Something is going wrong at USPS

[fried eggs]

Receiving someone else's mail is becoming a daily occurrence now. Most of the time the mail was meant for my neighbors and I simply hand deliver to the correct address. But today, the mail man delivered checks to me that were meant for someone on a street that's nowhere near here.

What if I lacked integrity? I could have a field day with all this very important personal information that's wrongly arriving in my box!

[Dreamer Tatum]

1. And that generalizes to the entire USPS? nt

[Drale]

2. The last few days we haven't gotten our mail till 5:00

When we usually get it at 11:00 am.

[OhioChick]

3. 5:00 is early here...

Most days, we don't get ours until 6-7:00.

[SoCalDem]

4. A friend who recently took early retirement from USPS told me

he and many others are getting out as fast as they can because the climate there is so toxic.

There are less people doing more work, and expected to do it in less time.

Most of the mail is junk-mail .

They routinely ask people to sign up for early retirement to get them
"off their books"...and there are many Boomer postal workers who are getting old & retiring:)

It could be just a result of mass retirements being replaced by more inexperienced people who are not properly trained and overworked.

[gauguin57]

5. That's probably an individual carrier. I've had problems like that in the past ...

... but when I got a different carrier, the problems disappeared.

[RebelOne]

16. It's definitely a problem with the carrier.

My mail including checks have gone to my next-door neighbors. And I have received their mail also. One time, I sent for my auto tag and it was delivered to the next door neighbors and they were out of town for two weeks. So for a while I was driving in an expired tag. Each time that this happens now, I call the post office complaint department and report it.

[Tikki]

6. Yeah, the postal workers are never allowed to...

take vacations, take a day off for sick leave or attend a funeral.
And every sub is fully trained in every carriers route and just love
to slightly inconvenience your life.

:sarcasm:.

Tikki

[marsis]

7. Not to rain on your rant but

if you look at the whole picture, the USPS is one great enterprise. If you want to compare them with UPS and FedEx just look at the costs to send a letter with the latter two companies (about 10 times more costly).
The USPS is a pretty good deal, especially with the job losses they're experiencing.

[wryter2000]

9. Overall, I agree

The USPS is an amazing bargain.

Sadly, more and more of my mail is going astray, and I sometimes get other people's mail. Delivery used to be, for all intents and purposes, perfect. My last royalty statement from Harlequin got lost. The whole thing has me so nervous I'm getting royalties sent via paypal whenever possible. It's not fun when checks don't come. :(

[XOKCowboy]

8. I have the best mail lady EVER!!

I travel a lot so have my mail held a lot. My little mail lady will ring my bell every day my mail is on hold just in case I've returned early. One time she even went back to the PO AFTER her route was over, got a held package and brought it to my house after 6PM. She is always good natured, cheerful and willing to do anything for her customers. I slip her a $20 every now and again just because I know how lucky I am to have her.

I'm sorry you're having problems with yours.

[Gemini Cat]

10. Shit happens.

While it may be on occasion frustrating, the post office over all does an excellent job getting our mail to us.

[ieoeja]

11. Probably, your postman retired or is on vacation.

A new person, or substitute, will not be as good for awhile. I have had three family members deliver mail, and they were always greet with a mess when they returned from vacation.

[Curmudgeoness]

12. I have next to no problems with USPS, so I have to think

that your carrier is the problem. I know that my sister has had terrible delivery in Houston off and on (depending on the carrier), but I just love my carriers. At the risk of accusing someone who I do not know, it looks like your carrier is just lazy. There really is no excuse for wrong mail at the wrong address as a rule.

[CrispyQ]

13. Back in the late 80s I knew someone who became a postal carrier.

I was surprised at the battery of tests they put him through, prior to employment. He had to sort lists of numbers & lists of words. He was given a list of street addresses & had to remember their order. There were a couple of other exercises, but you could see how they were appropriate for a postal carrier job. I wonder if they do that now. Also, & I may take some heat for this, I wonder if the younger generation's reading skills have anything to do with it.

[KarenS]

14. This was happening to us on a regular basis a few years ago.

I called the local Post Office and talked to a supervisor for the mail carriers.

There were several factors in our case ~ new subdivision plus we are considered rural so we had 3 different sub-contractors delivering our mail each week. So for a month our mail had to be sorted then rubber banded and checked by the supervisor before it was delivered. After a month our mail was then put back into the regular process. In just a few days, we were receiving other folks mail again, so I called back ~ it took about 5 of 6 times of the special handling before they started really paying attention.

Bottom line is this ~ let your local Post Office know ~ they have procedures in place to closely monitor mail delivery ~ and at least, in our case, they seemed genuinely interested in making things right. If they don't know there's a problem, they cannot fix it.

Good luck!

[NeedleCast]

15. Sounds like one bad mailman

While the Internet has pretty much been the death knell for the USPS, this doesn't have anything to do with that.

[southernyankeebelle]

17. Well you need to call and inform the supervisor what is going on. I know I have gotten wrong mail a

time or 2. I live in a rural area and I have called the supervisor on the mail lady who speeds on our road. If the supervisor doesn't know what is wrong then he can't fix it.

[postulater]

18. My sister just received a card that her daughter mailed 3 years ago from Scotland.

Don't know if it's our postal service or theirs, but 3 years is a long time for a card.

[eggplant]

19. Call your postmaster.

I'm always amazed when people bitch about the USPS. Find me another service that can reliably (no, really) deliver papers 5000 miles away for less than fifty cents.