![An image of a mail box outside of a post office](https://sudokubliss.com/content-uploads/worst-post-offices.webp) Whether it’s mailing a birthday card or returning a shirt that didn’t fit, a visit to the post office can be daunting. While some locations across the U.S. make it easy to stop in quickly and continue with your day, others are plagued by long lines, lost mail, and unhelpful staff. At Sudoku Bliss we know that playing a quick [game of Sudoku](https://sudokubliss.com/) on your phone can make a long wait more bearable—but even a good puzzle can only keep you occupied for so long before frustration sets in. That’s why we set out to learn where post offices are leaving visitors the most dissatisfied. To do this, we analyzed nearly 216,000 Google reviews for post offices across 58 major U.S. cities, looking for mentions of issues related to long waits, customer service, mail delivery, and more. We then used this data to calculate the average percentage of negative mentions for post offices in each city. Read on to learn which locations topped our ranking. ## Key Takeaways * Atlanta, GA, has the worst post offices in America, with negative complaints in half of all reviews. * The single worst post office in the country is in Atlanta, GA, where 64% of reviews are negative. * “Rude” is the most common word in post office reviews, ahead of "line" and "wait." * New York, NY, post offices draw the most complaints about rude, unhelpful staff. * Memphis, TN, is the worst city for lost, stolen, and damaged mail. * Waits and rude service are nearly tied as America's top post office complaints. ## Where Americans Complain Most About Post Offices When we ranked all 58 cities by their share of negative reviews, it was Atlanta, GA, that came out on top, and it isn't close. Half of all Atlanta post office reviews (50%) mention a complaint, making it the only city in the study where a bad experience shows up in 1 out of every 2 reviews. The rest of the worst five are Norfolk, VA, (45%), Chicago, IL, (45%), Philadelphia, PA, (45%), and Houston, TX, (43%). Norfolk is the odd one out, the only mid-size city to crack the top five while the rest of the leaderboard fills up with the country's biggest metros. Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Washington, D.C., and New York, NY, all land in the worst eight, so if you've ever felt like the busiest cities run the most draining post offices, the reviews agree. That holds when you zoom out, since locations with 300 or more reviews average 44% negative against 37% across the country. In all, 22 of the 58 cities sit above that 37% national average. Not every city is a headache. San Diego, CA, has the mildest post offices in the country, with complaints in just 1 in 4 reviews, roughly half Atlanta's rate. Salt Lake City, UT, and Knoxville, TN, aren't far behind. ## The Worst Individual Locations Across the U.S. After ranking the cities, we wanted to find the single worst branches in the country. Up first, is an Atlanta, GA, post office located at 3495 Buckhead Loop NE, as 64% of reviews are negative, and Atlanta doesn't stop there. The city claims 5 of the 10 worst offices in the study. Houston, TX, is the only other city with more than one location in that bottom 10, with 2 of its own. The wider picture is rough, too. About 1 in 8 offices we looked at (143 of 1,235) draw complaints in the majority of their reviews, and nearly half (44%) sit above 40% negative. A bad trip to the post office is closer to the norm than the exception, and the spread between the worst branch and the mildest is enormous, running from 64% negative in Atlanta all the way down to under 2% at the calmest location in St. Louis, MO. ## What People Complain About Most After finding the worst offices, we wanted to know what people are actually complaining about, so we counted the words that show up most often in negative reviews. We expected the wait to be the headline gripe. Instead, the word people reach for most is "rude," which appears nearly 24,000 times, ahead of "line" and "wait," which rank 2nd and 3rd, respectively. This is followed by “worst” in 4th with nearly 16,000 mentions and “long” in fifth place at 9,660 mentions. Looking further down our ranking, we find a couple more complaints tied to the post office staff as “attitude” claims 8th. This is followed by “unprofessional” in 11th and “lazy” in 12th, all of which point at how staff treat people rather than how long the line takes. ### Which Cities Are Worst at What After learning that staff attitude drives so many complaints, we split the gripes into three buckets and found that negative reviews can vary from one category to the next. For waits and delays, Atlanta, GA, leads the country at 54 complaints per 100 reviews, followed by Philadelphia, PA, (48) and Norfolk, VA, (47), while Spokane, WA, and Omaha, NE, stay calm at roughly a third of Atlanta's rate. Service and staff complaints point somewhere else, with New York, NY, running the most complained-about counter in the country at 48 per 100 reviews, ahead of Houston, TX, and Washington, D.C., both near 45\. And for lost, stolen, and damaged mail, Memphis, TN, is the worst in the nation at 13 per 100 reviews, with New Orleans, LA, close behind and Columbus, OH, (11) third. Memphis, TN, runs nearly double the national rate for mail problems and leads the country for theft words like "stolen" and "theft." What really stands out is how differently cities break down. New York, NY, ranks 1st for staff complaints but near the bottom (54th) for mail, while Memphis, TN, ranks 1st for mail but only 27th for waits. Across the country, waits and rude service land almost even as the top two sources of frustration (about 46% and 45% of all mentions), and mail and package problems trail well behind at roughly 10%. In 26 of the 58 cities, complaints about rude staff actually outnumber complaints about waiting, which tells you the post office's problem is as much about attitude as it is about speed. ## Kill Time in Line with Sudoku Bad customer service, a lost package, a line out the door. It’s the kind of experience that sticks with you, and can sour your mood for the rest of the day. So after digging through thousands of reviews about long waits and short tempers, we started thinking less about the problem and more about a way to reset. Sometimes a little mental break can do a lot to bring your blood pressure back down, and few things reset your mind better than a puzzle that requires your full attention. So next time your frustration starts to rise while standing in line at the post office, let [Sudoku Bliss](https://sudokubliss.com/) help you relax and kill the time. Whether you’re a beginner searching for an [easy](https://sudokubliss.com/easy) or [medium](https://sudokubliss.com/medium) Sudoku puzzle or an advanced player seeking the challenge of an [expert](https://sudokubliss.com/expert) or [evil](https://sudokubliss.com/evil) puzzle, we have you covered. Simply focus on the grid on your phone for a few minutes and before you know it, your trip to the post office will be checked off your to-do list. ## Methodology In this study, we set out to find the cities with the worst post offices in the U.S. To do this, we analyzed 215,954 Google reviews across 1,235 post offices in 58 major U.S. cities, looking at how often reviewers raised complaints about waits and delays, service and staff, and mail and package problems. We then calculated the number of reviews with 3 or fewer stars with at least one keyword mentioned at each location and divided that by the total number of reviews. We then calculated the average percentage of negative mentions by city and ranked cities accordingly. In addition to our overall ranking, we also analyzed the cities with the worst post offices by keyword category. Finally, we calculated the most mentioned words in post office complaints and the top 25 worst post offices across the country based on the percentage of negative mentions.