Back in early December I had to mail my son his birth certificate (he lives in Texas, I live in Alabama). I sent it certified, return receipt requested, for which I paid extra $$ for this service. The letter then proceeded to ricochet between Alabama, Oklahoma & Texas for the next SEVEN weeks. I was watching it do so on the tracking!! At one point they tried to deliver, he wasn't home and they left a note on the door saying he could pick it up but never mentioned which of several post offices it was at. He tried calling and nobody knew anything.
After I (the sender) made a phone call to the USPS it finally got delivered a couple weeks later but I never got my return receipt showing my son signed for it.
Our home state of Pennsylvania is also having issues with ballots getting mailed out, or returned, on time dating back to at least 2022 (I was a Judge of Elections there). I had to issue a ton of provisional ballots because people either never got ballots they requested or knew from the tracking on them that they were not going to make it back to Voter Services on time. I'm aware, too that PA is having a lot of issues with cellphones and checks being stolen out of the mail. A ring was just broken up in suburban Montgomery County about this ("why is the US Mail no longer secure" is another issue).
A friend of mine's daughter is getting married in PA in late August. Because of all the mail issues, they sent out the invitations in March to ensure they all got out, and RSVPs returned, on time.
Is this going to affect the election? How many ballots will not be delivered in time to be counted. What happens if the election is certified, and afterwards a bunch of ballots show up? I am in California, so basically my vote does not count, but in states where the vote will be close, it is possible it could swing the election. We need to mandate the USPS make sure ballots have priority
At a time when progs are trying to make the case for a more expansive government, the USPS keeps finding new and creative ways to epically fail.
1) I got berated by a DRUNK (I could smell it on him) manager when complaining about something.
2) My wife's birthday card was returned to my SIL with "no known delivery address". The address was perfect and clear.
3) We get our neighbor's mail at least once weekly.
4) If there's anything anywhere near our mailbox, our letter carrier doesn't stop.
5) We get the "pick it up at the post office" notices for too-large parcels when we were at home--apparently too lazy to stop and take it to my door.
You know who gets it right most of the time? Amazon. And when they don't, they own it and let me know in advance.
I get very little letter mail now; mostly junk. I get most of my bills, etc. electronically now.
My FIL had a thing about not doing things electronically. Frankly, I trust the Internet more than I trust sealing something with spit and giving it to Uncle Sam for a few days and crossing my fingers. And usually the Internet lets me know when it gets there, or there's a place where I can look.
I know Louis DeJoy, a former board member of the conservative Fund for American Studies (Washington, DC’s largest summer college intern program) and former trustee at Elon University, a terrific private university in NC. DeJoy is a very successful logistics/trucking company owner and president, and was a good choice to clean up the bloated and bleeding (money) USPS. He is doing his best while labor agreements and congressional mandates have tied his hands. Yes, his efforts to consolidate processing centers has hit major hiccups in several cities, including Richmond, VA, while postage rates continue to soar. The bigger issue is government meddling and the future of the USPS, not DeJoy or his efforts to plug dikes in a failing enterprise. But yes, it is one more reason not to rely on USPS for anything important, including and especially elections.
Houston, TX has been having same problems since well before Thanksgiving 2023! Veterans & civilians alike are desperate for their medications. The rise in utility bills and lack of mail service is not a good mix. The Postal Service is privately owned under government contract full of do nothing middle management and not enough worker bees. Drop high paid management and get postal workers who would be happy to work for a decent salary. Timing their routes is ridiculous.
Just a thought, if it's not worth a couple hours pay to invest in your life for the next 4 years..... well you get what you pay for. Vote early and in person. You also guarantee your right to bitch if the outcome is not what you want. If you don’t vote, shut up, as you have no skin in the game!
I used to work at the Post Office as a carrier. It provided me with enough physical exercise and mental challenges to keep it interesting. I do not miss the toxic co workers or incompetent managers.
If I was just a dud, I could go into management. Bad/dishonest managers are not demoted, just transferred. Woe to the employees of an office led by these idiots.
Upper management just wants good numbers. They don’t care if they are accurate or not. If not, then a lower peon is at fault. They constantly come up with schemes to save money by saving it will increase productivity. My town closed the branch office at the end of the township and reduced the lobby hours of the only office. The line can be outside the door, but they are saving money.
