On December 4th I mailed a package Priority that was supposed to arrive on the 7th. Just got a text that it will show up today, a week late.

It doesn't surprise me that with so many people shopping virtually that the USPS would be overwhelmed, but if you're just heading there now you will probably have to pay more if the item needs to be there by Christmas.

I am not surprised. I just went to Post Office and it took me 20 minutes to get to the counter. I have 2 more cards to mail. I am sending egift cards for Amazon and not mailing packages this year.

Every year a few days after Thanksgiving I mail my sister a CD. She lives about 70 miles away.

Until this year it has always been delivered next day or the day after that in its little bubble lined package for $1 or less. This year it was $4.60 with no additional services requested and took 5 days. Perhaps USPS should charge more for permit mail and give individuals a break. Obviously the permit stuff is cheap as I get a fist full of junk mail per day that goes straight into my recycle bin, constituting an additional expense to my community to dispose of.

I have absolutely no faith in the USPS. JAS used to send me items for her shops. Half of the time, the post office could not find my address!

I order all of my gifts from Amazon, just for the 2-day shipping.

@heather shops wrote:

I am not surprised. I just went to Post Office and it took me 20 minutes to get to the counter. I have 2 more cards to mail. I am sending egift cards for Amazon and not mailing packages this year.

We gave the California grandchildren a Little Tykes basketball hoop, and I was happy to have Amazon ship it for me. We ordered the Dallas grandchild's gift on Amazon, but had it shipped to our house, where we wrapped it and added it to the box with the present for her parents.

@HonnyBrown wrote:

I order all of my gifts from Amazon, just for the 2-day shipping.

"Perhaps USPS should charge more for permit mail and give individuals a break. "

This idea was thought of yet ignored years ago!

When USPS is good it is very, very good but when it is bad.......................

Past summer I shipped 40 cloth masks out of a Chicagoland post office. Box had dinner in Iowa City, spent an afternoon in the Denver air museum and turned around to go to Atlanta and tour the Coca Cola factory. From there it meandered up to Memphis to take in a few blues concerts, hopped a covered wagon to get across Oklahoma and after three weeks showed up in Idaho with 12 hours to spare when the masks were needed to be worn.
I learned my lesson that Priority mail with insurance is worth the small extra fee compared to Ground.

My daughter in law is a mail carrier in Washington state. She just got done working 92 hours last week, Monday thru Saturday with no day off except Sunday.

Wow. Not even overtime pay can compensate for that load.

@sueac101 wrote:

My daughter in law is a mail carrier in Washington state. She just got done working 92 hours last week, Monday thru Saturday with no day off except Sunday.

@sueac101 wrote:

My daughter in law is a mail carrier in Washington state. She just got done working 92 hours last week, Monday thru Saturday with no day off except Sunday.

With rare exceptions, the public's complaints about USPS rarely revolve around individual carrier performance. Sure, we had a sub for about 6 months who would not deliver packages--only slips to go pick up our packages from the PO because every package was 'too big' for our mailbox (even when they were small packages), our house displayed no house numbers (only 3 sets visible from the end of the driveway) and we were 'too far off the road to deliver to the house' (the postmaster drove out to our house and we were within the delivery distance from the road). Once our regular carrier returned from sick leave, our package delivery issues ended.

Rather the issues are cost and reliability of service. When I was a child, 50+ years ago, our Christmas card list was several hundred people and there were generally three deliveries per day to the house during the holidays bringing us several hundred cards between Thanksgiving and New Years. Price of postage was 3 cents and college age kids were temporary hires to help with the extra deliveries. At 55 cents for postage today, I send very few cards and have changed to paying my bills online to make sure my bills get paid in a timely manner.

It is amazing to me that USPS photographs every piece of mail coming to my house every day except flyers, packages and magazine format mail. Especially amazing since probably 90% of my mail is junk advertising. Maybe that is proof for their junk mail senders that USPS has fulfilled their contract, though my sense is that first class mail cost goes up to handle the permit junk mail cost.

My complaints definitely concern my carrier. The items I would see on Informed Delivery would not get delivered for weeks. I ended up changing all of my bills to paperless and my shopping to Amazon just so I could avoid the USPS.

They really suck.

@KathyG wrote:

Wow. Not even overtime pay can compensate for that load.

@sueac101 wrote:

My daughter in law is a mail carrier in Washington state. She just got done working 92 hours last week, Monday thru Saturday with no day off except Sunday.

Yes, it can actually. Why would you not work 1.5 x and double time when you can? I'm working on Christmas for 3.5 x pay. I will work a few hours and make over $500. Once a month, I work 12 days in a row. Overtime is lucrative.

Eep. Depending upon the weather and conditions, her job might be a thousand times more strenuous at various times. I know this because of a different job. I loved the summertime strolls on the job. That was pleasant for about half of each year. I demanded that we change to being 99.9% in the vehicle year-round because of wintertime ice, surprise! potholes under snow, and hubby falling on slick spots.

@sueac101 wrote:

My daughter in law is a mail carrier in Washington state. She just got done working 92 hours last week, Monday thru Saturday with no day off except Sunday.

