Neither rain, nor snow , nor gloom of night….

Where’s our mail?

Mine has been hit or miss too. I received a notification from the post office in December that when our normal carrier is not working, mail will not be delivered because there aren’t enough other carriers to fill in. For most of December, I was receiving mail pretty late, around 6-7pm. I normally get it midday.

Lately, it has been coming sporadically. Haven’t received it all this week (Monday was a federal holiday).

mine has been inconsistent every day for over a year and some days nothing at all. it really dont bother me but my neighbor throws a fit about it

Same here. December, when it would come, it was like 8:00 pm. Now, it’s earlier again, but definitely not every day.

They need a new slogan.

Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. You’ll get it when you get it.

I live at a dead end gravel road and me and the other guy that live on the road where chatting while plowing today and we both agreed we hoped people like mail carriers wouldn’t need to have to come by today. In fact I’d be glad if I heard they were told to stay home. Wish there was a way to prioritize urgent things because I understand some people receive medications/Rx through the mail, but I don’t need someone risking their safety just so I can get another postcard informing me of possible equity I may have in my home and asking if I want to refinance.

Mines still accessible right?

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Nothing new for us in Farmington, and other areas.

Twin Cities residents report mail disruptions, but postal officials call deliveries ‘stable’
Rep. Angie Craig on Friday asked the postmaster general to account for delivery problems in the southern suburbs.
By Nicole Norfleet and Dee DePass Star Tribune DECEMBER 30, 2022 — 6:10PM

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Residents throughout the Twin Cities say they’ve noticed that daily mail deliveries are becoming less daily.
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A house sale delayed in Minneapolis. No mail for a week in Falcon Heights. A congresswoman demanding answers for the south suburbs.

Throughout fall and the holidays, more and more Twin Cities residents say they’ve noticed that mail isn’t being delivered regularly — a disruption to one of life’s important routines.

“On average, we receive our mail once every 10 days,” Joey Cameron of Edina said Friday. “This has been going on for some months now. I have serious concerns that we are not receiving some pieces of mail at all.”

Postal Service officials in the metro area say all is well — or nearly well. “Delivery in the Twin Cities is stable with improvements in many areas,” Desai Abdul-Razzaaq, a Postal Service spokesman, said in an email.

But on Friday, U.S. Rep. Angie Craig released a letter she sent to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy seeking answers for delays and disruptions she’s heard about in the larger suburbs in her district — Lakeville, Apple Valley, Eagan and Mendota Heights.

“My constituents have reported to me that they regularly go three to four days without receiving their mail; some have told me they haven’t received mail since December 16, 2022 — now 2 weeks ago,” Craig wrote. “I’ve been told by local postal officials that a route would never go unserved for more than one day at a time, but it’s clear that is simply not the case.”

STAR TRIBUNE FILE
Rep. Angie Craig wrote a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy over irregular mail service in several south metro cities.
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She said short staffing and increased holiday volumes were understandable but do not excuse the problems.

“This no longer seems to be isolated to neighborhoods or even individual cities, but rather a larger issue across Minnesota,” she said.

In November, Craig sent a letter to Postal Service leaders about poor delivery service in Lakeville. In August, Minnesota U.S. Sen. Tina Smith also wrote to DeJoy seeking answers about missing and delayed mail deliveries in the state.

In a statement Friday, the Postal Service said it would review Craig’s concerns and respond directly to her.

“The Postal Service is committed to providing the best possible service to our customers, and we apologize for any inconvenience that may have been experienced,” it said.

“We appreciate the patience of our customers. We will continue flexing our available resources to match the workload and are proud of the efforts of postal employees as they define essential public service every day.”

Mail is current in Lakeville and Apple Valley, the agency said, and should be current in Eagan and Mendota Heights by Saturday.

Lakeville Mayor-elect Luke​ Hellier said he has experienced delays in receiving mail since late summer.

“There are definitely weeks where we’ll go three or four days without mail,” Hellier said. “I think that there [are] other post offices that certainly are having that holiday season bottleneck, but the Lakeville problems have extended well beyond that.”

