WhiteBlaze Pages 2024
A Complete Appalachian Trail Guidebook.
AVAILABLE NOW. $4 for interactive PDF(smartphone version)
Read more here WhiteBlaze Pages Store

Results 1 to 18 of 18
  1. #1

    Default US Postal Service (USPS) delays getting to be extreme - FYI vendors and purchasers

    As a cottage gear maker, I use first class mail for 95% of my shipments. Things are getting really crazy with the postal service. Only one of 18 packages I’ve mailed in the last 10 days has been scanned as received by USPS. I’m actually considering closing shop until the holidays are over. When packages have not been scanned, the tracking info makes it look like I have not sent them out. Northeast Ohio, where I am, is apparently one of the worst areas. See this from the front page of our newspaper today: https://plaindealer-oh.newsmemory.com/?publink=10e5850f6
    Unfortunately, USPS is normally understaffed, but now also has additional staff out due to Covid, record holiday mail volumes, and overflow packages dumped from FedEX, UPS, and even Amazon. Packages are piling up all over the country and scanning of tracking numbers is often skipped. I’m seeing usual 3-5 day delivery times take up to 3-5 weeks in some cases. Terrible, terrible, terrible.
    I know that complaining won't help me, but I feel better now.
    Find the LIGHT STUFF at QiWiz.net

    The lightest cathole trowels, wood burning stoves, windscreens, spatulas,
    cooking options, titanium and aluminum pots, and buck saws on the planet



  2. #2
    Registered User
    Join Date
    03-17-2009
    Location
    Hadley Pa.
    Age
    67
    Posts
    440

    Default

    It's been bad lately. I'm waiting 21 days today for a small padded envelope from the UK.

  3. #3

    Default

    Yup, I have a package indicating that it was never tracked beyond the initial setup of the shipment. I told the shipper I would get in touch if it has not showed up after the first of the year.

    Sadly the new postal service administrator will be hanging around long after the inauguration.

  4. #4
    Registered User JPritch's Avatar
    Join Date
    02-03-2017
    Location
    Lynchburg, VA
    Age
    45
    Posts
    675

    Default

    Things do seem to have really bogged down in the past week. I have a few packages in the system that 1) show no tracking detail and 2) very little movement. This is all either USPS First-Class or FedEx Ground. I wonder, is USPS still sticking to their 2-3 day timeframe for Priority items?
    It is what it is.

  5. #5
    Registered User One Half's Avatar
    Join Date
    08-05-2010
    Location
    in a bus
    Age
    53
    Posts
    1,802

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by peakbagger View Post
    Yup, I have a package indicating that it was never tracked beyond the initial setup of the shipment. I told the shipper I would get in touch if it has not showed up after the first of the year.

    Sadly the new postal service administrator will be hanging around long after the inauguration.
    It really has nothing to do with the current administrator. It has to do with EXTREME mail volumes due to Covid as well as covid getting some of the carriers, mail handlers, drivers, etc.

    Last Saturday we got a Thanksgiving card. Granted MIL didn't mail it until Dec 1 (according to postmark) but that's 11 days. Yesterday we received a letter from our son in basic training that he sent on the 5th. Another 11 days. However, the cherry on top was today receiving the letter he sent on the 1st. That's 16 days!
    He comes home tomorrow for holiday block leave. At this rate, we will be getting letters he wrote this week after he goes back to the base in January.

    I spoke with my brother. He's a mail carrier in NH. He told me last week that their normal MAX is 50 tractor trailers a night plus Amazon packages of what can get sorted. They have been getting 80+ trailers every night. When I spoke to him on the 12th he told me they had a backlog of 100+ trailers. And it doesn't look like it's going to get better any time soon.

    But hey, shut down all the businesses. Force people to order online because stores are shut down or there are huge lines because of social distancing and new covid capacity rules. Then the mail system gets flooded. Everyone gets upset. Congress will demand that USPS be allowed to hire more people. And BINGO, more government jobs! Woo Hoo!!!
    https://tinyurl.com/MyFDresults

    A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. ~Paul Dudley White

  6. #6
    Registered User One Half's Avatar
    Join Date
    08-05-2010
    Location
    in a bus
    Age
    53
    Posts
    1,802

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by JPritch View Post
    Things do seem to have really bogged down in the past week. I have a few packages in the system that 1) show no tracking detail and 2) very little movement. This is all either USPS First-Class or FedEx Ground. I wonder, is USPS still sticking to their 2-3 day timeframe for Priority items?
    No. My brother also said, on the 12th, that they have been told to advise people that any package they want to arrive before Christmas they need to ship it Priority EXPRESS. This costs 3x more than priority.
    https://tinyurl.com/MyFDresults

    A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. ~Paul Dudley White

  7. #7
    GSMNP 900 Miler
    Join Date
    02-25-2007
    Location
    Birmingham, AL
    Age
    57
    Posts
    4,861
    Journal Entries
    1
    Images
    5

    Default

    Have a package that I've been tracking that finally arrived today.
    The tracking history shows it arrived at the local primary sorting facility and then sat there for 4 days before it left routed to the local postoffice.

  8. #8
    Registered User soilman's Avatar
    Join Date
    01-29-2010
    Location
    Chillicothe, OH
    Age
    69
    Posts
    600

    Default

    I think there has been an issue with first class for some time. I bought something on ebay from ME shipped using first class. This was early November. It took 2 weeks to receive. My tracking said it took 2 days to come from Columbus, 45 miles away. Other priority packages I received later in the month took 2-3 days.
    More walking, less talking.