The delays right now are unprecedented. I mailed a package for a shop on 12/10 and the second tracking scan came on 12/15 showing it had moved 5 miles from the original post office to a local distribution center....crazy! Normally, it would reach the distribution center the same day as mailed.

With the USPS just going through the epic mail in voting demands, heavy on-line shopping and holiday packages, Covid hitting their staff hard, and having to rely on commercial flights to move mail since they don't operate their own aircraft -- they are literally getting slammed! I predict many packages will be late for the holidays this year....

SoCal, I’m all for extra money but putting in that MANY hours doesn’t leave much of a work life balance. Even if it’s temporary, in my opinion it’s not healthy.

@SoCalMama wrote:

@KathyG wrote:

Wow. Not even overtime pay can compensate for that load.

@sueac101 wrote:

My daughter in law is a mail carrier in Washington state. She just got done working 92 hours last week, Monday thru Saturday with no day off except Sunday.

Yes, it can actually. Why would you not work 1.5 x and double time when you can? I'm working on Christmas for 3.5 x pay. I will work a few hours and make over $500. Once a month, I work 12 days in a row. Overtime is lucrative.

So I did the math. the number of hours worked divided by the number of hours in the week =
92 divided by 168 = 0.5476190476190477 = suec101's daughter spent more than half of her hours in that week at work. I don't know how many of those work hours were also spent traffic, deep snow, icy delivery routes, or in glare.

@KathyG wrote:

SoCal, I’m all for extra money but putting in that MANY hours doesn’t leave much of a work life balance. Even if it’s temporary, in my opinion it’s not healthy.

@SoCalMama wrote:

@KathyG wrote:

Wow. Not even overtime pay can compensate for that load.

@sueac101 wrote:

My daughter in law is a mail carrier in Washington state. She just got done working 92 hours last week, Monday thru Saturday with no day off except Sunday.

Yes, it can actually. Why would you not work 1.5 x and double time when you can? I'm working on Christmas for 3.5 x pay. I will work a few hours and make over $500. Once a month, I work 12 days in a row. Overtime is lucrative.

Make hay when the sun shines.
Send the hours to "comp" and take leave later or take them as pay and take a vacation this summer.
I passed two USPS trucks coming through my gate this morning when I left for work at 6 AM.

@KathyG wrote:

SoCal, I’m all for extra money but putting in that MANY hours doesn’t leave much of a work life balance. Even if it’s temporary, in my opinion it’s not healthy.

@SoCalMama wrote:

@KathyG wrote:

Wow. Not even overtime pay can compensate for that load.

@sueac101 wrote:

My daughter in law is a mail carrier in Washington state. She just got done working 92 hours last week, Monday thru Saturday with no day off except Sunday.

Yes, it can actually. Why would you not work 1.5 x and double time when you can? I'm working on Christmas for 3.5 x pay. I will work a few hours and make over $500. Once a month, I work 12 days in a row. Overtime is lucrative.

To make this on topic, I might wonder about the number of available drivers and carriers during the pandemic. Are there enough workers to handle the hefty seasonal load? And, what about the current storm in the northeast? That might slow down some deliveries.

[I wish we could ask USPS to comment on any known effects of long hours and overtime hours on carrier health and safety. OTR drivers (including USPS and all major delivery services) are required to be off road for so many hours during each twenty four hour period in which they work. But what about shorter distance drivers, such as USPS and other delivery services? Are there regulations for them, too? Inquiring minds want to know.]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2020 02:33AM by Shop-et-al.

OK, so today is Jan 7th. We received a Christmas card today with a postmarked date of Dec 21. The person who sent it lives maybe 10 miles away! 16 days.

I got a Christmas card from my friend in Florida sent Dec. 18 2020. I am glad I finally got it.

I think they brought the Pony Express back.

Two of the three locations I shopped today only had one clerk working. I waited over five minutes at one and over eleven at the other. Ironically, the third location that had no customers (and no wait) had four clerks...three of which were doing nothing.

Still waiting for a birthday card sent over a month ago. Packages seem to be moving a little bit quicker as, hopefully, the USPS is working through their enormous backlog of packages/mail. Several of my packages have taken over 3 weeks to be delivered! Why exactly are we paying for Priority Mail (2-3 days) when we end up receiving worse than ground service? Ironically, media mail is moving faster than priority...

Funny thing, it seems that bulk mail, advertising, and junk mail are arriving quickly...makes you wonder!

I sell on ebay and shipped an item on Dec. 17 first class going from Idaho to Delaware. It sat at a Philadelphia sorting center from Dec.21 until Jan.10, it finally started moving on Jan.10 and is suppose to be delivered on Jan.12.Luckily the buyer has been understanding about the delay.I guess the post office has finally got through some of the trailers full of mail emptied out.

A package that was supposed to be delivered to me on 12/23 finally arrived yesterday.

WooHoo...the birthday card arrived today! Mailed and postmarked on Dec 7th, received on Jan 13th from, get this, 20 miles away. How's that for speedy delivery?!

@msimon-2000 wrote:

WooHoo...the birthday card arrived today! Mailed and postmarked on Dec 7th, received on Jan 13th from, get this, 20 miles away. How's that for speedy delivery?!

I had a check mailed on Dec,14 it took 11 days to come 9 miles.