An annoyance that ought to be avoidable

If you have to call the Post Office to get a redelivery scheduled, and it's anything but one simple package, you'll be annoyed before you're done.

First. you get that robot that insists on saying "I" - "I'll have to verify some information," it says, and "I'd like to check your address with our commercial database." What, the Post Office doesn't have its own database of addresses? I wonder, and, You're a robot; you don't have a sense of identity or desires. At least I hope not... To be sure, this one's not as horrible as "Julie" from Amtrak, who can't recognize some forty or fifty percent of the destinations Amtrak services. It doesn't have a name, for starters. And it pretty much recognizes the few responses it's programmed to accept. Also it allows you to jump in and answer before all the menu options have been presented. But ... this is how it goes:

You say Delivery Services, and then Schedule a Redelivery. Then you confirm that's what you want. Then you tell it your phone number so it can find your address, and you then confirm the address. Then you spell your name, and confirm the spelling. Then you say, Yes, someone will be home. Then you say Yes, you have the redelivery notice. Then you say the date, and then you say "Parcel". Then you read what sort of services there are, or say none. Then you read off the Article Number, and write down the confirmation number. Then it asks if you have another parcel to schedule ... and if you do, it hands you over to a real person - or at least puts you in the waiting queue for one. Why couldn't the first thing it asks be "How many parcels?"

And if your package is coming from, oh, say, Lviv, Ukraine, and it's both registered and delivery confirmation, so you have to say "Mulitple Services" - well, the robot can't handle that, either, and passes you over to the queue for a real person. So, why isn't the second question about the delivery services?

And I ask that because once you get to the real person you have to go through all of the above all over again. Clearly, the system doesn't have any way to pass any of the information you have painstakingly recited over to the person. You have to recite it all again.

And that's awfully annoying.