The postal workers union has endorsed a candidate also so they are not unbiased in all this.
I worked at a very small college on a campus that includes a private k-12 school with boarding students. During my years there, the amount of packages delivered to students and staff exploded as ordering online became the preferred way to purchase. Upper level administration refused to add mailroom/delivery staff for a very long time. They wanted us to tell students not to order so much. But that’s not how things work. They needed to figure out how to deal with the new reality.
I feel the same about mail right now. At a time when mail-in voting is a necessity to meet needs, the post office needs to figure out how to meet this need. And removing equipment, cutting staff, etc will not accomplish that.
Deal with the immediate needs & figure out how to best move forward after that.
Five states have been voting by mail for years, and those states haven’t had any trouble so far. Every single registered voter gets a ballot.
In my state, the ballots are mailed out about 3 weeks before the election and it is recommended that you return by mail no fewer than 8 days before they are due, ON election day. I think absentee ballots (foreign and to other states along with instate) are mailed 4-6 weeks before the election.
The states need to make sure their rules for getting a ballot or returning it allow for the ballots to reach the voters, can be returned on time, have a method for accepting the ballots - either by physically receiving or a date stamp if the ballots will be accepted after the polls close. NY didn’t do that. The states have to mail out the ballots by a method (first class or bulk) that will get them to the voters on time if the post office follows its time (3-4 for first class, up to 10 days for bulk)
I just read that the postal rates will go up from Oct 15 to Dec 27. If they print ballots now that say return postage is 71 cents or 84 cents or whatever it is, that may be incorrect when people go to return by mail.
I say use the ballot box. It’s free.
Regarding the comment about the postal workers union endorsing a candidate—
YES, they endorsed the candidate who is NOT trying to destroy the USPS!! Seems like a logical choice for them.
Maybe just maybe it’s all that excessive overtime they want back. Unfortunately that is not sustainable in the long term.
Comments are veering close to political rather than just factual. Presumably posters don’t want the thread shut down.
Not to jinx myself, but I haven’t identified personal delivery problems, nor are people complaining on NextDoor. And I assure you, they will complain about every little annoyance on our neighborhood boards.
Side issue - but another package has gone missing.Amazon says they handed it to a resident. Well not the resident of this house!! None of the neighbors said they got it. Grrr.
Well, if comments are dangerously becoming political, it just may be because the USPS problems have a political origin.
If that is the case, then shut down this thread–cannot discuss the mail slowdown without mentioning the politics involved!!
They have been taking pictures of where they delivered their packages. They once delivered to the neighbors across the street,once they told me my package was delivered successfully. Sure just the wrong house… Lol. I knew that since I recognized the door and porch wasn’t mine. Got an Amazon package yesterday and told an electronics company not to hand off to usps or I will cancel my order…
You must not then live in an affected area. Many of us do.
Nope- no photo. Sometimes they do, but obviously not always. When I posted on our neighborhood facebook page another neighbor shahid they had an Amazon package delivered to them that wasn’t theirs. They were planning to take it to their neighbor. Ours was an electronic thing so maybe the delivery person pilfered it knowing that Amazon will refund us or send a replacement. In this day, its a possibility. That or they are jus incompetent.
But we have to wait til tomorrow before Amazon will do anything. ANd their online chat is now just with a bot, not with a human. Ditto for phone customer service. Sigh…
I understand that there are serious issues in a large number of areas, and that we are lucky not to have been affected. I follow the news. The thread asked if people were having problems, so I was just reporting in.
MODERATOR’S NOTE
Sure you can. Other users are able to so let’s follow the rules.
My son in law is a mail carrier. Letters etc are down but package delivery is WAY up and he lives in a city with Amazon delivery. He has delivered mattresses, COUNTLESS giant bags of dog food on a daily basis, even furniture (the kind you put together). The Post Office has said no OT and if they cannot finish their deliveries in the time they are allotted then they just stop for the day. He said when they were on OT (at least at their office) they had to come in early to do it but when they got there the mail was never ready so they just ended up sitting around for that extra time in the morning waiting. He eventually took himself off of the OT list because he said it was pointless as he wasn’t getting anything extra done. It’s not an easy job by far but I remember when he and my daughter were dating and he would complain about work. I told him you are very lucky - there is no job more secure and with a better pension than the post office. I guess I was wrong.
Hmmm… I talked to Amazon on the phone yesterday… Maybe just better on certain days. I know their curtailing their hours also.
So I watch as the Amazon dude took my large box of Kanto Yu 6 speakers for my daughter and it dropped out on the ground as he was wheeling it to my house… Agh… Good thing they packed these with several boxes and Padding etc. So far no issues. The next thing is a Fluance rt 81 turntable. I hope they hand off to Fed ex. Or Usps. We have local issues before this postal issue and just want to make sure I get it in one-piece…
Exactly; letters have been declining for 20+ years, and COVID accelerated that trend. But the question remains, are first class letters/bills/ballots being slowed, or just packages? (or both?).
Definitely a tough job, but that doesn’t mean USPS can’t become more efficient (if Congress would only let them).
Can USPS be streamlined and made more efficient? Absolutely.
Is NOW, in the middle of a pandemic and presidential election, the time to cut back on services? Absolutely NOT.
Will try again tomorrow (a weekday). What phone # did you call (PM it please). The paper has a big article about how Amazon was discontinuing it’s delivery service with several outside vendors, so maybe this driver figured he/she was about to be out of a job and could peddle electronics on ebay.
If the USPS can handle the decennial census mailing, why not have a Can Do attitude and effort to deliver vote=by-mail applications and ballots?
https://www.21cpw.com/usps-to-handle-historic-census-mailing/
The sorting machines that have been removed are sorting letters (flat envelopes) – not packages. So the slow down would tend to impact the letters.
Now whether the overall reduction in the volume of flat mail means that there is a reduced need for sorting machines is another question entirely – but that’s the sort of change that calls for transparancy.
The USPS took out a mailbox on a corner in my neighborhood a while back… maybe a year ago, maybe more. The box had been there as long as I’ve lived in the area, well over 30 years – but when the box was removed there were multiple notifications sent to the local residents – many months in advance. (I’m thinking it was at least 9 months between the time I got the notice that the box was going and to the time it actually disappeared.) So I thought that was standard practice – that these changes were planned out in advance, with plenty of lead time
But apparently not (?)