They claim that technology will get the carriers on the street earlier but that doesn’t happen every day. The managers in Washington have no idea of how the job is done in the weather extremes. As with any bureaucracy, they are never at fault.
With the condensing of the mail hubs, efficiency is lost. Too much volume and not enough people or proper equipment to do the job properly.
Just to echo what Erick has said...I still return to Atlanta for my dental work. My dentist is 75 years old, still working a four day week, and depends on the insurance claims to be timely paid so he can pay his staff. That has not happened for the last five months. He has been forced to depend on a local bank to back his checks. Whoever "hires and fires" postmasters needs to take this seriously. Erick, who do people jump on to get this addressed? I find it amazing that the politicians don't know who finally has the buck stop with their desk. Whoever that is needs to be dumped on immediately. Erick, this Post Mater reports to someone...who is it? Charles
From the https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/postal-service The chief executive officer of the Postal Service, the Postmaster General, is appointed by the nine Governors of the Postal Service, who are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Governors and the Postmaster General appoint the Deputy Postmaster General, and these 11 people constitute the Board of Governors. Also the USPS' budget is determined by Congress.
I’m retired now, but when I was working at the Atlanta airport, I picked up a bundle of mail that had fallen off of one of five carts that are pulled by a tug on its way to an airplane.
I stopped and picked it up and returned it to the postal facility inside the airport. It had broken open from the fall to the street, and I could see that it was hundreds of bill payments to a company of some kind. The employee who I gave it to didn’t seem to care about what it was, he just told me to never pick up any mail ever again.
That is the last time I ever did that. From that day I decided that that they don’t care about the people they are paid to serve. I know he didn’t care.
I started paying my bills on line through my credit union.
Thank you Erick for your attention to this matter.
It's another lesson in what happens when goobermint runs an enterprise. The postal service is broke because their union negotiated above market compensation for their employees. The government is too broke to give them the money they need to function well. They should shut down the postal service and leave parcel delivery to the private sector - where poor performance can be rewarded by going out of business
Back in early December I had to mail my son his birth certificate (he lives in Texas, I live in Alabama). I sent it certified, return receipt requested, for which I paid extra $$ for this service. The letter then proceeded to ricochet between Alabama, Oklahoma & Texas for the next SEVEN weeks. I was watching it do so on the tracking!! At one point they tried to deliver, he wasn't home and they left a note on the door saying he could pick it up but never mentioned which of several post offices it was at. He tried calling and nobody knew anything.
After I (the sender) made a phone call to the USPS it finally got delivered a couple weeks later but I never got my return receipt showing my son signed for it.
Our home state of Pennsylvania is also having issues with ballots getting mailed out, or returned, on time dating back to at least 2022 (I was a Judge of Elections there). I had to issue a ton of provisional ballots because people either never got ballots they requested or knew from the tracking on them that they were not going to make it back to Voter Services on time. I'm aware, too that PA is having a lot of issues with cellphones and checks being stolen out of the mail. A ring was just broken up in suburban Montgomery County about this ("why is the US Mail no longer secure" is another issue).
A friend of mine's daughter is getting married in PA in late August. Because of all the mail issues, they sent out the invitations in March to ensure they all got out, and RSVPs returned, on time.
Is this going to affect the election? How many ballots will not be delivered in time to be counted. What happens if the election is certified, and afterwards a bunch of ballots show up? I am in California, so basically my vote does not count, but in states where the vote will be close, it is possible it could swing the election. We need to mandate the USPS make sure ballots have priority
At a time when progs are trying to make the case for a more expansive government, the USPS keeps finding new and creative ways to epically fail.
1) I got berated by a DRUNK (I could smell it on him) manager when complaining about something.
2) My wife's birthday card was returned to my SIL with "no known delivery address". The address was perfect and clear.
3) We get our neighbor's mail at least once weekly.
4) If there's anything anywhere near our mailbox, our letter carrier doesn't stop.
5) We get the "pick it up at the post office" notices for too-large parcels when we were at home--apparently too lazy to stop and take it to my door.
You know who gets it right most of the time? Amazon. And when they don't, they own it and let me know in advance.
I get very little letter mail now; mostly junk. I get most of my bills, etc. electronically now.
My FIL had a thing about not doing things electronically. Frankly, I trust the Internet more than I trust sealing something with spit and giving it to Uncle Sam for a few days and crossing my fingers. And usually the Internet lets me know when it gets there, or there's a place where I can look.
