U.S. Postal Service: salvageable or doomed?

So, yet another day this particular package was marked “out for delivery” but wasn’t delivered. Guessing this means it’s likely gone for good. I’d almost feel better if it had just been sitting in a distribution center without an update.

I know things are insanely slow, I totally get that. I've just never had a package show as "out for delivery" for a full week before. Basically wondering if I just need to chill longer, or if this is a case where I might want to contact the USPS sooner rather than later.

I'd just contact them. If it's a non-corporate seller, contact the seller directly after contacting the USPS and try to work something out.

If it's a corporate seller, demand a refund.

The only times I've ever been in the situation you describe, it's been an Amazon package (yes, excoriate me, hard to get to the store when one is on chemotherapy and one's partner works full time), and they refunded me immediately.

Thanks, I'll see if it comes today, if not I'll get in touch with them. If this were Amazon, I'd be less worried, just annoyed because this is a subscription based thing that is otherwise sold out now and I'm not sure I can even get a replacement.

Any chance this year of Biden/Congress repealing that stupid law passed in 2009?

That would be nice, for sure.

Reading that article table shared makes me wonder how they are going to be able to dig out of this hole. I mean, it's not like the pandemic is over and people still aren't mailing/ordering things at record levels. Surely the holiday bump has died down, but it seems to me like the backlog isn't going anywhere while new stuff continues to pile on top.

instead of the dumbass Space Force, they should make the Postal Service the fifth branch of the US military, thereby forever removing any need for any fiscal responsibility on their part for all time

Space Mail

that's my superhero name

Case in point: book ordered right before Christmas is still in a warehouse somewhere, it seems.

Today I received two chapbooks from a friend that were mailed from Albany, CA, on Monday.

"sorry sir, your package was accidentally jettisoned with our waste from the shuttle it was on. we're trying to locate it now and hoping it doesn't come in contact with our waste first"

I thankfully haven't had the kind of issues y'all are reporting but I have spent the past week watching a package bounce between a succession of FL postal facilities for some reason (nb, I am in IL). Will report back if it ever achieves a velocity sufficient to escape the state.

Oh right, there was another package last week that made its way across the entire country in one day and then sat at my local PO for four days.

I come from postman stock so I am rooting for their success against nigh-insurmountable odds. At minimum rooting for DeJoy to get sucked into a sorting machine ASAP.

Oh, I mean I am rooting for postal workers and the postal service. I know who to blame here, and it isn't my mailman or the lovely women who run the local post office location.

So I finally called the local post office since it also didn't show up today... apparently the label got wet, rendering the address "unreadable" and it was returned to sender. So I guess I have to pay triple or quadruple on the secondhand market now. Dammit.

I had to order a part for out shower, basically a 95" long piece of plastic. That's really long, so I was shocked it could be mailed at all, but I still did not expect it to arrive literally bent in half, the long mailing tube torn and bent in half as well, with a bunch of USPS "damaged" tape wrapped around it. Um, OK. So I processed the return and printed out a pre-fab UPS sticker, stuck the postage sticker over the old sticker, and brought it to the UPS store. The guy behind the counter's jawed just kind of dropped and he made a funny noise. "We can send it," he said, "but we can't guarantee it will get there in one piece." "It already arrived at my house in two pieces," I told him. "That's why I'm returning it!"

And that's my most recent tale of the mail.

can't you contact the label and have them re-mail it?

Definitely going to try, but I don't know that there are any copies remaining to send. And I just have zero faith that my copy will even make it back to them before July, considering the absolute mess that the USPS right now.

i'm def not doing mail order for meds anymore unless it's CVSs home delivery thing

Yeah, I would strongly recommend paying for alternative shipping methods for the foreseeable future, if it's an option and you can afford it.

sorry, I meant re-mail the actual copy that was returned, when they get it.

Yeah, I would hope so. I've emailed them to let them know the situation, but I have little faith in a good outcome.

In my head I hear the FunkyFour Plus One More shout “it’s DeJoy” instead of “it’s the joint”.

dah-dah-dah-dah-dah QUIT, DeJOY!

it's all about that mail
in yo sack
(it's DeJoy)

why the fuck has he not been fired yet

Maybe this is already covered, but as I understand it only the Board of Governors can fire him and there are currently three vacancies on the board, which will presumably filled by Biden appointees. I'm guessing they are waiting until the new appointees come to take any serious action.

There are four vacancies on the board at present.

Postmaster general’s new plan for USPS is said to include slower mail and higher prices

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is preparing to put all first-class mail onto a single delivery track, according to two people briefed on his strategic plan for the U.S. Postal Service, a move that would mean slower and more costly delivery for both consumers and commercial mailers.

DeJoy, with the backing of the agency’s bipartisan but Trump-appointed governing board, has discussed plans to eliminate a tier of first-class mail — letters, bills and other envelope-sized correspondence sent to a local address — designated for delivery in two days. Instead, all first-class mail would be lumped into the same three- to five-day window, the current benchmark for nonlocal mail.

That class of mail is already struggling; only 38 percent was delivered on time at the end of 2020, the Postal Service reported in federal court. Customers have reported bills being held up, and holiday cards and packages still in transit. Pharmacies and prescription benefits managers have told patients to request medication refills early to leave additional time for mail delays. The agency has not disclosed on-time scores yet in 2021.

