid cooed from the stroller. She slammed her package into the glass, SPIT, yes SPIT on the floor, and huffed off, shaking the dust off of her heels, I'm sure, as she exited. I stood there for a second, shifting the weird box my Uncle made me hold, wondering what to do. The clerk at the front, though, didn't miss a beat: "Next!"
"Welcome to New York!" my Uncle said.
what the hell is wrong with this website, when you click on the comments section of the post office post, it brings you to a comment page with a fraction of the actual comments recorded. Then, when you click on the gothamist homepage, it brings you to a different order of postings (older) with the newest ones missing. WTF?
What about the post office on Myrtle ave?
I swear, the employees there (besides being disgruntled) think it's their job to tell you WHY you CANNOT mail what you came to mail, rather than help you try to mail what you came to mail.
I've been sent away from the counter for using the wrong form, just to search the whole place to find the proper form wasn't stocked. (when they could have just been like "you used the wrong form, here's the right one")... I remember seeing a pratt student, after waiting close to an hour on line be told she couldn't use the box she had used. In tears she said, "but this is the package it was mailed to ME in!"
The Kensington post office is the WORST! I never had the displeasure of actually GOING there (thank god), but when I moved and asked to get my mail forwarded, I literally had to call daily for four weeks to get them to actually forward it. Luckily my old roommate still lived there and collected my mail that was going to my old address.
I live near the Cadman post office in downtown Brooklyn now and I have to say the service is much better. I also used to live in 11205 and the office on Myrtle Avenue wasn't bad either.
Urgh. My favorite is the Cadman Plaza PO at Christmas time. All those miserable postal workers scowling behind their bullet proof glass wearing reindeer horns or santa hats - so festive! They have lost my mail, refused to pay for stolen insured packages they admitted had been LEFT ON MY STOOP by the postal carrier, and randomly returned my mail as undeliverable for no reason whatsoever. When I asked about it I never got any answer. Once I was in the middle of a transaction when the witchy lady behind the glass told me to basically fuck off, she was going to lunch, she was hungry. There is no recourse. They investigate their own complaints, so there you have it. Seems like it is illegal to tamper with the mail unless you work for the Brooklyn PO.
Postal service in general has gotten pretty bad though.. we have had major problems in our 200+ unit building getting mail on time or at all. When one of the residents complained to the post office, she was told that the mail carrier assigned to our route is "old" and "slow" and close to retirement, so he flat-out refuses to deliver mail to our building and the other 200+ unit building in our neighborhood. As a result, we get "freelance"? carriers putting mail in our boxes, and we get a different one nearly every day, so they never get anything right. I routinely get mail for someone in another BUILDING, on another STREET altogether, who happens to have the same apartment number as me. WTF?!?
But hey, what does that old mail carrier care? He'll be set for life with his government pension. *sigh*
A couple of years ago, my mail suddenly stopped getting delivered. I'm in the 11211 zip, the S4th st post office. I called the post office repeatedly and the manager always said that I needed the speak with my mail carrier to find out what was going on and the mail carrier wasn't there are the moment. He also said that I could not come pick up my mail because only my mail carrier would know where it is. He would take a message and promise that my mail carrier would call back, which he never did. Finally after 2 WEEKS of no mail in our building at all, I call and the mail carrier is actually at the post office. He basically says "oh yeah, that building, I lost the front door key for that building a couple of weeks ago". Are you fucking serious? He lost the key that was in the postman's lockbox and told no one, not my landlord, not any of the other residents in my building, he just stopped delivering mail. The front door locks had to be changed and a new key had to be left at the market downstairs for the mail carrier to pick up. A few days later, 3 gigantic mailbags of our backed-up mail showed up in the front hallway, unsorted. I guess I should be happy that he didn't just throw it all away. Oh yeah, and he was a total dick about it, like it was such a hassle for him to have to deliver all the mail he never delivered and never told anyone about.