Is This Progress? or The Post Office Pisses Me Off!

I just mailed out a package. That should be a simple proposition, but in this case I had two different zip codes for the recipient so I had to check which one was correct.

In the past I've just fired up a handy little program called the USPS Shipping Assistant. It's a free program downloadable from the post office web site. I'd been using version 2.2 for a while and it worked great. It was much faster and more convenient than using the web site for such things. This time, however, it wouldn't run. It told me I had to run 3.0 or later.

Okay. It had been a while since I'd had occasion to use it so it was understandable that there was a later version. I'm not so sure why the old one should stop working, though. Anyway, I downloaded the new version 3.1 (over 7M compared to 2.2's 225k - that should have been my first clue) and installed it.

What a piece of crap.

It takes forever to load, which is only natural since it's built on .NET and Internet Explorer. (Damn, I hate lazy "programmers". No better that "script kiddies" if you ask me.) Every time a new dialog comes up you can watch it draw all the controls and graphics. I kid you not - it's that slow. From the looks of it, whoever "programmed" it spent most of their time doing graphic design for the interface. I'd characterize it as putting lipstick on a pig, and stand by that as being 100% accurate. If this is the sort of thing the money from the postage rate increase is going to I want a refund!

Also, when I closed it it didn't stop running! It just minimized to a little icon in my tray next to the clock. I had to right-click on that to tell it to finally exit. Why? Do they perhaps know that the thing is dog slow to load and decided that the "solution" to the slowness of loading this bloated piece of crap is to keep it running? Get an actual programmer to actually fix the thing!

I emailed the following to the USPS on their contact page, specifying in the form that it was a technical issue regarding Shipping Assistant:

Please! Please! Please! Reactivate 2.2!

I tried to use it today and it wouldn't run. I had to use 3.1 and it is PONDEROUSLY slow.

Failing reactivation of 2.2, please include the following changes in 3.2 or 4.0...
1. Drop .NET so it won't require so much memory.
2. Drop the IE interface and do some actual UI programming so it won't take forever each time you switch dialogs, or switch fields for that matter.
3. When the user closes the program, close the program. Don't leave it running in the tray.
4. Get rid of the gingerbread/bells & whistles. Fire the designers and whatever postal official let his ditzy trophy wife approve the interface while you're at it too. If the programming & design were outsourced, get someone else this time because the people who made 3.1 padded the project with useless crap.

In other words, get rid of all the crud that just slows the thing down, defeating its purpose of *assisting* our shipping. It doesn't assist if it slows us down. The changes from 2.2 to 3.1 only serve to further cement the USPS's old reputation for slowness.

I doubt it will get any action, but maybe if enough people read this blog, agree, and decide to stop settling for crap software and complain, maybe together we'll make something happen. I will post about this again when and if I get a response.

Meanwhile, I also intend to see if I can't hack 2.2 into thinking it's 3.1 so that just maybe it will work again. If I have any success with that I'll post instructions. If you have already been able to do it, please reply with instructions - no sense reinventing the wheel.