Postal Problems...sorting machines?

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I'm a rural carrier for a small post office in Oregon. The past week or so, we've been getting complaints of late and missing mail. I've noticed quite a bit of time lapse between the meter (not postmark) date and either the postmark or the time I've received it for delivery. One piece was metered 11/30/99, postmarked 1/11/00, and received at our office on 1/12/00. Granted, mail is always delayed for one reason or another, and it's not always "in the mail", contrary to popular excuse, but this is the first I've remembered having so many complaints as well as noticing the discrepancies myself.

Shortly before the rollover, there was a post from someone regarding in office sorting machines not working properly. Any postal people out there have any news that mgmt won't pass on to us?

One thing I did notice today, was quite a bit of mail coming from California postmarked/metered the 10th. Today's the 15th...shouldn't take five days from California.

Thanks

-- Kat (kat3@crosswinds.net), January 15, 2000

Answers

Kat, I live in a small,rural NE Oregon area near La Grande. Out of the last week we have only received mail 4 days. This is highly unusual as we also run a business here. I was just thinking of going to the post office on Monday to inquire. We have had fairly deep snow and I didn't know if that was why they didn't deliver although the rest of the traffic is moving. Interesting.....

-- morgan (bitbybit@eoni.com), January 15, 2000.

Here in northern michigan Patty and I figure 10% to 15% of the people we normally get Christmas cards from were not in the mail. Wonder why?

-- JB (noway@jose.com), January 15, 2000.

We sell items on eBay and have done so for 1 1/2 years. Just before the rollover we mailed a lot of items Priority Mail, and two were very late. They finally arrived this week! Priority mail should take a few days, not two weeks! I have never had this happen before. One of the packages was all beat up, but fortunately the contents came through all right.

-- Kay (kay@iinc.com), January 15, 2000.

kAY,

Experienced the same thing. Ordered product Dec. 12th received Jan.5th. PRIORITY MAIL!!??

-- D........... (dciinc@aol.com), January 15, 2000.


I also had a package sent to me priority mail postmarked December 29, I received it on January 11. Lurker 13

-- lurker 13 (lurker13@nowhere.here), January 15, 2000.


but I've noticed that there hasn't been any delay in the bills getting through!

-- Margo (margos@bigisland.com), January 15, 2000.

Yes - we have noticed getting nearly ALL junk mail - very few, if any bills, letters, stuff we ordered etc. This is HIGHLY unusuall, I'm a telecomuter and normally annoy the postal carrier with my jammed, packed box. The two bill we've received arrived over two weeks late. I've also had two peices of mail (junk mail) which were chewed/torn/destroyed - delivered in a plastic envelope with an appology for the damaged caused to my mail - a formal appology from the post office. In all my life, I've never had mail delivered destroyed - let a lone two seperate items in special plastic "applogy envelopes". Odd. Perhaps it was this sorting machine...

-- sheera (scheiwiller.sr@pg.com), January 15, 2000.

Humm. Thanks... "interesting."

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 16, 2000.


Well, it gives me great pleasure to say this, folks, but I believe that the great men and women of the USPS deserve a sustained round of applause for still getting the mail through, mechanical glitches or not!

We received a letter here in Toronto on the 7th, postmarked from a US city on the 3rd...

...and we shipped a package to Oregon on the 6th, which arrived safely on the 15th.

Both well within normal delivery times from Canada to and from each of those US locations.

Congratulations to all of the fine US "posties" for striving to live up to their time-honoured motto...:)!

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), January 17, 2000.


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