Mail delivery delays (insurance, home, employment)

[bigbear99]

Seems our local PO is short staffed. So with no announcement, they've changed the delivery "schedule" to be "when we can get around to it". No official, or even unofficial announcement. Word has gotten out through social media.

Spouse went in to pick up our mail on Saturday, and saw chaos - crates of mail everywhere and lots of Amazon boxes too. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, here, and in other towns.

[KCZ]

At least she got in. In my town, people have gone to the PO to find the door locked and nobody there. Somebody calls the town manager, who calls some regional supervisor, who says "Oh, we'll send somebody tomorrow morning."

I think USPS has been overwhelmed by Amazon shipping in the setting of a diminished labor pool and poor bureaucratic planning. The postal carriers have been working pretty dang hard for the past 2 years.

[CharlieChann]

Yes, the DeJoy cut services and destroyed sorting machines in the USPS. So this is to be expected. Then there's the general high level of employment in the state and the heavy workload at the post office. We have a good friend who is a postal worker and she is often called in to work on her off days or retained far past her scheduled end of shift. She often has to work in the back of the PO as well as doing her own round and someone else's.

[bigbear99]

The mess here continues, into a fourth month - notices of events delivered after the event has taken place, packages not delivered but the tracking says they have, mail to our mailbox 2 or 3 times a week at most. No communication at all regarding what's going on, or what the plan is.

Look, I get it, hiring is difficult, many places are short staffed, etc. But DeJoy wants to run USPS like a business? What business tells customers nothing?

[KCZ]

The Constitution gave Congress the power to establish the post system, not DeJoy. They need to step up and fix this mess. The public will have to pay more for what it costs to actually deliver mail, including a competitive salary for workers so additional hiring is possible. The country also needs to ban junk mail. Delivering all that stuff is an extra burden on the PO, not to mention an environmental drain on many levels...deforestation, fossil fuels used in transport, and recycling. Right now, 90% of what I receive is either junk mail or things that could have been sent electronically. I get reams of paper every year from insurance companies because there are laws against them sending certain things electronically. Deliver mail either M-W-F or T-T-S, which would be better than 3 random deliveries a week whenever the PO can manage it. And make shippers, looking at you Amazon, give customers the choice of which shipping service they want.

[Taiko]

Originally Posted by KCZ

At least she got in. In my town, people have gone to the PO to find the door locked and nobody there. Somebody calls the town manager, who calls some regional supervisor, who says "Oh, we'll send somebody tomorrow morning."

I think USPS has been overwhelmed by Amazon shipping in the setting of a diminished labor pool and poor bureaucratic planning. The postal carriers have been working pretty dang hard for the past 2 years.

Amazon is a big part of the picture. Since the service in many districts makes money delivering for Amazon only on Sundays those work hours expended are no longer available in the maximum of 60 weekly hours that can be put in. That could be up to a route and a half for each Sunday carrier that the letters don't go out on Monday through Saturday to someone's city streets.

Now because the USPS does not have an area based wage adjustment, like federal workers do, in some places it is harder to recruit workers. Additionally about 10 years ago to save payroll cost all new employees started in a non career status not earning full benefits or gaining seniority the "golden egg" that benefit package was gone as the service figuratively killed its hiring goose.

So while once upon a time a new employee looked forward to making regular and having a regular work schedule, say 7-3. But with the collapse in hiring that was fully exposed with COVID work refusing they saw the regular carriers losing their regular schedule and started watching grandparents arguing with supervisors about being drafted to work 12 hours every day, and sometimes Sundays also to, supplement the non existent substitutes.

With the pressure of working parcels being more time consuming then running the fewer letters through the fewer machines the night before the informed delivery date sent in the email says caused the pushing start times back so many work 9 to 9. So since making regular no longer means better working conditions they are quitting early, half before probation is over. Thinking I might as well get out now before I get stuck like those old folks.

And the staff problems are just getting worse. I have no ideal how to correct the ship as it has capsized, just not sunk yet. About the only option is the draft and compel by law people to do public service of carrying letters in some places and/or stop pretending that delivery of letters 6 days a week is possible with the staff that the USPS is able to recruit.

[KCZ]

Yeah, I really want some guy who doesn't wanted anything to do with mail delivery and who is ticked about being drafted to be entrusted with my mail. I don't know where you are, but the post office has never delivered mail anywhere that I've ever lived on Sunday. That's ridiculous and needs to stop if they are.

[Taiko]

Originally Posted by KCZ

Yeah, I really want some guy who doesn't wanted anything to do with mail delivery and who is ticked about being drafted to be entrusted with my mail. I don't know where you are, but the post office has never delivered mail anywhere that I've ever lived on Sunday. That's ridiculous and needs to stop if they are.

Meanwhile in my district some undelivered routes are lucky to get letter delivery on Sundays to break the once every third day cycle, at the moment, if on that Sunday Amazon did not send as big a load and/or many volunteers showed up knowing that they will break the 60 hr/week rule on Thursday as the service above the district level and union sees nothing

[bigbear99]

Sunday delivery? Never seen it around here, Amazon or not...seems to be a feature of other more populated areas.

The Amazon packages that the USPS is supposed to deliver to us for last mile seem to make it sporadically, usually several days later than Amazon forecast. Seems they arrive at the local PO on time, but may or may not make it on the truck, and may or may not be delivered that day.

Regular mail seems to randomly show up in our mailbox once or twice a week. Fortunately there's not much critical that comes through the mail. We do tend to get notices of local events after the events have taken place, but that's the sender's fault for not planning ahead more? Or using alternative communication modes?

[Taiko]

Originally Posted by bigbear99

Sunday delivery? Never seen it around here, Amazon or not...seems to be a feature of other more populated areas.

The Amazon packages that the USPS is supposed to deliver to us for last mile seem to make it sporadically, usually several days later than Amazon forecast. Seems they arrive at the local PO on time, but may or may not make it on the truck, and may or may not be delivered that day.

Regular mail seems to randomly show up in our mailbox once or twice a week. Fortunately there's not much critical that comes through the mail. We do tend to get notices of local events after the events have taken place, but that's the sender's fault for not planning ahead more? Or using alternative communication modes?

We do have the Catch-22 of not being able to tell the boss it can't be done with the boss demanding 6 delivery days. Who knows maybe today is the day someone comes off of jury duty or COVID home isolation period was up and lo and behold every delivery point did get a full delivery. Only to have someone test positive the next day or a sub with no career and pension to protect to think enough of these 12 hour days and quit and we go back into the cycle of something has to stay. If just to make sure the baby chicks and medications for our veterans run to the vacant routes