U.S. Postal Service: salvageable or doomed?

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).

Not 30 seconds after I submitted that last post, I heard our mailbox shut and there was a massive pile in the box, finally.

Maybe your delivery person is on ILX.

Sorry, too busy posting to bother with the post

know the feeling, waiting for several things and coming back to an empty mailbox all week when I should have things arriving. hopingthings haven't disappeared.

worth noting that a book that supposedly shipped mid-December never arrived...and a friend who lives a 15 minute walk away had the same thing happen. So he contacted the seller, who sent him another, and also ordered another one. Eventually, the lost book showed up, and so he had three copies of the same book, which is the only reason I have a copy— he gave me an extra.

No mail yesterday and none today, too, it looks like.

Not 30 seconds after I submitted that last post, I heard our mailbox shut and there was a massive pile in the box, finally.

We haven’t received mail in three days, until yesterday. Despite all the packages Informed Delivery tells me should be here, all they delivered was four pieces of “current resident” junk mail, which is masterful as a middle-finger gesture. (We had similar but less severe issues back in May, which usually was resolved by the postal carrier dumping two weeks' worth of packages for the entire building into the lobby at once.)

Today we received six pieces of mail ... one of ours and five for our neighbor. So close, yet so far.

We're back to getting mail every 2-3 days, still not every day, but this is an improvement. Although four of the seven pieces in today's mail were for a neighbor so...

my oldest German LP that was still in transit showed up on Saturday, 4 months and 4 days after it was mailed, in perfect condition. I guess this means I'll get the November package next month.

i sent the original copy of my birth certificate to the UK by USPS priority mail express.

cost me $70.

took 3.5 weeks to get from LA to Atlanta at an average speed of just over 3 miles per hour. no tracking during that time.

it then took 13 hours to get to heathrow, and another 7 hours to get to durham.

gahhh that makes me nervous just reading it

Isn't there a guarantee with Priority Mail Express? I've actually received refunds before due to similar issues, caek.

i keep having the hilarious and completely-dissonant-with-this-thread experience of packages arriving really soon after i've ordered them

i ordered a drum throne that was supposed to be here this saturday. arrived two days ago

same. sent another book to CA on a thursday, it arrived the following monday. have been getting mail delivered once or twice a week for months now though.

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, this one. I think it spent another day floating around FL and then was somehow made its way to me the following day. Yeah, I don't get it either.

was

i keep having the hilarious and completely-dissonant-with-this-thread experience of packages arriving really soon after i've ordered them

Yeah, I get (and can send) mail really fast, too - I think it's just a NY metro area thing.

My sympathies to you guys - I had a bad stretch of delayed packages and mail in the summer and between Nov-Dec, but otherwise mostly normal

Yeah, I get (and can send) mail really fast, too - I think it's just a NY metro area thing.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, February 24, 2021 8:48 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i figured this was the case with like deliveries from chewy and lush but i was really surprised my drum throne arrived like the day after i ordered it lol

I think our mailman just doesn't show up some days... it's pretty rare that we get service on Mondays, for example.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of the rounds they feel like completing on the days of their choosing.

Isn't there a guarantee with Priority Mail Express? I've actually received refunds before due to similar issues, caek.

there is but i'm assuming the fact that it was snowing the last couple of days of my letter's nearly month long odyssey across the US means they're off the hook

"The national transportation network has been severely disrupted by the multiple winter weather events across the country. The situation has affected USPS transportation and processing capabilities. Therefore, according to the Domestic Mail Manual Section 604.9.5.5 Priority Mail Express money-back guarantee is suspended nationwide as of Friday, February 19, 2021 through Thursday, February 25, 2021."

https://postalpro.usps.com/node/9316

DeJoy isn't done wreaking havoc yet, moved to his long term plan to actively destroy the USPS:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/23/politics/louis-dejoy-postal-service-changes-ten-year-plan/index.html

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy proposes to:
-- slow delivery times for first-class mail
-- hike postage rates
-- reduce hours for post offices
-- close sorting centers and post offices.

He is not seeking to save the postal service, he is destroying it.https://t.co/0KaBEcPXfv

— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) March 24, 2021

Renationalize the post office

Months ago (mid-January) I received a delivery that was comically damaged and broken, like bent and snapped in half and wrapped together in USPS "damaged" tape. I thought, well, that's a bummer, but I guess I understand how it got damaged in transit. I processed the return from some company in Florida, repackaged and wrapped up the item in its damaged state, affixed the provided UPS label and drop it off at UPS, who look at it, laugh, and tell me they can't guarantee it will arrive in one piece. (I told them it didn't matter, since the reason I was returning it was that it had arrived at my house in two pieces already!). Eventually got my refund and that was that.

