Anyone notice a difference with the US Postal service?

[Baitball Blogger]

Last edited Thu Nov 23, 2017, 08:57 PM - Edit history (1)

Still waiting for a wedding invitation that, allegedly, was mailed weeks ago. A friend said that was normal. She said one bride had to resend all of her New York addresses because the first batch never made it.

This is not the kind of service that I remember.

[Ferrets are Cool]

1. Nope.

[Rollo]

2. My cable bill has been arriving after the payment due date...

So, yeah, but I don't know if the problem is the USPS or the cable company...

I called to cable company to complain about it, esp after I got dinged with a late fee, and the last bill arrived on time.

Go figure.

[underpants]

3. If seen them cranking 7 days a week

[Polly Hennessey]

4. No.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. It's been fine for me.

The mailman arrives every morning between 9:30 and 10:30, same as always. These days I mostly get ads because I do most of my business on line, but stuff that needs to come and go seems to be coming and going, just like forever.

[Yonnie3]

6. Yes - we have local issues.

Last edited Thu Nov 23, 2017, 10:45 PM - Edit history (1)

Our mail carrier retired about a month ago. Sometimes mail doesn't arrive until after dark or at all. Some packages sit at the post office an extra day per their tracking. The substitutes have often done a full route before they come with ours and deliver to the wrong address a lot. The postman gave them tons of notice, but the bureaucracy hasn't even posted his job yet. We have a new post mistress, who claims they will become more responsive. They still don't answer the phone and the voice mail is always full.

I read that the standards for delivery were changed, adding two days to first class. I hope I am remembering correctly.

[cannabis_flower]

7. My husband has been waiting

for a package from Honduras for a couple of weeks. It is his blood pressure medicine. It is not a controlled substance but I was thinking perhaps they could tell it was some kind of pill and decided to open it before sending it on to make sure it wasn't opioids or other illegal substance before sending it on.

[MarvinGardens]

8. I have a jounal that is late or gotten lost this month.

I need to find out if the publisher didn't send it for some reason. My bills seem to be arriving on time.

[Wellstone ruled]

9. Our letter carrier said

they are mega understaffed and the Top Management just does not give a damn. Just another defacto hiring freeze. Interesting thing is about to happen,thousands of Carrier's are heading to the retirement line.

[A HERETIC I AM]

20. The lowest seniority guy at one Post Office I frequent has been there for 7 years.

Many areas are understaffed but I think we will see a hiring binge in the near term. Your observation is correct however, as in lots of folks are near retirement in the next couple years. There has been a hiring freeze in portions of the system, but a lot depends on the area of the country and local management.

(Disclaimer: I work for a US Postal Contractor, hauling mail intercity)

[Wellstone ruled]

23. Thanksk,you see the

real workings. Our Carrier was able for retirement three years ago. Like many,as long as the health holds our,hey,keep on keeping on.

Appears if the Station Manager can hold costs,he or she gets the bonus envelope. Most of our Carriers in my area work a ten hour and many times a twelve hour or more day. When you are a short timer,you take the Gravy,knowing full well,you can pull the pin anytime.

[LibArts]

10. We get a hiccup once in awhile

USPS carriers have done some really dumb stuff. Our regular carrier retired about a year ago and service has been both good and bad since.

[Historic NY]

12. Here too, they run the route in the opposite direction

making unnecessary longer time to pickup and deliver. I've seen them go back up the street because they forgot to deliver. increasingly they seem to be out there late in some case 7pm or so. The other night they dropped an e-bay package at almost 8pm. Younger workers or just temps. My mail comes sometime late in the afternoon when it was here faithfully before noon for years.

[matt819]

11. Everything fine here (nt)

[doc03]

13. There was a story in the local paper a couple weeks ago about this guy that just got

a letter from his brother that was killed in WWII. So it is improving.

[GeorgeGist]

14. Not here.

[flotsam]

15. I think they do very well

Last week I ordered a pair of dwarf crayfish which were to be shipped from Northern California to Southern New Hampshire. My worry was that if they got hung up over today's holiday it could be fatal. Then I was notified they shipped around 10AM Monday and my heart sank...but at 4pm yesterday (Wed) the postman delivered. So my story was a $20 sale that included shipping made it cross country and to my front door in 54 hours flat. And I'll take service like that any day.

[blaze]

16. Our mailman is great, and I dread the day he retires!

He took a too long vacation and the revolving door of subs were a sad replacement.

[A HERETIC I AM]

21. For what it's worth.....

Can I take you from the job you know best and put you in a circumstance unfamiliar to you and then gauge YOUR performance?

Carriers get familiar with their routes and get more efficient as time goes by. Asking someone who knows the job of carrier to cover a route they don't know is like asking a truck driver (me, as an example) to operate a front end loader. Sure, they're both machines, and I know I can figure it out, but it's going to take me a bit to get that front end loader down pat. Move me to another machine tomorrow and I start all over again.

[blaze]

22. Oh, I agree with everything you said.

And as someone who worked (a very long time ago) as a sub for MIA newspaper delivery people, I have been in a similar situation myself. I talked with one carrier (to confirm that Mike was on vacation and NOT retired or sick) who said that on some days three different carriers picked up parts of his route and tacked it on to the end of their own. I have absolutely NO problem with them at all. I can handle late mail.

