U.S. Postal Service: salvageable or doomed?

an interesting anecdote for the chicagolanders itt: a good friend of mine moved about four blocks, going from the north side of lawrence at sacramento to the south side of lawrence, and has gone from getting mail about three times per month (by his estimation) to getting mail every day before 10am. what do you think could account for this?

Just fortunate enough to move to a better/more consistent route?

All anecdotal, obviously, but in talking with other people around my city, it really appears to depend on your route. Some routes are remarkably consistent while others seem to suffer from nonstop turnover and problems. Our carrier has never been the same person for more than a week or two, some weeks it's a different person every day that mail comes. We've hit patches of really inconsistent delivery (never as bad as only 3x per month though), tons of misdelivered mail, sometimes weeks go by without mail only to get a massive pile finally. Talked to a friend that lives barely half a mile away and he said he's had the same carrier on his route for about four years now, super consistent and regular, and the only problem they've seen in the past year has just been the delays in stuff shipped from further away.

Just checked the tracking on a package that I figured should've been here by now, traveling from NJ to IL.

Well, it's in California.

must be Led Zeppelin IV

Sorry - we just wanted to see what you ordered, I'm forwarding it on now

Not as egregious as OL’s experience, but I ordered something that was shipped from Chicago and I live an immediately adjacent suburb. My package was sent to Des Moines, Iowa and has now been sitting at a different suburban distribution center for over a week since.

shouldn't have said what you did about Greta Van Fleet in front of your mailman, who runs the fan club

Our mail delivery, as such, as been a host of randos for the last several weeks. We'll see one guy a few times, then nothing for a couple of days. Then a new woman, then nothing for a couple of days. Yesterday we got last Wednesday's delivery of the weekly local paper. It's a little disorienting but also a tad distressing, because of course we have no idea what mail be might not be getting at all.

you want this thread:

rolling FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS thread

Or maybe the thread dedicated to talking about USPS issues, I dunno

You should start one!

Anyway, fine, here's an example with perhaps more weight to it: as of yesterday, count us among the Americans (first world!) who were expecting an important medication in the mail that simply never arrived because the mail service has been so erratic.

FWIW Josh I was defending your right to post on a topic in the thread dedicated to that topic.

I know, I was just kidding.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/a488faeb262a0ae714cca91deeca65f4/tumblr_phkl0cystq1s0s8m8_1280.jpg

^ Me

Can't speak for everyone, but things seem to be really bad again lately. Seeing a lot of complaints on Twitter and, personally, I have three packages on the way to me via USPS - checking the tracking this morning, all three say "in transit, running late". One was originally to arrive last Wednesday, one last Friday and one yesterday. Two appear to be stuck in a local distribution center, can't quite figure out what is going on with the third.

this is why I won't use mail-order RX for a while. mom was left without meds for days due to a misdelivery

So at this point, is it safe to assume we aren't getting rid of DeJoy anytime soon? Seems like Biden's board members aren't going to oust him?

Love that we just all sit and watch this dude completely cripple a vital service while everyone in power just kinda mumbles and kicks at the dirt.

I think it's more than just him, unfortunately, covid pushed a lot of mail carriers into retirement.

Probably, but all of his other decisions have absolutely made an already rough situation significantly worse. I mean, let's not defend him at all, he is doing exactly what he was hired to do, which is destroy the USPS.

Judging by some of the sureddits, shit is absolutely messed up in the Chicago area. Lots of people reporting 10-12+ days of packages sitting in the local distribution center without updates.

What if it’s just one or two shitheads in Chicago that are the main problem with the postal service rn

I mean, it's possible? I've only really been looking at local reports, but seems like delays aren't uncommon in other places too.

USPS is running a wee bit better here, but there's still delays. still prefer them to Amazon delivery, with their overworked, underpaid drivers, and no sense of organization (none of them ever know how to find the Amazon Hub locker in the community, or the code to bypass the gate, so 20% of packages get marked "unable to deliver" on first and sometimes even second attempt because they can't figure out how to get in the gate - I don't blame them, I blame gated communities and Amazon's shitty system/management)

Between 150 and 293 mail routes went undelivered daily in the Chicago area in May. This is unacceptable.

