My mailman was “eliminated” was yours?
I read this story over on Swampbubbles, Mail misery and mix-up in zips 43609, 43614-15 and I was glad to see someone post about it, it was on my list of “things to blog about”. Our mailman was “eliminated” with Friday being his last day and my street as well as several others in my area are now considered “auxiliary routes” which means from how it was explained to me that who ever has extra time will take our streets. This means we will have no continuity of service, it was already a scenario when it was his day off that there were problems, no attempt to deliver certified mail when someone was at home, packages not delivered when expected and having our mail not end up at our house but one of the neighbors and vice versa. It became a joke among several of us that we could tell when he was not working.
It makes no sense to let a computer system in Cincinnati that does not take into consideration the conditions of the streets or sidewalks or the variations in our weather to determine how long a route should take. From what I was told there are grievances pending concerning the elimination of these routes, I don’t dispute that some of them could have been combined, but it’s hard to understand how now becoming a mail route that people will do if they have time creates reliable service.
Lisa, a year before I moved, my mail was delivered by 10 am everyday…rain sleet or, snow by a mailgirl who the whole neighborhood loved. Everybody knew her and she always had time for quick chitchat. The postal service changed her route and replaced her with what seemed to be temps. The last year I lived by you, we had a different person everyday who seemed confused by the entire process of mail delivery.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:12 amWhen I was a kid, we had the same guy delivering mail to us for about 15 years. The guy was like clockwork, knew everyone and their kids and, us kids would walk along with him. That is how I knew every person by name on my block…and they knew me. Dennis, the mailman’s leather bag would be full of gifts at x-mas that my neighbors gave him that he’d have to drop them off in his mail jeep halfway through the block.
Back then, our mailman was just as much a part of our neighborhood as the neighbors in it.
God I miss that long gone part of America!
I guess we were lucky then to have avoided it for a year, and I totally agree with you on the memory aspect, it was the same way for me growing up here in the South End and that was something that was nice to feel as if we had here.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:21 amIt seems like I have a different mail carrier every other week. The mail comes at a different time every day. Sometimes we don’t get it until after I leave for work. It’s been like that for a couple years. That totally bites that they are eliminating routes. The people in Cincinnati really should get some input from the people who actually have to walk these routes.
November 18th, 2008 at 12:49 pmThere are some things that change should not play a role in. I don’t care so much my home mail person but my office mail person means more to me. my office moved a few yrs ago. The first year I had the same mail lady. I could give her a check to bring me back a roll of stamps. She always brought my mail to me instead of leaving it in the mail box. We knew each other on a first name basis. She would tell me if she would not be in work the following day. The day she told me that she did not get the bid for my zip code I was sad. I don’t have the same mail person twice in one week. I have to walk outside and get my mail(which is not really a big deal). I never know what time my mail is going to be delivered. I have figured out that those who wanted this route did not get it. My area gets a “floater” mail person. I am a ppl person and I do love to meet ppl. A mail carrier should not be someone new constantly.
November 18th, 2008 at 12:58 pmI doubt that I’m in an area that is going to be revamped, but I wanted to comment on what I perceive as a change in attitude of postal workers – for the better. When we first moved out to where we live 14 years ago, our postal person just was not pleasant – would not knock on the door for certifieds, left packages by the mailbox instead of bringing them to the house (even when it was raining), etc.
More recently, my husband has been using their package pick-up service for his business, specifically using their flat-rate boxes which are a flat rate up to 70lbs, and his boxes are HEAVY! I asked our postal person (a different one than who we had at first) if these heavy flat-rate boxes bothered her, and she said “No, they keep me employed.” I thought that was cool, because … well, she’s right.
Anyway, I have a decent amount of interaction at the post office and although lines are long sometimes, the personnel seem to be more pleasant than they used to be.
November 18th, 2008 at 1:48 pmIt’s all about revenue and expenses. Bonuses for Management are based on a constant reduction of man-hours each year. It is cheaper to pay an employee overtime that hire an additional person to whom at some time in the future you would have to extend benefits such as sick leave and retirement. Welcome to the future, folks. We all want as much as we can get for as little as we can give. It is the capitalist way. The Internet contributes to this, and I like the Internet. Eventually there may come a time that the Internet will no longer be a voluntary association but a legal requirement to receive your billing. Other than for the dinosaurs that receive their bills via snailmail there is no real requirement for a Postal Service anymore.
