Re: The US Mail....I had an interesting convo with an "Expeditor" on the dock the other day...
I've dealt with this lady before, many times in fact and her perspective on what's happening was interesting.
What started the conversation was me mentioning that my rent check took 7 days to get one Zip Code over, and I was pretty sure it came through her facility.
We started talking about what is going on and the Trumpy crony that is the Postmaster General.
She shook her head in disbelief. She can't stand Trumpy.
"We are going to do our damnedest to get it out, but they have cut out all the overtime, so carriers (meaning your mail delivery person) are bringing mail back to their respective Post Offices, when before they would simply complete their routes and get empty."
She also said that ALL mail that is "Political", that means sample ballots, printed materials from campaigns, etc. is treated like "Priority Mail" anyway, even if that postage rate hasn't been charged, so there won't be any intentional slowing of ballots by the folks working inside the facilities.
Priority mail gets loaded on the trucks first, before even First Class mail.
She also mentioned that she has been prohibited from calling in an extra trailer if there is overflow. In other words, if she fills her regular Orlando trailer (as an example) and still has more coming out of the sort, she can simply dial the phone and their logistics people will call my company or one of our competitors, and another tractor trailer is sent over in short order.
Now she can not do that.
That circumstance hasn't happened too much yet she said, but as it gets closer to the end of the year and Christmas shipping starts to heat up, it could get really bad.
I've been in her facility scores of times over the last few years, and I don't see anything different at all - no carts of undelivered mail sitting around for instance, but this is a fairly large processing center that not only sorts for the street, it sorts mail destined for out of state as well.
I think if I wanted to see if mail is actually backing up, I would have to go to my local small facility - the one that just covers my zip code, and see if mail is having to wait an extra day or 3 or 5 to get out the door and be delivered.
But the large processing centers seem to be getting it out the door and down the road.
= new reply since forum marked as read
When I said "Priority Mail gets loaded first", what I meant is for a given load to a given destination, Priority mail takes...well...priority!
Example: This is a "GPC" or "General Purpose Container" (as well as other names) and is a very common piece of rolling stock that mail is loaded onto trucks, both straight trucks and tractor trailers;
(There are several other types of equipment, but I'll just stick with this for clarity)
As you can see, it has 2 shelves and the side facing the camera is two enclosure devices that unlatch at their tops, fold down and slide into a slot so the unit can be easily loaded and unloaded. Other designs have a fabric net that attaches in several spots but is easy to install and remove. This one is loaded with letter trays, and usually this means those letters are "Sorted for the street", meaning they require no further sorting and are ready to go onto one of the blue painted delivery vehicles that bring mail to your house. The trays and bins are what are loaded onto delivery vehicles, however, NOT the rolling equipment. They are used only for truck shipments.
These units fit inside a trailer 3 across, or turned sideways, 2 across. I think they are 48" by 24" and about 5' tall. They have 2 swivel wheels and 2 fixed and are equipped with a tow bar (That yellow painted item on the right side) so that several of them can be hooked together and towed with a tug.
A typical 53' van trailer will hold about 36 of them, give or take a row of 3.
Lets say the trip to Orlando I mentioned in my OP has the mail waiting on the dock for me when I back up to it, and there are 36 GPC's ready to go, full of 3rd class mail and first class letters. If during the time I am pushing them on, 4 GPC's of Priority Mail destined for the same facility in Orlando come to the dock, THEY will be loaded before the other mail that was already waiting for me. In other words, 4 of the original carts will wait for the next truck.
When I said it gets loaded first, I don't mean Priority Mail is always in the nose of the trailer, rather is takes precedence over other classes of mail.
Hope that explains it a bit better.
I agree with your last sentence, however. Don't take any chances. If you can go to a polling place on Election day, DO SO!
I really appreciate these DU first-hand information posts.