I convened a meeting with @USPS leadership & local elected officials on the mail delays plaguing my constituents & solutions to ensuring timely, first-class mail delivery. 📬

— Bobby L. Rush (@RepBobbyRush) June 7, 2021

Was gonna say, we're only getting mail about one day a week on average at this point. Not expecting anything, thankfully, but there's definitely something up.

Apparently this was my local branch, just a few blocks away, today at 1pm:

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/198810229_4382210305122894_2363451310704604871_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=825194&_nc_ohc=P6p5NEal0F0AX_vCKKx&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=b53d47e0b9aa2cd20b394a314394e50d&oe=60E8525D

No explantation.

No explanation, either.

Not sure how true this is, but saw on Reddit that when a USPS employee tests positive, the policy is to shut down the office or distribution center completely for a few days but they don’t state it publicly.

In today's mail, I received:

- 2 CDs mailed from Warsaw, Poland on June 18
- a book mailed from Malmö, Sweden on May 25
- a CD mailed from Ann Arbor, Michigan on June 15

I had a tracking number for that last one, so I got to watch it sit in Pittsburgh for *two weeks*. And when it arrived, there was a dark scuff across the envelope that makes me think it fell under a machine and stayed there until a janitor swept it out one night, or something.

Last week we received a three week old New Yorker one day, and the two subsequent issues the next.

I received a record in the mail yesterday and it appeared to have been shot at or something? two puncture holes that went all the way through the packaging (including the record inside).

It was a cut-out, maybe? Some of them used holes.

xp
Was it the Waldo Jeffers Band?

Spent 40$ on a 'Good' copy of a rare poetry book...carrier shoved it in the slot, completely creasing the spine and fucking up the binding.

not a cut out, my post must not have been clear

Got a big wad of mail last week, all sent between December and March.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2B1uIkQUZ4

I think it's been about a week since we got mail. Granted, part of that was the weekend, and a holiday weekend at that, but we're expecting something important that's been "out for delivery" since Thursday.

as far as I'm aware the postal service has it out specifically for guys whose names start with J and live in or around Chicago

Possible, but no one else in my family has a name that starts with J. Maybe I should move out?

Finally walked to the local post office, which is less than five minutes away, to (politely) ask what's up. They get my ID, check the back, and come back to apologetically tell me that our mail is supposedly on the truck and out for delivery today.

And then they hand me my copy of the local weekly paper ... the Wednesday Journal. On a Thursday. Which means *it* was not out for delivery, and that had we waited for it in the mail at best it would have arrived over the weekend. Of course, the weekly local paper is the least important thing; I've now been without a credit card for a week, and I'm heading out of town on Sunday. I feel for the people not receiving *really* importing things, like checks or medicine.

Yeah, I've just essentially given up on any reasonable timeframe sending or receiving anything via USPS. I don't want to say it's beyond repair, and it seems to vary state by state and city by city, but I'd say that, overall, the timeliness and reliability in 2021 is far, far worse than it was in 2020 and I've seen no improvement. I'm assuming that DeJoy just ain't going anywhere and it's time to start figuring out other ways of shipping. Couple in the 12% increase in prices for media mail coming in August and it's only going to get more expensive for shittier service.

Just received a package that I'm frankly stunned they had the chutzpah to deliver. The contents are cuh-rushed, half of the padded envelope has been ripped clean away, and judging by the skidmarks covering both sides one or more vehicles did some serious donuts on this thing.

They, uh, do hope to keep existing as an entity, right?

I'm not so sure. Timely delivery has been better recently, but I've also gotten two packages of CDs lately that would have been absolutely destroyed had the sender not packed them very carefully.

My son got a card from his grandparents that looked like it had been rolled over fourteen times by a forklift and was nearly ripped in half. Surprisingly the $5 bill was still inside.

😬

skidmarks covering both sides

someone wiped their ass with yer box?

I've had a couple of packages from Japan (to MN) get stuck at the International Service Center in Chicago. This site is apparently a bit of a black hole right now. One has been waiting there a week, which based on what I read elsewhere could end up being months. It made it most of the way surprisingly quickly (two days!) and now it's just sitting there.

Yeah, I've not had anything international shipped to me lately, but I've heard that the ISC in Chicago is a horrific for being a black hole for months on end. I hope yours doesn't end up sitting there too long.

FWIW, there's been a significant improvement in mail delivery here lately. Thank you, USPS, I take it all back.