When his wife gave birth to twins in October, there were delays getting birth certificates to show to an insurance company. Ultimately, they used UPS overnight service to deliver the “paper records to prove that they were our kids,” Hellier said.

Just this week, Hellier told postal officials that city staff may be able to temporarily sort mail to alleviate some of the issues for the Lakeville post office, which he said he thinks is undersized for the city’s population.

In Minneapolis, real estate agent Scott Graham said he had to delay a home closing for a client this week because the buyer’s down payment funds were snagged by mail delays.

“You feel bad for people because the buyers and the sellers are at the very least inconvenienced,” Graham said. “Sometimes these situations are intense. They can find themselves homeless or with furniture stuck in a moving truck, all because the check is literally stuck in the mail.”

Falcon Heights resident Chad Fehn didn’t get his mail for more than a week. Having signed up for the Postal Service’s “informed delivery” email, he has learned exactly what mail he should have received.

Among the delayed items were his wife’s driver’s license, a letter from his doctor and a Comcast bill. They finally arrived Wednesday and Thursday.

“When I called, I was told they were delivering only packages to seniors and [that] others waiting on medication got it on time,” Fehn said. “But still, they should have told us. Sent out a communication of some kind.”

Vince Rosetta of St. Louis Park said he had a 401(k) dividend payment delayed and ultimately lost in the mail this fall. Other delays included numerous Christmas presents, his car tabs and critical life insurance information, he said.

“The informed delivery is a great tool because at least I have an idea of what I ‘should’ be getting,” Rosetta wrote in an email.

On Friday, the Postal Service reported that from Oct. 1 through Dec. 23, 91.6% of first-class mail across the country was delivered on time. Holiday delivery was impacted in some local markets because of the recent winter storms.

Could not find the clip but Cliff was furious when he finds out Carla makes more than him (Cheers) looking for an explanation Norm raises his mug of beer and says: easy, I can go a few days without mail!

I’m thinking about dropping Amazon Prime because it wont let you choose delivery methods so I can avoid USPS. In the government office I work in most of our official mail is coming through fed ex document envelopes.

Our recycling, I mean mail comes every day. We get it about once a week and 99.9% goes right in the recycle bin.

If we get 5 or 6 pieces of mail a day, 4 are for sure garbage.

Ours is pretty reliable and our rural carrier will absolutely bury his subaru trying to get places. He’s a great guy and takes pride in what he does. The problem is he’s nearing retirement and the odds of finding someone to replace him who is as good are slim to none

blackbay wrote:

Our recycling, I mean mail comes every day. We get it about once a week and 99.9% goes right in the recycle bin.

Same.

Mine goes in the recycling bin but I SHRED every piece that has my name and address on it.

Dan wrote:

but I don’t need someone risking their safety just so I can get another postcard informing me of possible equity I may have in my home and asking if I want to refinance.

That would be my wife!!! USPS is no different than the rest of the U.S. Nobody wants to work. They can’t get subs! The volume of mail has increased more than ten fold, because of Amazon! Some days she has 200 plus packages to deliver… besides the letters! Until USPS adopts a system that can retain subs it will only get worse. Subs are treated like the bottom of the barrel. They work fulltime and weekends etc. with no benefits. Most times they have to be a sub for years before they get their own route! It USED to be a much sought after job. Not anymore! My wife stuck it out 7 yrs as a sub before she got her own route. Before covid there were weeks when they would only work 1-2 days / week. Not enough to pay the bills for most. Now they run them ragged because for 9 Rural Routes they have only 3 subs, so that leaves 18 routes for 3 subs every week, which always includes Sat. Thankfully she only has 2 yrs. left… IF she don’t throw in the towel and quit earlier!!!

I’ve been working at USPS since June. It’s the worst job I’ve had. A sub like stated above. I’m considered part time and haven’t worked under 40 hrs since I started. 50-60 hrs every week, Sundays and holidays with no holiday pay and no benefits. All subs up here have quit and no new hires since I started. We didn’t get our mail truck yesterday so only had a few Amazon packages to deliver on unplowed roads and driveways. I used my 4wd truck or I don’t think I could have delivered anything. Then they had us read about lead and asbestos as well as a few other things that had nothing to do with carrying mail before they would actually let us go home yesterday afternoon. USPS is a sinking ship and they’re bailing with tablespoons!