  9. #9

    Default

    Ripping out sorting machines from high volume mail centers and devolving into hand sorting processes probably didn't help much.

  10. #10
    Registered User
    Join Date
    11-08-2015
    Location
    the south
    Age
    73
    Posts
    197

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Traveler View Post
    Ripping out sorting machines from high volume mail centers and devolving into hand sorting processes probably didn't help much.
    Along with removing dropboxes. Luckily, the sabotage was caught before complete service failure.
    humor is the gadfly on the corpse of tragedy

  11. #11

    Default

    Package I ordered on Nov 27 arrived Dec 15. Another one I pd extra for 2-3 day delivery and arrived 5 days later. Have a Merry Christmas everyone.

  12. #12
    Registered User Slugg's Avatar
    Join Date
    04-07-2017
    Location
    Georgia
    Age
    31
    Posts
    364

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Traveler View Post
    Ripping out sorting machines from high volume mail centers and devolving into hand sorting processes probably didn't help much.
    Quote Originally Posted by greensleep View Post
    Along with removing dropboxes. Luckily, the sabotage was caught before complete service failure.
    Thank you. Don’t forget stopping paying overtime which was also corrected (not by the Postmaster’s choice) before complete service failure. I’m sure the unprecedented volume isn’t helping but the changes the current Postmaster enacted aren’t helping either. Almost immediately after these changes went into effect (August) I ceased getting my mail every day. I only get it 4 or 5 days per week. And it arrives after 7:00PM. Not a coincidence.
    Last edited by Slugg; 12-18-2020 at 12:46.

  13. #13
    Registered User One Half's Avatar
    Join Date
    08-05-2010
    Location
    in a bus
    Age
    53
    Posts
    1,802

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by soilman View Post
    I think there has been an issue with first class for some time. I bought something on ebay from ME shipped using first class. This was early November. It took 2 weeks to receive. My tracking said it took 2 days to come from Columbus, 45 miles away. Other priority packages I received later in the month took 2-3 days.
    And today we are getting a card from MIL that only took 4 days from the postal stamp date. I really do thin it's all a matter of randomness at this point.
    https://tinyurl.com/MyFDresults

    A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. ~Paul Dudley White

  14. #14
    Registered User One Half's Avatar
    Join Date
    08-05-2010
    Location
    in a bus
    Age
    53
    Posts
    1,802

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Traveler View Post
    Ripping out sorting machines from high volume mail centers and devolving into hand sorting processes probably didn't help much.
    didn't happen. just the opposite. USPS has been automating for many years. This is one of the points of contention with the unions. as more things get automated, people lose their jobs. Unions don't like that.
    https://tinyurl.com/MyFDresults

    A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. ~Paul Dudley White

  15. #15
    Registered User One Half's Avatar
    Join Date
    08-05-2010
    Location
    in a bus
    Age
    53
    Posts
    1,802

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Slugg View Post
    Thank you. Don’t forget stopping paying overtime which was also corrected (not by the Postmaster’s choice) before complete service failure. I’m sure the unprecedented volume isn’t helping but the changes the current Postmaster enacted aren’t helping either. Almost immediately after these changes went into effect (August) I ceased getting my mail every day. I only get it 4 or 5 days per week. And it arrives after 7:00PM. Not a coincidence.
    They do pay overtime but one of the changes they made was to start the carriers at the post office later. My brother no longer has an hour and a half at the PO each morning before the mail actually gets dropped to them for final sorting to his route. Now he shows up and the mail is there at his "station." No free 90 minute coffee break.
    And for decades they have been making the routes longer as mail volume dropped. So a small town with 6 carriers dropped down to 5 carrier routes type of thing. I worked in a small town PO with 8 drop boxes around town. It took close to an hour to drive to all of them and most days all but 2 of them were empty. And the 2 that were used had a combined total of less than a bin of mail. And the 2 that were actually used? they were the ones that were in the highest traffic areas near the center of town and the ones outside the PO itself. It is kind of hard to find a drop box these days and I some times worry when I use the one closest to me that it isn't actually checked every day so I usually go to the post office and drop off letters at the box outside the PO.
    https://tinyurl.com/MyFDresults

    A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. ~Paul Dudley White

  16. #16
    Registered User
    Join Date
    01-25-2013
    Location
    Upstate NY
    Age
    48
    Posts
    565

    Default

    Just to add to the other issues was that storm Wed. night into yesterday. With snowfalls of 20-40" through much of NY and into New England it didn't help with the backlogs. We had at the lower end and had no mail delivered at all yesterday, so that's just that much more that has to be caught up (not that it was surprising or unexpected, since there are still streets not cleared in the area as of the news this noontime, which makes it pretty hard for anyone to deliver anything!).

  17. #17
    Registered User
    Join Date
    02-03-2004
    Location
    Linden. Va.
    Age
    65
    Posts
    153
    Images
    15

    Default

    To be expected every December.

  18. #18

    Default

    That got political pretty quickly. Your coal is estimated to arrive after Jan. 8.
    "Sleepy alligator in the noonday sun
    Sleepin by the river just like he usually done
    Call for his whisky
    He can call for his tea
    Call all he wanta but he can't call me..."
    Robert Hunter & Ron McKernan

    Whiteblaze.net User Agreement.

++ New Posts ++

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •