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United States Postal Service

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Organization

The Resume

    (July 26, 1775- )
    Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    Independent agency of the United States government
    Founded as the United States Post Office by the Second Continental Congress (July 26, 1775)
    Established as part of the Presidential cabinet as the Post Office Department (1792)
    Issued its first stamps (July 1, 1847)
    'City delivery' began direct mail delivery to homes and businesses in urban areas (1863)
    Rural Free Delivery introduced (1891)
    Zip codes introduced (1963)
    Transformed into the USPS under the Postal Reorganization Act (1971)
    Employs 574,000 workers and operates 218,000 vehicles (2011)
    Delivers 465 million pieces of mail a day on average (2011)

Why United States Postal Service might be annoying:

    They have a legal monopoly on delivering first class mail.
    Its Postal Inspection Service has enforced the monopoly by raiding businesses to check if the mail they send through FedEx really is urgent.
    Most of what they deliver to you is junk mail and bills.
    They keep jacking up the price of stamps by one or two cents every year or two.
    It was $8.5 billion in the red in 2010.
    Its employees have a reputation for going postal and killing their co-workers.
    The most prominent USPS employees in pop culture are Cliff Claven and Newman, neither of whom helps project a hip image.

Why United States Postal Service might not be annoying:

    Its head has the cool title 'Postmaster General.'
    The first Postmaster General was Benjamin Franklin.
    If you are an American, it is legally obligated to serve you, no matter how pathetically dinky and out of the way the town you live in is.
    It stopped receiving taxpayer subsidies in the early 1980s.
    FedEx and United Parcel Service (UPS) are allowed to compete with it for deliveries of urgent letters and packages.
    They introduced 'Forever' stamps, so at least you no longer have to scrounge up one-cent stamps when the rates change.
    One study concluded that postal workers are actually less likely than the average profession to commit murder at work.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 97 Votes: 61.86% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 11 Votes: 18.18% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 12 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 39 Votes: 15.38% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 89 Votes: 42.70% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 92 Votes: 53.26% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 13 Votes: 23.08% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 18 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 82 Votes: 58.54% Annoying