I’ve used the United States Postal Service enough times over the past 50 years to observe this agency slowly go downhill. Stamps went from 8 cents in 1972 to 78 cents last July. Why don’t they just round things off to an even dollar—because that’s what they’re evidently aiming for.
Here’s another shocker. Priority Mail is no longer guaranteed to get there in 3 days or your money back. Why would I now want to spend the extra money for them to stick this red, white, and blue priority label on my package? It basically means nothing.
For over a century, a letter or parcel dropped off at your local post office had to be out of the building the same day. That rule doesn’t apply anymore. Sacks of mail can loiter around for as long as it takes for a truck driver to pick them up. Can you imagine a pizza place operating this way?
The humorous term “snail mail” has been used for decades. In some cases, that’s a disservice to the speed of snails. Before I harp on further, let me say that the postal clerks in Lake Havasu City do an exceptional job. My letter carrier is tops.
Part of the problem seems to lie with the USPS muckety-mucks in Washington, DC. There’s a popular statement regarding upper management that deals with too many chiefs, and not enough… I’ll stop at that point. Not all blame is administrative, though.
My brother-in-law has been a letter carrier for close to 40 years. He says that they can’t find good employees anymore, or people accustomed to actually working. Calvin recently told a story about a new hire coming on the job, and then a few days later, quitting, all because the work was too hard.
He said that some newbies never actually quit; they just don’t show up one day without explanation. I believe this isn’t just a postal employee problem, as business owners around town echo the same theme.
Returning to mail and delivery issues. I mentioned a while back that I was going to mail a box of candy to my grandchildren for Easter. It was sent First Class with tracking and was supposed to take 5 – 7 days to get from Havasu to Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Three weeks later, it finally showed up, with the package full of ants. Somewhere along the line, they crawled in. I’m guessing Limbo, Mississippi. Lost mail always seems to end up in Limbo.
Christmas cards have become somewhat of a problem, with us now mailing them two weeks in advance just to make sure. Despite this extra time, there have been a few that haven’t shown up until the following year, generally the first week of January.
This year, our cards will go in the mailbox the day after Thanksgiving. They might get there a little early, but there’s no chiseled-in-stone rule on when to send them. Oddly enough, residents of West Jefferson, North Carolina, celebrate Christmas each year in July.
West Jefferson is the top Christmas tree producer in the US, so that might have something to do with it. Cards sent to that town would have to go out no later than the middle of June. No, you’d better change that to the end of May.
What should be done to improve the USPS? A couple of things come to mind. First of all, this agency should stop using the eagle as their symbol of expediency. Eagles, much like hawks, are fast and generally don’t mess around when they’re on a specific mission.
A bird more reminiscent of this new and improved USPS is the common feral pigeon. These comical birds like to wander in circles, stop, do some type of Tennessee strut, before flying off to their destinations.
The second and most important thing is to add an additional method of delivery besides Media Mail, First Class, and Priority. When I told my wife of my idea, she said that they already have such, although postal clerks don’t advertise it.
Joleen said this undisclosed service is called “Whenever.”
I like to write junk... 