One of the problems with the cutbacks in postal services is that it just makes an insufficient service even more inadequate.
Case in point: mail delivery to my house.
We can almost always tell when our regular postal carrier has the day off; the service is inadequate. For instance, we have a locked mailbox, but several times, we have found the mail placed in the box but sticking out so that anyone could just pull it out. And I’m talking four to six pieces that could easily fit down the slot. More than once, we’ve found the mail in the milk box. And once, we even found the mail just sitting on the welcome mat.
Worse, I was home one Thursday with a sick child. I went to the mailbox and every single piece of mail was for the house to our right. I found the (substitute) carrier and told him this. He looked in his mailbag and said that we just didn’t get any mail that day; from experience, I knew that to be that was nearly impossible.
Later that day, I asked the neighbor to the left, who had just moved in, whether he might have received our mail. He had not, but it is a multiunit dwelling, and he discovered our four letters, including a couple of bills, plus a magazine, in another mailbox in his building.
From what I’ve been told, the delivery folks are given their routes, plus parts of other routes when the regulars are off. Of course, they never get a chance to understand the added addresses.
I understand that the Postal Service is in major financial difficulty, but when lousy service is provided, this only makes a bad situation worse.
Today, I took a 70 something friend who fell and gashed her shin to the doctor. She had to keep still. I wonder if she could request the postman to deliver her mail to the door. The doctor’s receptionist wasn’t sure. She told me to find out, and then perhaps the doctor will send a referral.
Went to the postshop, the man didn’t know, ring the delivery branch.
Where was the time when the postman dropped your mail in a slot of your door?
You should sing,” Please Mr. Postman.”
Your substitute guy sounds like our regular guy. I have already alerted anyone who regularly sends me anything important to use UPS or FedEx. I figures if it goes USPS at this point, there’s about a 25 percent chance I will actually get it. It’s a disgrace what the service has degraded to.