USPS recently made some major changes...
Originally a lot of the mail went by air but now has been shifted to surface and revised hubs which can add delays...
This is part of a scheme to save $$, last year the USPS lost >$6 billon...

Just my $0.02....

In my lil rural area there is three post offices and three postmasters and three delivery drivers for under 1000 people total and all three places just got all the modern upgrades any post office would.

So there huge debt and inefficiency is not a shocker.

Id not mind the 3 mile drive to the next lil town to there post office if it was saving tax payer money.

Careful with that thought, if the USPS gets wind of it we'll all be driving to the local PO waiting in long lines to get our mail and the uhh boys in a certain area of the east coast will have more money to throw away. Additionally, we'll likely have some previously overcompensated people looking for work This is not meant to be a political statement just a bit of humor

Letter reached its destination today, 10 days after it was postmarked. Better late than lost...

I recently sent a return receipt certified mail letter to a Texas PO box for a business that I knew was closed over five years ago. I was required to contact them and prove that any correspondence was impossible as noted by the destination PO, which was all I really needed indicated by the undeliverable letter.
It should have IMO been immediately obvious it was undeliverable upon first delivery attempt. I had already gone thru this same exact procedure 4? years earlier. I could do nothing until I received the undeliverable mail back.

I tracked the certified mail daily. It showed the letter in an effective daily loop of being out for delivery. My local mailing PO could do nothing. I attempted to initiate a lost item investigation. 4 weeks after I mailed it originally, or 25 days after it arrived at destination, I got my undeliverable letter back.

Two weeks later the PO emailed they were still looking for my letter.

Certified is not as secure as one would think it appears.

I sent a check to my doctor's billing office around June 25. As of yesterday (August 11), it hasn't been cashed. I got a reminder call about the balance two weeks ago. Sent another check this week.
The office is about 25 miles away.

My sister sends me a check every month for a thing related to our mother's estate. She lives three miles away. The July one never showed up. Three. Miles. Away. August one showed up in less than a week.

Several times a week, I have to tell clients that their redemption checks are going to take two or three weeks to arrive, even though they're sent out the next day.

Sometimes I think about how, back in the '70s, first-class mail was supposed to get anywhere in the lower 48 in one or two business days...

We ship 30,000 packages a year. In my "order has shippedf" confirmation email I put "if you use USPS you basically assume all the risk cause they have ISSUES".

I think the only way to fix the system is to eliminate the humans. And make the postal system like one gigagntic PO Box system where you pay for a PO box and have to go pick up your mail YOURSELF. That would eliminate porch theft and wrong deliveries. People just do not want to work and if they show up they don't want to do a good job. Just look around at your co workers. If YOU had to pay them a salary out of YOUR pocket, WOULD YOU! I bet I have only worked with 5 people I would hire. most of them get paid VERY WELL (beyond what I could afford) or are in business themselves (go figure).

PS My old mail guy that picked up and delivered at my business said "the USPS hires people that no one else will". Ouch.

You just stated the reason for me having a P.O. box. If it's anything of value, it goes to the PO box. Many of the things I buy are NOS rarities that aren't easily replaced. Theft and lost items are not an option I can afford.

This is probably a big reason why things are slower now.



https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2023/0808-pmg-remarks-during-aug-8-bog-meeting.htm

So the postal service, like everyone else out there, is finding ways to cut costs.
Do you think UPS Amazon or FEDEX would be better delivering a letter?
How many would pay 2x or 3x the 1st class cost if they took over?
Seems some think a letter should "move" as fast as an email these days.

Just a heads up, the USPS is not funded by any tax money, it's self funded only.


As for the mail itself, it can be very slow & varies. Many years ago I sold some car parts for over $500 & got a money order from the buyer that was sent certified mail requiring a signature. I thought that was a fantastic idea & now do that myself if I purchase an expensive item outside of a credit card or paypal. It's rare but at least I know it has a much better chance of arriving. Same goes for when I ship something. I always pay a few extra bucks on sending it certified with a signature.

sample quote

Eventually, by putting mail riders out on the roads at night, Ben Franklin managed to cut the delivery time for a letter from Philadelphia to New York and receive a reply to just 24 hours.

end quote

from

https://factsandhistory.com/how-ben-franklin-established-the-us-post-office/

Probably the only 2 major cities then where anybody knew how to write.

A friend sent me 4 tires on Friday of last week and I received them Monday.

Very much hit and miss.

Handwritten addresses are the hardest for the USPS readers to scan and sort.. sometimes the envelope gets shunted for a human to interpret or hand sort.. That can slow the speed of delivery..



I mail First Class correspondence every week and haven't noticed problems. Maybe 4-5 days to the west coast.

.. I sent four letters Airmail to Norway on June 17th, and they arrived the first week of August. 6 weeks! The postal service over there only delivers mail three days per week.

That seems ridiculous.
- Art

Someone sent me a package with USPS a month ago. Still hsan't shown up yet and dropped off their tracking. Great service. I have to find someone to try calling to see what's up.