Shenanigans At The Post Office?
So word is that the government is purposefully sabotaging the post office (I mean, in addition to years ago making them pre-fund their pension fund way more than anyone anywhere funds their pension funds in a bid to make them in the red all the time). This time they are purposefully "slowing" mail in order to piss people off and make them want to privatize the post office, so they can charge an arm and a leg like UPS or FedEx does. I'm sorry, but you can't mail a letter for 55 cents with either of those, and don't get me started on package prices with them.
The point of the USPS isn't to turn a profit, it's to provide a service, especially to those who would not otherwise have access. If you were not aware, the private companies will often do "the last mile" by GIVING IT TO THE POST OFFICE, because they deem it inefficient to have their drivers go out to the countryside. So they deliver to the nearest city and then hand it off.
Anyway, I mailed two packages over a week ago that were due to arrive this past Monday and Tuesday, respectively. Neither have yet. They were both bound for the east coast, but were sent to SEATTLE (ya know, the opposite direction from Denver to the east coast), and are still there. One of their tracking says that it arrived and left the Seattle center THREE TIMES.
If that isn't deliberate fuckery, I don't know what is.
I know it's just anecdotal, but the interwebs are full of people saying the same. I just had two more ebay sales this week, so we'll see how they do. I hope my customers understand that it's not my fault if shenanigans are afoot.
What I don't understand is, who is doing the fucking up? Surely post office workers, which is a physically demanding but otherwise good job with benefits, don't want to fuck up their own jobs. Are there scabs who got hired? Did somebody fuck up their computers?
Theories abound about how it has to do with the election in November, which may be true, but honestly they've been trying to privatize the post office for years.
Ain't it grand living in a crumbling empire with sparkles thrown about to make it look pretty?
So how are y'all doing this week, Hive fam? Had any mail take the scenic route lately?
And happy belated Lughnassadh! :)
Thank you @phoenixwren, for using the CO2 Compensation Coin (COCO) to reduce your CO2 footprint.
My best guess is that workers are getting overwhelmed and mistakes are being made.
Sometimes, there's gaming of the system, as in it doesn't matter where packages go, as long as they leave the centre, because that's the kpi, and if they come back, well, that just makes the kpis better, because more packages flowing through the system.
Our postal services here have continued to be amazing through the pandemic, most things arrive within the week, you can have them earlier if you wish, one came at about 9pm the day after it was ordered.
Hope yours get where they need to go in a timely fashion.
Okay, we're Australia not the US, but there have been numerous times when Auspost had Mae me go HUH!? Border control is generally a nightmare anyway, so incoming mail from the UK takes longer to reach us than when we send there (usually...Rona has changed that at the moment). Then inland, I once tracked a package heading my way from the East coast. You'd think it would be a case of head West towards the mile middle state (us) or maybe via Melbourne in Victoria first. So it heads to Melbourne, not too surprising there as Melbourne is a big city. From there it crossed the sea to Tasmania (WTF!). Then it came back to Melbourne, because that's the nearest place on the mainland, before coming to South Australia.
They did the same over here... and now that it's privatised, we have gone from having the second best postal service in Europe to one of the worst in the world. 🙄
But you know... as some like to say...
Yeah, right. Better for someone's pockets. I guess that's the part they left out unsaid.
EXACTLY. And not the pockets of the masses, that's for sure.
https://fortune.com/2020/07/24/usps-mail-delivery-postmaster-general-louis-dejoy-us-postal-service/