Jeez, I didn’t realize it was THAT bad with the substitute routes. USPS needs a complete overhaul. And we do not need mail on Saturdays either. You guys can have the weekend off for crying out loud.

What a surprise! Don’t you remember when t-RUMP appointed DeJoy as postmaster General? You can read all about it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_DeJoy

All the carriers HATE Mondays! They get a double load of mail that day because of the day off on Sunday or a Holiday. The mail still gets delivered to the regional offices on those days. Eliminating Saturdays would make it even worse!! The most senior carriers most often have Monday off for that reason. Other carriers have T, W, Th or F off. The only ones that get a 2 day wknd have Monday or Sat. off!

Like gimruis said I don’t think we need Saturday mail delivery.

With that being said I wonder how much mail gets lost and not delivered. I’m still waiting for my SS forms 1099. And a letter from my brother he had to sigh to transfer a 4 wheeler from Mom to us!

We get a few pieces of junk mail most everyday.

I’m not sure if I would miss the post office altogether. Well, maybe for my absentee ballots.

glenn57 wrote:

I’m still waiting for my SS forms 1099. And a letter from my brother he had to sigh to transfer a 4 wheeler from Mom to us!

All of my 1099’s came from a website that I either down loaded or sent from the website directly to my tax preparer.

Signing transfers can be done via Adobe Acrobat digitally. We just sold my father in laws house via email.

Trump did it…

All regular mail carriers have been working 6 days a week with only Sundays off for over a year last I’ve seen. Their supposed to have 2 days off, but with no hiring and the way the system hasn’t adapted they will be stuck working 6 day weeks for an extremely long time. 2 people broke their arm/wrist and were made work the day after it happened. No sick days, no vehicle repairs or maintenance, dedicate your life to the USPS like it’s military.

This is an eye-opening thread for me. I thought USPS jobs had good pay and benefits and were desired by many people. Looks like I’m wrong. I was curious what the pay was for a mail carrier. From what I see on-line, it looks to be about $20/hr starting out. Seems like there’s a lot of required overtime so hopefully that pays 1.5X and 2X on Sundays. Working for the federal government, I would think that there’s decent benefits.

I don’t think they hire anything but what might be called supplemental help right now. No beans, mandatory overtime and weekends. I know a couple of people who applied and got jobs but they sure weren’t what one would call “good” jobs. Both had crappy hours and were basically on call on their days off and heaven forbid if a doctor’s appt popped up. Or a sick kid sent home from school or daycare. Both lasted about a month.

Jimmy Jones wrote:

I don’t think they hire anything but what might be called supplemental help right now. No beans, mandatory overtime and weekends. I know a couple of people who applied and got jobs but they sure weren’t what one would call “good” jobs. Both had crappy hours and were basically on call on their days off and heaven forbid if a doctor’s appt popped up. Or a sick kid sent home from school or daycare. Both lasted about a month.

Do you get time-and-half or double time for the overtime worked? It sounds like a supplemental position might be a good summer job for a hard-working, college student that wants a bunch of hours.

I’ve worked there since June. Making under $20 an hour and no raise. No double time on Sundays, regular pay on holidays.Overtime after 40. I wouldn’t recommend the job to anyone as I have yet to see someone try and not quit. The application and hiring process is an absolute poop show as well. Applied in April, hired in June! USPS screws the employee every chance they get, not exaggerating!

boone wrote:

This is an eye-opening thread for me. I thought USPS jobs had good pay and benefits and were desired by many people. Looks like I’m wrong. I was curious what the pay was for a mail carrier. From what I see on-line, it looks to be about $20/hr starting out. Seems like there’s a lot of required overtime so hopefully that pays 1.5X and 2X on Sundays. Working for the federal government, I would think that there’s decent benefits.

This is what happens when you want to run a government agency like a publicly traded corporation. Mail is a vital service to the country. Granted, its usefulness has significantly changed over the years with online shopping, but it’s still a vital service and should be overhauled to serve us better and it shouldn’t be expected to turn a profit.