The new postmaster general has instituted draconian cuts which have severely impacted mail delivery. They cut 10 people from our local PO, people are getting their mail at 8pm some days - or not at all. IMHO, USPS is an essential service that should not be politicized.
The USPS Strategic Plan formulated by the prior postmaster general can be found at the link below. Its worth reviewing if you have an interest in understanding the challenges and burdens the USPS faces that do not impact private carriers.
Well now it looks like we can stop with the inferences. The President stated in an interview that he’s blocking additional funding for USPS in order to prevent/restrict mail-in voting.
Not sure if posting quotes from the interview would be considered political, but those interested can search for his interview with Maria Bartiromo.
I think I’ll be dropping off my ballot in person this year instead of using the mailbox as I have for the past 10+ years.
We have been in the process of having all bills paid automatically. No problems with forgetting or mislaying a certain bill or worrying that payment won’t arrive on time.
Other mail is just junk, which I wish we could opt out of like junk phone calls. I think the only reason we can’t is that the USPS relies on junk mail for revenue since email came into being.
Whatever he thinks of mail-in voting (I’m sure we shouldn’t be debating that), it’s disturbing that he stated he is withholding funds deliberately to slow the mail down. No matter what the reasoning is.
YES,come to my house…LOL…My sister is a mail carrier for 30 years and a union rep and her location was a test market . I haven’t had a long talk with her about this but she said the delaying is talked about at her union meetings. Its a real thing.
In our area a major problem is the mailbox itself. Thieves have dropped sticky wires into the collection boxes, retrieved mail containing checks and then ‘washed’ the checks and stolen the money. It’s gotten so bad that the collection boxes are locked after hours. Before automatic payment, I took my checks into the post office to mail them.
As a result, many mail boxes which used to stand on street corners or at shopping centers have been removed.
As for delivery, our delivery has always been sloppy. Many times I get the neighbor’s mail and walk it over to their house. Or I get mail for someone at the same number but different street. If it looks important I deliver it there myself.
That’s a problem for some who, do to increased health risks, disabilities, work where they can’t get away, etc. can’t drop off in person. Also, in some areas, folks can’t drop in a dropbox. They need to physically hand it off to a person.
These are all barriers to easy access to voting. It’s all voter suppression.
There were significant mail delivery issues early in the year. I pay bills on line and send documents by attachments to emails, so I typically don’t have to rely on USPS much, but when my father passed away the day after Christmas and I was in charge of taking care of . . . . everything, I suddenly needed to rely on it quite a bit more. As anyone who has been in this position knows, there’s a mountain of documentation to deal with and some of it can’t be done on the internet or by email attachments when original documents are required or there is no way to securely send email with sensitive information.
During January and Feb, we were lucky if we had 2 or 3 deliveries a week. Sometimes they’d come as late as 8:00 using flashlights. One week we had no mail for an entire week and then TWO deliveries on Sunday.
One reason given at the time was that the (then) booming economy was making it difficult to hire new people or keep the ones they had who were already stressed and overworked. Based on what I was seeing on NextDoor, they were also taking abuse from angry people on their routes and others going to the post office to yell at them. I made a special effort to smile and thank them whenever I saw them coming or going.
After people flooded local politicians with complaints, mail was coming daily again by the time Covid starting shutting things down in late March, but now the problem is back. I’m signed up for Informed Delivery and can see what’s supposed to be coming, but we’ve only had mail delivered on Monday so far this week.
Along with those who rely on USPS for payments and medications, I feel for those losing loved ones through all this, as it makes a difficult time even more difficult and stressful. In addition to the mail delivery issues, some people you need to deal with who handle the paperwork are working from home due to covid, so they are not necessarily seeing the mail when it comes in and everything takes longer.