Can’t even mail priority anymore

[pucho812]

How the hell could the usps not deliver a priority envelope.
I mailed 2 on the same day from my local post office. One went to the d.c. area the other to Texas. The one going to the other end of the country arrived without issue. The one going half way to Texas has not been found. WTH? How do you lose a priority envelope?

 

[soliloqueen]

usps service has been getting worse and worse. i know why (bad actors intentionally creating inefficiencies and balloon costs to justify gutting it) and i feel sorry for usps for enduring this, but it still sucks as a citizen of the US

 

[JohnRoberts]

usps handles a lot of pieces... they have automated machinery but stuff happens... not sure priority handling helps.

FWIW I haven't received even one of my daily WSJ newspapers this year. There must be a small pile of them accumulating somewhere (probably in Jackson).

Not sure I blame a conspiracy, they appear capable of dropping the ball(s) all by themselves.

JR

 

[pucho812]

usps handles a lot of pieces... they have automated machinery but stuff happens... not sure priority handling helps.

FWIW I haven't received even one of my daily WSJ newspapers this year. There must be a small pile of them accumulating somewhere (probably in Jackson).

Not sure I blame a conspiracy, they appear capable of dropping the ball(s) all by themselves.

JR

True. Sorry to hear you’re missing your paper. It will turn up. The upside is you can amaze your friends with knowing the future.

 

[Brian Roth]

Louis Dejoy (Postmaster General) doesn't seem to have done much to improve postal services. If anything, the USPS has intentionally slowed down deliveries for First Class Mail.

I need to do a experiment to verify a rumor I've heard. Salina KS is not a tiny city (pop. approx 48K) yet I've HEARD (ahem) that 1st class letters mailed from one address to another here in Salina are trucked to Wichita for sorting, then trucked back to Salina for local delivery. I'll "waste" a stamp and mail a letter to my shop (just a half block down the street, at my friend's studio) and take notes of delivery time and see what postmarks are on the envelope.

Bri

 

[scott2000]

yet I've HEARD (ahem) that 1st class letters mailed from one address to another here in Salina are trucked to Wichita for sorting, then trucked back to Salina for local delivery

Many moons ago, when I had a gig as a casual employee at the mail processing center here, pretty sure that's how they do it. Box trucks,some bigger, pick up the mail from the post offices and bring it in to the center to be sorted, and the same trucks pick up and bring it to the post offices...

and priority is special handled,...separated.... and given expedited handling when caught with regular mail for instance... that's why when people send priority in not flashy/colored priority marked mailers, it can get stuck with parcels because it's not caught in sorting...

 

[Brian Roth]

In my situation, IF the "rumor" is correct, that means my test letter will travel nearly 200 miles in order to travel a half block.

Bri

 

[scott2000]

In my situation, IF the "rumor" is correct, that means my test letter will travel nearly 200 miles in order to travel a half block.

Be interesting to see. We have half your population just in my small neighborhood so maybe different there.....

 

[Brian Roth]

Another USPS "mystery"....My Mom passed away in 2022 and I filed a change of address (locally in Okla. City at the post office serving her house) to forward her mail to my address here in Kansas.

All of the junk mailers seem to have gotten the news. I still get dozens of junk mailings per week addressed to Mom at my Kansas address.

Bri

 

[Gold]

I’ve had a subscription to the New Yorker for a few years. It was a gift. I never get them and I generally get my mail. I’ve called the New Yorker subscription department and the post office. The post office pleads ignorance.

When I complained to the New Yorker subscription department they sent one first class mail and it got here. The only other one I got was in late July.

I think a postal worker is stealing them and was on vacation and missed it it in late July.

 

[Brian Roth]

After reading about a few instances of theft from USPS blue drop boxes in my region, I take any items with checks enclosed (like insurance payments) inside the Post Office and use the slot on the interior wall.

One clever guy was using a "sticky mouse trap" with a string attached and fishing out mail from inside a legit blue USPS drop box. Of course, NEVER put anything inside your home (or business) mailbox and flip up the flag.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/TOMCAT-...ions-Ready-To-Use-4-Traps-036271005/300934024
Local cops here caught kids going down the street and emptying out people's mailboxes as a prank (?).

Bri

 

[pucho812]

In my situation, IF the "rumor" is correct, that means my test letter will travel nearly 200 miles in order to travel a half block.

Bri

Old news. My home town is large, aprox 100,000 folks not including the many many illegal/undocumented people,
At any rate they do a hub and spoke method like the airlines. In this case mail goes to a central hub for the area then out to the address. It’s no wonder mail takes days to get across a town. I suppose this is cost effective but not timely. A bit of an annoyance if you ask me but at least it’s far from the days of mail by horse.

 

[Brian Roth]

@pucho812

And amazingly junk mail seems to arrive! lol

Bri

 

[Tubetec]

I remember around 25 or so years back , the postal service here issued the phone book on a CD,
it functioned just like a directory , you type a name and area and it spat out the details ,
didnt take long for the hackers to suck every ounce of usable data out , and sell it on .

Needless to say the internet brought data aggregation into another level , GDPR as they call it here was way to little way too late , everybodys personal data had been purloined long before .
Now even governments are using the same trickery to spy on its own populations for tax collection purposes , the cops hacked the health system database during covid for the 'public good' .
Major downside of this is police recruitment has tanked to the lowest level since the formation of the state ,meanwhile the people in power adjust the legal system to suit the corporations against the public interest ,which drives even more into taking a rebel stand ......

SinnFein has now become the most popular political party in the country ,with the rest forming a bulwark to prevent them seizing power or even an election taking place ,its the perfect storm brewing , the people who were voted in on a liberalist ticket have become more right wing than the hard right .

 

[Brian Roth]

Benjamin Franklin:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
...was VERY important in establishing the USA postal service. In his brilliant mind, reliable postal service would be needed as a requirement for the new nation.

Nowadays, folks like Louis Dejoy (current Postmaster General) are grifting money into their own private pockets while, behind the scenes planning to totally kill/privatize the USPS.

Grrr...tell that to Granny Mae in Rackinfrick, Kansas (made up town name) when she no longer can rely on the USPS for her mail after Amazon/whatever will no longer deliver anything to her family farmstead.


Bri

 

[JohnRoberts]

I live across the street from my local post office so I see the comings and goings. I have studied even more about their sorting and distribution hubs trying to get timely delivery of my daily newspapers.

Hanlon's razor - Wikipedia​

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

JR

 

[Brian Roth]

John....I like that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
"military intelligence" etc <g>


Bri

 

[Brian Roth]

So......do we kill the USPS and rely on Amazon, etc? Seems like a bad idea...

Bri

 

[JohnRoberts]

From my research into my late newspaper delivery problem I see that they have spent hundreds of millions on modern automated mail sorting machinery that should in principle improve my late delivery problem.

They are not very customer responsive. I found the name of the guy managing my local sorting center so I wrote him a snail-mail letter. It was returned 2 weeks later marked undeliverable and unable to forward. That does not make me optimistic.

JR

 

[Gold]

My local tiny post office is incredibly busy all the time. They aren't very nice either. On the other hand since the corporate business world has largely stoped using the USPS the giant post office locations in Manhattan are usually empty. If I have serious business like a passport renewal I go to Manhattan.