Three separate incidences only very recently. An item was returned to me, "attempted, unknown." Feces. The name and address are 100% correct. I called the destination Post Office. They were kind and understanding: "Ya, we've had trouble with the machines. That sticker gets attached by another machine, AUTOMATICALLY. (So, rather than no information, the thing conveys FALSE information. Utterly fabulous.) The destination P.O. told me to simply re-send it. So, I did. On the 2nd trip, the addressee did receive the thing...... Another: it took 9 days for a postcard to reach me, sent from the same city where I live..... Another: A more important, vital item: my (Irish) passport. The Irish Post (An Post) told me the item was passed off to the USPS on 15th Dec. On top of the cost of the item itself, I paid 15 euros just for postage. I was informed that I'd have to sign upon receipt. The item showed up on a US scan as having been received, and that it is Registered mail. ... But the item has gone AWOL, with no information at all about where it might be. The local Postmaster tried to be helpful, but could do no more than attempt to track it, the same way I could... but to no avail. The one he spoke to in NYC earlier GUESSED the item was "stuck" in Customs. ..... Then, on 31st December, the local Postmaster called back to say the item has been received in Honolulu. Probably be delivered after Jan. 1st. But the tracking I PAID for did not happen, was disregarded. And this is to say nothing about the fact that my item was supposed to have been expedited! The USPS has been in possession of the item for 16 days. I could have walked the thing to Honolulu, quicker than that.
Locally, P.O. personnel have been kind and tried the best they could to be helpful. But it seems to me that what is going on is that AUTOMATION--- ordered from "on high," has replaced actual, punctual, accurate SERVICE. My local Postmaster told me that they have not been scanning things, as they should, in NYC. (International items received.) And he's trying to get that sorry situation remedied. Good luck with THAT. Leadership, or lack thereof, has been falling down on the job. That brings us to uncle Louis DeJoy, the Postmaster General, the Trumpster's big donor. The one who lately childishly blocked his ears, not wanting to hear what members of a Congressional committee were telling him. He had just volunteered to give himself an A-Grade on his own performance. Ya, bushwah.
The P.O. is a vital service which needs to cost whatever it needs to cost. DeJoy was appointed and made it his mission to make the P.O. pay for itself. THAT is NEVER going to happen. Likewise, many years ago, it was a huge mistake to spin-off the P.O. and rename it the Postal Service, when it became "semi-private." (And what the hell does that even mean, eh?)
Happy New Year.
Comments
Bingo.
So the sorting now takes place in a larger city 130 miles away, and a letter or whatever mailed to a local address takes a ride east 130 miles, sits for a while at an overloaded central P.O. there, and eventually makes its way back here after about a week.
Other signs of sabotage and/or incompetence have cropped up too: the busy downtown P.O. now closes its service windows for an hour at lunchtime, when of course many people try to do postal business when they have time at lunch break. Several times in the past few months, I and others I know have tried to buy stamps at this P.O., and guess what: they don't have any to sell.
Some may remember that the campaign to destroy the USPS began in earnest in 2006, when the GQP in Congress passed a requirement no other agency or corporation has apparently ever deemed necessary: pre-funding all the USPS employees' health benefits (through 2056, or 75 years, depending on the source, not sure why the disagreement).
This crazed requirement, which was responsible for 84% of USPS "losses" since passed, was finally reversed in 2022.
...EDIT TO ADD:
The passport was delivered today, into my ordinary, everyday-use locked mailbox. 02 January, '25. No call, no notice, no signature required--- evidently. uncle L. DeJoy has pucked-up the P.O. magnificently. Like it was his GOAL. Ya.