Yesterday I get an unsolicited letter from the USPS, dated March 17, referencing a claim I didn't make for the order back on January 21 telling me to bring my damaged item (which I no longer have) to a post office for inspection. Weird.

silby otm

DeJoy wants to 'run it like a business' when it's not and has never been a business. It's called the Postal Service, asshole.

Anyway, there is no reason to believe Biden wants him there, so if it is within Biden's power to remove him I'm sure that's what's going to happen as soon as it can happen.

It's not really his call, only the Board can remove DeJoy. Biden has appointed new people to fill vacated seats on the Board, but afaik the confirmation keeps being delayed.

Exactly. And as soon as they are confirmed, DeJoy is out.

Agreed, for sure, but seeing his intentions clearly spelled out - he can still do more damage to the USPS before he's pushed out. Maybe not permanent, but we're still undoing the damage he brought last year. Just frustrating that he can continue crippling the service and broadcasting his intentions.

He enjoys broadcasting his intentions because he's a rich, privileged asshole who knows he's immune from any consequences for abusing his position of trust, but rather was put there specifically to wreck the postal service and to shit on postal workers and their union. He's having a ball.

Hard to say whether DeJoy was born with the face of a major dickhole or if he slowly developed it over time, but boy does his stupid goblin face ever radiate just that vibe.

Don't know if this is necessarily DeJoy's doing, but the last few weeks I've had the worst mail service since, well, any time that I can remember. Some days (like today) no mail, sometimes a couple of days in a row with no mail, sometimes so little mail it's suspicious (like, a single catalog and that's it), and some days with a pile of mail that makes it seem like it's been stacking up. Makes me wish all of my bills and important stuff were virtual, though of course, the more everyone goes that route, the more it hurts the USPS.

Why....are you receiving mail every day...? Let alone lots of mail every day....?

Same here Josh, it’s been patchy and odd for a few weeks now. A different carrier almost every day seems to be the biggest thing I’ve noticed.

And, it’s not that weird to receive mail every day, is it? We get at least something every day (when it’s delivered, that is), even if 90% is junk.

This may be an american divide again

we get mail daily. usually dad's hospital bills, my bank trying to make me some bullshit offer for a new account, stuff we ordered, etc.

This may be an american divide again

Long ago the US postal service made a decision, probably motivated by or dictated by politics, to offer extremely favorable rates to commercial interests and non-profit organizations making bulk mailings of advertising materials or begging letters. The advertisers/non-profits are required to presort and prepackage their bulk mailings to reduce the amount of handling required, but the upshot has been that the lion's share of daily mail received by any US postal customer is "junk mail", advertising fliers, catalogs and pleas for money that are thrown out with hardly a glance.

It's a strange, wasteful and annoying system, but it is what we have developed over many, many decades. This inertia is akin to what strangled the Byzantine and Russian Empires, but no one knows how to fix it painlessly, so the US endures it, because any pain involved in fixing it will be resented and complained about, but simply standing aside and watching it decay and die brings nobody into blame.

if we're talking mail that I actually give a fuck about, then usually the shit I order is the only meaningful stuff I get lol

Yeah, I would be OK with mail every few days, if it were reliable, but that wouldn't exactly help the USPS out, nor those who rely on the mail more than I do. I mean, I think something like 40% of American households still have landlines, 100 million people with cable plans, etc. While I'm annoyed that the new New Yorker hasn't shown up yet, there is a big chunk of the population that relies on the mail for checks, bills, medicine and other important, regular deliveries. Though of course most things I *intentionally* request, orders and purchases and whatnot, arrives pretty quickly and reliably.

Mail-order goods have become more prominent in our lives lately and that trend seems likely to continue. That doesn't mean we have to underwrite Amazon, but hopefully the USPS can be saved.

For the first time ever I am now subscribing to magazines digitally because the Post Office has slowed down delivery significantly in the past year.

this has messed with Fraud prevention efforts for my company as well. we instituted a rule that people requesting withdrawals from their 401k can only use direct deposit accounts that have been on file for 7 calendar days or more, the logic being that gives enough time for the paper confirmation that goes out to reach them in case it was not them that requested the withdrawal (y'know, fraud).

that letter isn't arriving in no 7 days now!