My problems were with the sub-contractors... receiving mail that belonged to various neighbors, leaving my fence gate open... careless sorts of errors. Very serious first world problems.

To be clear, I am a huge supporter of USPS. (And Mike!!)

[Hoyt]

17. Working well enough for me. Sometimes mail goes to house next door,

but no big deal.

[crazycatlady]

18. AS someone who sells things online

I have no complaint about the USPS (except their recent rate hikes that made me change my shipping prices) and so far none of my customers have.

[JonLP24]

19. Sometimes I get someone else's mail

One was an address for Georgia and I live in Arizona, how did that happen? I just mail it back out when that happens also one time I had Fry's coupons already tornout by somebody.

[GReedDiamond]

24. Not to knock the USPS, they usually...

...like 99.9% of the time, do a fine job, in my experience.

But, a few weeks ago, I went to my PO Box and found a letter written by somebody in Wisconsin, addressed to somebody else in Wisconsin.

I'm in California.

[JonLP24]

27. I had something like that happen more than once

And it is usually pretty important paperwork like DES or VA.

[Skittles]

25. no

and I send a lot of snail mail

[50 Shades Of Blue]

26. Not really.

[guillaumeb]

28. A brief history, and explanation.

The year is 2006, and the GOP is in control. The GOP passed the Postal Enhancement and Accountability Act, which in fact weakens rather than enhances.

Per the 2006 Act, the USPS was mandated to pay for retiree healthcare costs for the next 75 years in a 10 year period. A requirement that is unique to the USPS. A requirement that no business has, that no other Federal agency has. So the USPS was mandated to pay between 4.2 and 5.2 billion a year to fund healthcare for employees who are not even born yet.

As a direct result of this poison pill, the USPS went from running a surplus to an immediate deficit. But the GOP used that money to partially offset the horrendous debt incurred by Bush with his 2 wars and his supply side tax cuts for the rich.


As a result of the GOP caused deficit, the USPS started closing mail processing plants all over the country. As plants closed, the workload was pushed on to the remaining plants.

One example. In the Chicago area, the Gary Indiana plant was closed, as well as the Fox Valley plant. The Chicago area plants absorbed the workload, but at a cost of increased handling times.

I hope this answers your question. Call your Congressperson and complain.

[AJT]

29. A friend whose husband is a mail carrier said that the post office

got a contract to deliver for Amazon and the workload has skyrocketed. There is a hiring freeze but the amount of work has risen dramatically. My carrier comes a couple of hours later on average than he used to.

[Fla Dem]

30. For the billions of pieces of mail the USPS handles each year, I'll cut them some slack when

something is mis-delivered. I know some mail was disrupted due to the hurricanes this year, also there are accidents by the haulers over the highways, local mishaps outside the control of the USPS, etc. I find it amazing they perform their jobs at the high level they do.

"In a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision, the Court noted: "Each day, according to the Government's submissions here, the United States Postal Service delivers some 660 million pieces of mail to as many as 142 million delivery points."

Just one day in the life of the
U.S. Postal Service... by the numbers

Each day, the Postal Service picks up, processes and delivers millions of letters and packages. No single operation in the world comes close to this level of connectivity to so many households and businesses. Here’s just one day in the life of the U.S. Postal Service. (Figures are averages.)
235.2 million — revenue received in dollars
160.2 million — dollars paid to postal employees in salaries and benefits
506.4 million — number of mailpieces processed and delivered each day
21.1 million — average number of mailpieces processed each hour
351,656 — average number of mailpieces processed each minute
5,861 — average number of mailpieces processed each second
200.4 million — pieces of First-Class Mail processed and delivered
7,131 — number of letter carriers who deliver mail entirely on foot — The USPS Fleet of Feet
54,490 — number of address changes processed
3,748 — number of addresses added to our delivery network
4.6 million — number of people who visit usps.com
$2.7 million — dollar amount of online stamp and retail sales at usps.com
1.5 million — number of Click-N-Ship labels printed
297,004 — number of money orders issued
0 — tax dollars received for operating the Postal Service

https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/one-day-by-the-numbers.htm

[sadiegirl]

31. They have always been dependable for us. even better than UPS and Fed Ex.

They are the best service for the price and their tracking service is equal to any other delivery system i know.

[The Genealogist]

32. I had some issues with a package recently

I bought something on Amazon, and Amazon stated the package was "out for delivery" on Friday. Post Office said it would be Monday. On Monday, Post Office said the package had been delivered, but it was an hour or more later til it was. I was afraid it had been stolen. Not sure what went on. Otherwise, the mail arrives like clockwork.

[WinkyDink]

33. No. I love the USPS. UPS guy, OTOH, asked me to remove two plant urns from my porch so he could

have less trouble placing my packages. I did, but I'm mightily miffed.

[Thor_MN]

34. I got a bill this month that was nothing more than the statement.

with a scrawled note saying wrong address. Where ever it had been delivered they didn't bother to reseal the envelope, they just just the statement free and hen scratched on it.

Thanks for keeping everything else...