The Grand Illusion
Last week, on Friday, I mailed a book to a relative in a neighboring state. I sent it priority mail from my local post office well before the afternoon mail is scheduled to be dispatched. USPS gave me an expected delivery date of Tuesday.
I suspected it might take longer, but checked the tracking number on Wednesday. It was still “in transit.” On Thursday afternoon, I checked again. Still in transit, but projected to be delivered by 9:00 P.M. on Friday. On Friday, it finally arrived in mid-afternoon.
These days, over ninety percent of our mail consists of political or charitable solicitations, advertising circulars, and catalogues from companies and merchandizers we’ve never used. The remaining ten percent consists of periodic bills and magazines to which we’ve subscribed (since I read them in bits at times and places where it’s not feasible or convenient to read electronic copies). We now also get Amazon package deliveries on Sunday… from USPS.
So why does it take more than a week for USPS to deliver priority mail to a town on a paved state highway less than five hundred miles away?
A reader recently sent me a book to be autographed and included return postage and a label. I signed the book and took it to the post office to send it. The clerk informed me that the zip code didn’t match the reader’s address. Since I was fairly certain that the reader knew her own address, I told the clerk to send it (priority mail) to the address on the label. When I checked to see if it had been delivered, the tracking software told me it was “delivered to the original sender,” if a day later than projected. Since it didn’t come back to me, I thought it was delivered to the reader, which was confirmed later by the recipient.
When we moved to Cedar City, the mail was processed here. About fifteen years ago, the Post Office decided to process the local mail in Provo, some two hundred miles to the north. Around five years ago, they switched to processing Cedar City’s mail to Las Vegas, so a bill from a company in Cedar City makes a four-hundred-mile circuit to be delivered across town. I have a hard time believing that this is cost-effective.
It’s also caused problems with voting, because voting in Utah is by mail, and that means you can’t mail your ballot as late as the day before election because it might not be stamped (in Las Vegas) until after the election. It might not even meet the deadline if you mailed it the Saturday before, according to some reports.
But Amazon packages get here in two-three days.
So… tell me, what’s the priority for the Post Office?
Ever read “Mail Supremacy” by Hayford Pierce?
A little tangential to your post, I know…
I can’t say that I have.
The short version is that the protagonist finds he gets cross-town mail five days after it’s sent…mail from out of the city but within the state in four…and mail from outside the country in three.
So he sends a letter to Arcturus, and gets a same-day answer inviting him to lead Earth in joining the Galactic Federation.
It was cute. Somehow, though, I don’t think that’s the USPS’ priority.
I lived in Hawaii for several years and USPS gave us no end of problems. A couple of the big ones:
When we first moved there, we learned the hard way that packages wouldn’t be delivered to the house because the mailbox wasn’t large enough and they couldn’t get past the gate. That part is expected. What was unexpected was that the form they leave says they will try to deliver again, but they actually don’t. The only way you know that is experience or getting frustrated enough to go to the post office to find out what has happened to the package (for example, you’re waiting for the cable modem to arrive and the house is far enough away from cell towers that you have no other connectivity).
Prior to 2024, USPS flat rate boxes would be delivered in 5-7 days (depending on where they came from) and “Ground Advantage” would show up in 10-14 days (still haven’t figured out how they shipped them via ground from CA to HI). But starting in January ’24, suddenly this was no longer true. We eventually learned that De Joy changed the service levels. Priority mail started taking 7-14 days, and Ground Advantage could take anywhere from 7 days to 5 weeks (or 15 weeks once), depending on the weight and how accurate the person doing the sorting at the San Francisco sorting center was. The threshold was supposed to be 16oz, but it appears they don’t use a scale for it, they just lift and toss it into the bin for airplane or cargo ship based on what they think it weighs (or how they feel that day, since there was a 3oz package that when the slow way). Tracking information only showed the last track, not what method it was being transported, and Informed Delivery aged out packages after they had no tracking updates for 21 days.
While the change to cargo shipping large packages is definitely more economical, the lack of proper tracking / delivery estimates and the ad hoc nature of which packages would go which route made USPS the least reliable (and least preferred) option.
We’ve had no issues here in the PNW based on my experience. But I have relatives in NC and eastern PA. In the last few years their service levels have decreased markedly and/or become highly variable. I believe this all happened after deJoy removed some high speed sorting machines from the Atlanta facility. I can’t believe that guy has survived this long in that job. Another Trump sleeper agent (from his first term)
US POSTMASTER GENERAL Louis DeJoy RESIGNS by Brett Samuels – 03/24/25 The Hill
Google AI Overview:-
Louis DeJoy has resigned as U.S. Postmaster General, effective March 24, 2025, stepping down after nearly five years to allow for leadership in his “Delivering for America” plan’s long-term initiatives, with Deputy Postmaster General Doug Tulino taking over as interim head as the USPS seeks a permanent replacement, according to this March 2025 news, this Houston Public Media article, and this Government Executive report. DeJoy’s tenure focused on modernizing the USPS, but faced criticism over mail delays and price hikes, despite efforts to reduce financial losses. ….
Survived this long: probably because he actually concentrated on his job of trying to make the USPS “profitable” and when pestered by the WH dealt with that as an adroit CEO deals with interfering investors.
My experience in the PNW hinterland is an initial moral jolt to the local USPO which has handled the subsequent staffing and service shortages well and also, mostly, recovered their friendly service attitude.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for that historical correction. Somehow I missed his departure. I hope any problems incurred under his watch can eventually be rectified. As it is, I suppose this issue isn’t top of mind for many nowadays (unless of course you are waiting, and waiting, and waiting…)
Here in the UK delivery is rarely by the Post Office (their ParcelForce arm) but by private delivery companies. Amazon seem to have started using a network of drivers as well. The competition element means that companies change their delivery company according to performance.
Tracking information is now usual though I have recently experienced missed slots.
However, companies can deliver a package early with little warning, so you are not at home when it comes. Also some companies overload their drivers which can lead to parcels left in visible places, such as 2 cases of wine dropped by my gate rather than by my front door. Luckily I came home early.
Living in the rural US, I see several UPS, Amazon, and FedEx vehicles trundling up and down the roads every day. Only one USPS vehicle each day.
There seems a lesson there somewhere.