The postal service lost my passport that I sent first class tracked to an embassy in order to get a visa shortly before I was due to leave overseas for an extended period of time. It was marked as delivered, but never was according to the embassy. After hours of phone calls and hold time, the USPS admitted that it had been redirected to a lost mail facility in a city 800 miles away from its destination on accident. It is still sitting in that lost mail facility according to the USPS all these years later. I had to call my congressman's office to push the state department to get me a new passport expedited so that I could get my visa in time before I had to leave. Huge headache.

They've lost plenty of other things besides. I once sent $100 cash in a fun colored envelope containing a birthday card. The card arrived scotch-taped closed with the money gone. I know it wasn't an accident where it got ripped open by a conveyor belt or something because they re-seal torn envelopes in a plastic bag when that happens. That was more an annoying than headache inducing, but UPS has never caused problems for me like those and I use them by an order of magnitude more than USPS.

The worst part isn't that those things happen. Theft and accidents can happen anywhere. The worst part is that the USPS takes no responsibility and could not care any less. So what if a postal employee stole money from a birthday card? Sucks to be me. I can't send letters any other way. The USPS has a legally protected monopoly on letter delivery. So what if the hold time is 9 hours? Who else am I going to go to? The post office is built on bureaucracy and you and I pay the price for it.