November 18th, 2008 at 1:48 pm[...] wrote about how mailboxes were disappearing two years back. Today, Lisa Renee at Glass City Jungle writes about how mail carriers are disappearing: I read this story over on Swampbubbles, Mail misery and mix-up in zips 43609, 43614-15 and I was [...]
November 18th, 2008 at 2:19 pmI really empathize. I still have nightmares about some of the mail snafus I’ve had over many years. Lol – then again, could totally be just me because even when I was lived overseas, the trouble continued lol. Anyway – good luck.
November 18th, 2008 at 2:22 pmGreenrax, that may be true, but many businesses rely on the US Postal Service, as an example, the dsl modem that I am impatiently waiting for that was supposed to come today, but instead all I received was junk mail store flyers and no “real” mail. Maybe tomorrow…
I would have personally preferred that it come by one of the private carrier companies, like UPS or Fed Ex, unfortunately that’s was not something I had control over.
DeeDee, I agree the actual personnel I’ve had contact with have been friendly when I teased my (I miss him!) mailman about the number of political items he was delivering right before the election, he basically said the same thing, he didn’t mind, it helped the post office make more money.
November 18th, 2008 at 3:47 pmFedEx is allied with the Postal Service. Much of the mail that is sent from one part of the country to another travels via FedEx flights. That is also why you see FedEx boxes at any branch of the Postal Service. The USPS must be getting smarter if mailers are using them rather than UPS or FedEx. Unfortunately, the junk mail may be the death of the Postal Service. The customers are allowed to presort the mail, and often missort it. The only way this is caught is through random inspection by the Permit Rooms. These customers receive a discount, and then the mail is often sorted again through the equipment to ensure there are no errors. If “presort” was ended the Postal Service could use its “economy of scale” to sort the mail, and ensure proper sorts the first time.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:19 pmIt’s so sad to hear that good mail men/women are being eliminated, yet my mailman still has a job even though I’ve filed numerous complaints about him!
I’ve never in my life had problems with my mail the way I’ve had since I moved into this house, especially over the last 6 or so months. I’ve gone weeks on end with no mail only to get TONS of it out of the middle of nowhere. I’ve had packages exceeding 2 foot in length get left in my mail box for anyone that drives by to reach out and grab, I’ve had mail lying in the ditch, I’ve had mail go to my neighbors house and I’ve had mail addressed to me and the correct address be marked “Return to Sender, Addressee Unknown”.
Fortunately, I do have a postmaster that works with me which has been the only thing that has kept me from going to the Federal Level of filing a complaint. Honestly, if someone were coming to my mailbox and taking my mail, it would be considered a Federal Offence, yet my mailman can mess with my mail as much as he wants to, whenever he wants to and get away with it?
If my post office weren’t so far away, I’d make them give me a P.O Box, but I’m in one of those very precarious locations where my school is Toledo but my mailing address is Swanton, so driving all the way into Swanton for my mail is a complete and total waste of gas and time!
November 18th, 2008 at 5:56 pmMy mail carrier, which is supposed to be my “regular”, is only here about 3 days a week. She likes to sit in her mail van for a verrrryyy long time, too. I know they have breaks and what not, but sometimes I wonder about her sitting on my small street after 5pm for more than an hr.
I do miss my regular mail-lady that passed away at a very young 52…rip Terri.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:13 pmNot to bust any bubbles here but we are in a downward trend when it comes to employment and the Post Office is not exempt. Companies close, people laid off, less mail being sent. It stands to reason that mail service will begin to be curtailed.
November 19th, 2008 at 9:37 pmpurnhrt is right. Government is not exempt. As an independent establishment of the executive branch of the US government they aren’t doing a good job of retaining postal business. If they were, there would be no UPS and no FEDEX.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:33 amWhen I carried mail in 43615 I told my customers if they needed anything, such as having their mail held, or forwarded to contact me and I’d take care of it. I never had a problem. When they went to my office and dealt with ’subs’ or temporaries’ they encountered problems. The USPS regularly hires ‘managers’ who for the most part didn’t graduate from high school, have no sense of business dealings, can’t deal the with the public, other then lie through their teeth, and have problems dealing with labor unions and their employees in general. Sloth, and laziness from letter carriers are regularly rewarded and hardworking people who do “the job professionally ” each day are abused and further burdened each day. The USPS is a joke. Interrupted service. ? Get accustomed to it folks. Or as we in the USPs as carriers would say…BOHICA baby! BOHICA! My sympathy to each of you in the above blogs….you are all telling the truth.
November 21st, 2008 at 1:02 pm