The Post Office is Nuts

It would seem that my Domitian AE is taking quite an extended tour of Maryland and the Greater D.C. area.

 

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This makes complete sense to me. Keep an eye on delivery times over the next few months as we move beyond the pre-Christmas rush and into a period of more traditionally "normal" post office / UPS / and overnight delivery volume. I expect that things will continue to take longer than expected.

 

I had a purchased item delivered by "two day delivery" from the East Coast to middle country upstate. It took 10 days, but I had asked a Postal employee associate for her delivery opinion, where she just rolled her eyes.

She said people just expect too much, while the system is overloaded, understaffed, using "best practices" to satisfy the needs of customers, and the other carriers who rely on USPS to complete their efforts.

Anyone objective, who has experienced the internal lines of customers with incompleted shipping efforts, who expect the remaining patient employees to finish their efforts, may understand delays.

JMHO

 

Sounds right. Some federal law workers are being told to stay at home so there are backups for workers that are exposed and have to stay off work. I thought that was pretty smart thinking.

 

Not to mention even during normal years people try and get this time of year off because of how crazy it will be and that's just really compounded this year.

Honestly for the most part people need to take a deep breath and relax. The overwhelming majority of the packages will arrive in the near future. If the biggest worry someone has at the moment is where a package is they have it pretty good.

 

I cant even get my coin world half the time.I live in Ohio,which is also where coin world is shipped from,i have not got half of the issues.when i do get them they are 2 or 3 weeks late!

 

I'm still waiting on a couple of early December mailed packages. Hopefully they'll be here in the next couple of weeks.

 

I beg to differ. The USPS was slow and late before COVID. COVID is a factor, but administration of the USPS is and has been horrible. I think it's strange that they can deliver millions of mail in votes sort of on time but can't deliver a damn package or piece of mail on time.

 

Same here, I live in the Akron area and my Dec. issue was 2 weeks late.

 

That's how it looked but he initiated that package research case. I literally have many other packages lost for weeks at a time so I just waited. He printed the label and when he went to the post office the lines were long and he dropped them in the slot. Well they don't scan until they hit the hub if you do that. And trucks are sitting at hubs for up to 3 weeks. And I have an inside source at the post office and that's what they told me. And this truck sat

 

I've never had any problems with the post office to speak of, and I get home delivery and have a PO box for my business. I shake my head to think of all the coins I've received or shipped in as little as a thank you card with some extra cardboard and "DO NOT MACHINE" handprinted on the envelope, lol. This year is much different with Covid - I sent 3 priority mail packages on December 16th - one arrived in Minneapolis on December 22nd and the other 2 that are going to SE Michigan locations are stuck at the Detroit sorting center. Both Detroit and Allen Park apparently have a lot of employees out and additional volume due to the covid virus. That's okay, they'll still be appreciated when they arrive. I can't wait until this vaccine becomes more wide spread.

 

There's plenty of things that need to be made more efficient but it's really simple math, one package is numerous pieces of mail. There's only so much space on a truck

 

I buy and sell daily. I'm in the post office all the time. Everything was decent, I say that loosely. There were times a package got mis directed. But in many years I never lost one. You just have to wait. But this year when black Friday it went crazier because everyone wanted to ship everything instead of traveling. And the post office was not equipped. I sent something and it departed our post office after 2 days of being there and sat the hub a week. I called the post office inquiring because this was a 500.00 transaction. I called Saturday and Saturday it moved at the hub. 2 other packages, my kids xmas presents sent the same day still show in transit arriving late. But at least this buyer will feel better about his money. I took it there at 825am Friday. It left there at noon Saturday. In a small flat rate priority box none the less. If I had it to do over i would have overnighted it.

 

Because of covid USPS is operating with a lot less people. I for one am glad they gave priority to the mail-in ballots.

 

Mail in ballots are not crossing state lines either. Most are not crossing county lines unless some hub has everything going to a regional sorting facility...

 

I'm still waiting on my Secret Santa gift that was mailed Dec 19 plus three other packages from Ebay that went out Dec 17 and 18.

 

@johnmilton

I would mark your original post as the “best answer” but the site won’t let me.

 

My issue with the PO is not so much their delays at this time since the circumstances with absenteeism, excessive volume and Covid-19 are unexpected and unavoidable, it's the fact that they still enter into an implied contractual delivery agreement for 2-3 Day Priority Delivery.

If the PO knows unequivocally that they will not be able to honor their end of the transaction, 2-3 day delivery, then they should say so and only charge the customer First Class Postage. As it stands, they still charge for Priority Service knowing full well they cannot meet that expectation.

My patience is fine. My expectations are only what they are because of the service I pay for.

 

I agree especially if they aren't advertising that priority will be delayed. It's one thing if it takes an extra day but if takes over a week you should at least get half back which is generally about the difference for priority and first class. Priority is already almost getting unusable with the significant hikes every year, the least they could do is be upfront about their average times for it