Bragging on USPS

[Jim Matthews]

Hitchens' razor applies.

McKay declined a grand jury for lack of evidence showing electoral fraud. Proof matters.

[Bruce Wrenn]

I ordered some hydraulic lifters last week from Ebay. Both seller and Ebay showed item shipped on Friday. However tracking shows they first hit the post office on Tuesday four days later. Seller says due to Covid 19 USPS shipment could be delayed. Doesn't mention anything about not getting them to USPS until four days later.

[Derek Meyer]

I ordered a sheet set for my wife for her birthday next Friday (she's always wanted organic cotton sheets). The company said that the delivery would be on Thursday the 20th (cutting it close!) but they were delivered today. Hopefully they came in a plain brown box - I haven't been home and won't get there before my wife does.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Could be they create a shipping label when they receive an order but take a few days or more to actually send the order on its way.

Had this happen just this week. Friday a week ago, ordered some hydraulic lifters for my truck. Ordered around noon EDT. Shipper is in California, so it was AM there. Tracking shows shipped that day, but they only showed up at post office on Tuesday. For four days, seller didn't get them to post office. On Thursday (second day) they were delivered. USPS did a great job, but not so much for the seller.

[Curt Harms]

I have had this happen a number of times...and as was already mentioned by Jim K, USPS doesn't like that, although I'm not sure if they police it well.

I generally have good shipping timing with various types of Priority Mail packages (usually regional flat rate boxes) for the east coast. I have, however, had some slow service to the left coast recently. That could be because of recent changes in overtime and staffing that's being discussed in the news currently. Or it could just have been bad luck.

A lot of mail (and other cargo) travels in the baggage holds of passenger airplanes. There aren't nearly as many airline flights as there used to be so not as much mail/cargo capacity.

[Jim Becker]

That's a really good point, Curt...a huge amount of US Mail travels that way, even for so-called "ground" service.

[Bert Kemp]

I have no good words for USPS they waste so much, this last month I've had 3 items take 15 days or more to get here from close by. Now when I'm looking to buy something online I ask how they ship. If they say usps I say no thanks. So far fedex gets it here on time or early.

[Curt Harms]

That's a really good point, Curt...a huge amount of US Mail travels that way, even for so-called "ground" service.

The 'legacy' airlines started as airmail contractors. Carrying passengers was an 'add-on'.

[Bert Kemp]

In my case airlines had nothing to do with it. My packages sat in Phoenix for 7 to 10 days before they sent it 40 miles to my post office.

[Brian Tymchak]

In my case airlines had nothing to do with it. My packages sat in Phoenix for 7 to 10 days before they sent it 40 miles to my post office.

I think we have the answer on the delays... sorting machines literally thrown in the junk pile and all USPS overtime canceled starting in July.

An article in our local paper said that 25% of the sorting machines here in Columbus have been decommissioned.

[Brian Elfert]

My understanding is the sorting machines were only for first class mail and don't sort packages. First class volume has fallen so they are removing them to make more room for packages.

Lack of overtime shouldn't make a package spend a week or more at a sorting center unless they are sitting on absolute mountains of packages. I imagine the sorting centers don't have room for a week's worth of packages unless they are sitting in trailers outside all over the place.

[Curt Harms]

My understanding is the sorting machines were only for first class mail and don't sort packages. First class volume has fallen so they are removing them to make more room for packages.

Lack of overtime shouldn't make a package spend a week or more at a sorting center unless they are sitting on absolute mountains of packages. I imagine the sorting centers don't have room for a week's worth of packages unless they are sitting in trailers outside all over the place.

That seems like a logical explanation. First class mail volume has been dropping for years so it wouldn't be a surprise if there's more first class processing capacity than there is demand, until mail-in voting became a thing. 60 million mail-in ballots seems like a lot but I wonder what the monthly piece count is for mailed-in bills. If people don't wait until two days before election day to mail their ballots I'll bet there's plenty of post office capacity. I'll bet 80% of people know how they're voting right now, there's no need to wait until the last minute. But that doesn't feed the 24/7 news cycle, does it?

[Nicholas Lawrence]

You guys need to stop with the facts. There is a narrative to be pushed here.

[Jim Koepke]

Let us look at this in a logical way.

Things were going fairly well.

Changes were made.

Things started slowing down and causing delays.

Would the logical conclusion be the changes made the difference or had no effect on service?

jtk

[Kev Williams]

The post office, reasonably effortlessly, handles around 600,000,000-- six hundred million- pieces of mail in the 6 working days before Xmas. So, even 100,000,000 extra ballots in the off-season comes out to just another busy day for the USPS. Not sure about the DJPS however...