The new service standards are part of a strategic plan that DeJoy, a former logistics executive and major Republican donor, is set to roll out in the coming days. While the change is not expected to have a significant impact on local service, the people said, they have commercial mailers, including banks, insurers, retailers and publications, worried they may aggravate existing slowdowns for nonlocal mail.

The plan also prevents first-class mail from being shipped by airplane, said the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential conversations, forcing all of it into trucks and a relay of distribution depots.

The operational shifts would coincide with a push for significantly higher postage rates — which DeJoy has said was “imminent” — after the agency lost $9.2 billion in 2020 due to steep, pandemic-related declines in mail volume. It also has $188.4 billion in liabilities, the bulk of which is tied to pension and retiree health care obligations. Leaders have long sought to raise new revenue and, in 2021, are expected to pursue the first big postage rate increase in more than a decade, which could add up to a 9 percent jump compounded annually.

Jesus, sounds like it could get worse.

I'm sorry, but I don't buy at all that there were "steep declines in mail volume" last year. Just, no way. How can they possibly complain about "steep declines" when the website right now literally says "unprecedented volume increases"? Such bullshit.

Sorry if we discussed this but .... why is DeJoy still at USPS?

protip to USPS: priority mail (esp. flat rate), pretty fast, with tracking (signature release for a small add-on) and insurance. 3 days to Hawaii from California, 4 days to NYC even mid-winter.

Sorry if we discussed this but

two posts above yours

can't believe nobody's mentioned Insane Clown Posse

If we don't get mail today, it'll have been a full week since we last got any mail delivered at all. Now obviously Monday was a postal holiday and we got slammed with a snowstorm that makes things difficult. But even with past storms and inclement weather, I don't remember ever going a full week without mail delivery. Seems like something bigger than just weather delays is going on.

Our mail has been pretty erratic the past couple of weeks, due to a confluence of reasons. There's all the snow, for one. Then there's some serious understaffing, too, more than partly due to covid. The frustration I keep coming across is from customers who just wanted some sort of a heads up, some announcement of what's going on, rather than just days with no mail. I think I saw that post office employees are actually forbidden from making public statements?

I think you're not alone in having messed up mail. Seems to be a bit wayward over here too.

mail is EARNED, not a right!

The frustration I keep coming across is from customers who just wanted some sort of a heads up, some announcement of what's going on, rather than just days with no mail.

Yeah, I think some communication would go a long way. Obviously weather is an issue, but it just feels weird to go days and then nearly a full week without anything at all. More sensitive around here since my wife's main consulting gig still sends her paper checks, so a week without mail does make things a little more nerve wracking.

Package that was mailed 1/15 showed up overnight, meaning it might have been either a) delivered on a late truck, or b) was wrongly delivered to someone else, and they put it in our mailslot late.

In any case, I finally got a chapbook that I ordered before Christmas.

Well it wasn't just me, at least. Someone in our neighborhood group sent out an email asking about mail delivery, and about 15 people have responded so far and it appears that no one in our neighborhood has had mail delivery at all since Friday, the 12th.

maybe someone's eating the mail

I mean, I guess DeJoy ultimately got his way. He's completely crippled it.

Oddly throughout this whole experience I’ve had basically no delayed packages or mail here in Seattle, including receiving a package from my parents outside DC that reached me in a timely fashion whereas the equivalent packages reached my east coast relatives weeks later.

All these past few months I've only had one delayed package of note, so I'll take my good fortune there.

I've only had three packages (two coming to me, one I sent) that were seriously delayed, as in measured in months not weeks, while I'd say everything else was mostly on time or delayed a week or so.

Lately it's been less about specific delays in packages, but hit or miss with delivery in general. Seems like staffing challenges are the bigger problem on our end.

i had a package lost but weirdly it was Amazon's delivery service, where that hadn't happened before

The snow in Chicago has really compounded all this: I’ve put in investigation requests for my sixth package in two weeks. (If only I had checked the forecast before going on a Discogs spree!) As others have mentioned, it wouldn’t be so bad if I had some sort of indication it’s being worked on, because I don’t know if these have any effect, considering how many others must be submitting them. Usually, I get a generic “we’re looking into it message”, then some time in the next week or two a package shows up, then a week or so after that a “how’d we do” survey. No idea if the claims spur delivery or just coincidence. We’ve received no mail for the last three days until yesterday—which was just four pieces of “current resident” junk mail, which seems like a middle finger.

At least I’m not on the South Side, though: US Rep. Bobby Rush, aldermen call for Chicago USPS postmaster to resign after months of ‘abject’ delays

Yeah, the South Side delivery is abysmal, was just reading about that last night. We have an apartment building down the street from us and the building manager said her tenants have been complaining because they haven't gotten mail in almost two weeks now. She's been calling the post office daily, but can't get through to anyone, so she was going to go down there in person to try to get some more information. Still haven't received any mail since last Friday, in our immediate neighborhood anyway.

We've got a local primary election coming up on Tuesday and most people are still waiting for their mail ballots to arrive. It's a mess.

All the Chicago metro discussion here made me realize that, yeah, we haven't received a thing all week. I don't think we were expecting anything but it's exceedingly weird for us to go more than a day or two without getting at least like a ValPak or a mailer from a muffler shop.

I think I'm only hyper aware of it because of a) waiting for a check, and b) having another package marked as "out for delivery" since Wednesday.

The last time I know for sure the mail arrived was Saturday night, because I went down to pick up food delivery at like 9 PM and it struck me as odd that the postdude was in the lobby stuffing boxes that late (they're usually done in the AM on the weekend).