[byuu]

I definitely agree with that.

I offered a $500 bounty to anyone who could help me locate the package. It was worth that much for me to recover it.

In the end, both USPS employees that really helped me out the most turned down my offer to send them the bounty.

I realize there's a dark side to this suggestion: it weakly incentivizes loss for the purpose of getting a reward for it, and makes getting help a luxury for the wealthy.

However, the current system of only helping when cases hit the media doesn't work either. Obviously they can't afford to do exhaustive searches for every last piece of lost mail. There needs to be some sort of middle ground, where value and personal importance of the package is weighed against costs and available resources.

Probably the first thing that needs to happen is for the USPS to stop getting bled dry over pension payouts.