I know Louis DeJoy, a former board member of the conservative Fund for American Studies (Washington, DC’s largest summer college intern program) and former trustee at Elon University, a terrific private university in NC. DeJoy is a very successful logistics/trucking company owner and president, and was a good choice to clean up the bloated and bleeding (money) USPS. He is doing his best while labor agreements and congressional mandates have tied his hands. Yes, his efforts to consolidate processing centers has hit major hiccups in several cities, including Richmond, VA, while postage rates continue to soar. The bigger issue is government meddling and the future of the USPS, not DeJoy or his efforts to plug dikes in a failing enterprise. But yes, it is one more reason not to rely on USPS for anything important, including and especially elections.
Houston, TX has been having same problems since well before Thanksgiving 2023! Veterans & civilians alike are desperate for their medications. The rise in utility bills and lack of mail service is not a good mix. The Postal Service is privately owned under government contract full of do nothing middle management and not enough worker bees. Drop high paid management and get postal workers who would be happy to work for a decent salary. Timing their routes is ridiculous.
It's just another anecdote of a collapsing civilization and a society in terminal decline. I call it "de-civilization".
I've had a package sitting in the Atlanta facility since May 27th.
For what it's worth, the same USPS cluster has descended upon Houston, too...
Just a thought, if it's not worth a couple hours pay to invest in your life for the next 4 years..... well you get what you pay for. Vote early and in person. You also guarantee your right to bitch if the outcome is not what you want. If you don’t vote, shut up, as you have no skin in the game!
So, what is the solution and whose responsibility is it?
I used to work at the Post Office as a carrier. It provided me with enough physical exercise and mental challenges to keep it interesting. I do not miss the toxic co workers or incompetent managers.
If I was just a dud, I could go into management. Bad/dishonest managers are not demoted, just transferred. Woe to the employees of an office led by these idiots.
Upper management just wants good numbers. They don’t care if they are accurate or not. If not, then a lower peon is at fault. They constantly come up with schemes to save money by saving it will increase productivity. My town closed the branch office at the end of the township and reduced the lobby hours of the only office. The line can be outside the door, but they are saving money.
They claim that technology will get the carriers on the street earlier but that doesn’t happen every day. The managers in Washington have no idea of how the job is done in the weather extremes. As with any bureaucracy, they are never at fault.
With the condensing of the mail hubs, efficiency is lost. Too much volume and not enough people or proper equipment to do the job properly.
Rant over.
Just to echo what Erick has said...I still return to Atlanta for my dental work. My dentist is 75 years old, still working a four day week, and depends on the insurance claims to be timely paid so he can pay his staff. That has not happened for the last five months. He has been forced to depend on a local bank to back his checks. Whoever "hires and fires" postmasters needs to take this seriously. Erick, who do people jump on to get this addressed? I find it amazing that the politicians don't know who finally has the buck stop with their desk. Whoever that is needs to be dumped on immediately. Erick, this Post Mater reports to someone...who is it? Charles
From the https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/postal-service The chief executive officer of the Postal Service, the Postmaster General, is appointed by the nine Governors of the Postal Service, who are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Governors and the Postmaster General appoint the Deputy Postmaster General, and these 11 people constitute the Board of Governors. Also the USPS' budget is determined by Congress.
Call your representatives in Congress about this!
I’m retired now, but when I was working at the Atlanta airport, I picked up a bundle of mail that had fallen off of one of five carts that are pulled by a tug on its way to an airplane.
I stopped and picked it up and returned it to the postal facility inside the airport. It had broken open from the fall to the street, and I could see that it was hundreds of bill payments to a company of some kind. The employee who I gave it to didn’t seem to care about what it was, he just told me to never pick up any mail ever again.
That is the last time I ever did that. From that day I decided that that they don’t care about the people they are paid to serve. I know he didn’t care.
I started paying my bills on line through my credit union.
Thank you Erick for your attention to this matter.
Blessings to you and your family.
“Senate Oversight” That would be ?
It's another lesson in what happens when goobermint runs an enterprise. The postal service is broke because their union negotiated above market compensation for their employees. The government is too broke to give them the money they need to function well. They should shut down the postal service and leave parcel delivery to the private sector - where poor performance can be rewarded by going out of business