Documentation of Postal Crappiness

People from outside of Chicago always give me that doggie-cocked-ear look when I complain about the US Postal Service in town. I suppose it never made national news that delivery of the mail in Chicago is an issue. Over the past 10 years there have been numerous stories about mail carriers just not doing their jobs.

Mail has been found in homes of postal carriers' in crawl-spaces, locked in trucks, misfiled, on fire ... the list goes on. When I saw this article in the Sun Times I wanted to post it for all of you out-of-towners to read.

You see, when it takes me two months to answer a letter, it isn't always my fault! When I thank you for your presents weeks after you send them, it's because it is really taking that long for me to receive them. And forget about postcards. Rubycat sent me a postcard from Germany last year that took three months to receive. Curiously, a friend sent me a postcard from Sydney, Australia last month that took under a week to arrive.

In fact, just this December our street had a huge problem: Between December 10 and December 20 we got no mail. None. No advertisements, no fliers, no bills, no greeting cards - nothing. At first I thought this was just my mail. I got a notice from the post office to come pick up my mail a day or so before Christmas, ostensibly because the bundle was too large to fit in my box. I went to go pick it up and got a kind of small bundle. When I asked why the mail hadn't been delivered, the helpful, cheerful postal worker told me that she didn't know, delivering the mail wasn't her concern, and did I want my mail or not? But for 10 days in the height of greeting card season, I knew the amount of mail in the bundle just wasn't right. And this bundle would have easily fit in the box. When I asked her to double-check for another bundle, she got all annoyed and asked me to consider the long line of customers behind me.

This is also the same wonderful, helpful, cheerful postal worker who suggested, that when the post office lost a certified letter, that I go find my postal carrier en route to see if he or she had it. But that's another story.

Several people from my condo association called the post office to complain about the lack of mail, until one day in early January the Postal Police came. Did you know Postal Police even existed? According to folks on the block who stay home during the day, the Postal Police showed up at about 8 in the morning with a couple of trucks. Groups of officers stood on the street watching the mail get delivered, building by building. The trucks were here when I got home at 6pm that night, and I had mail in my box postmarked as early as November. The next day brought a lighter bundle of late mail.

My mail still tends to come on Sunday rather than Saturday, and almost never on Thursday. The mail ends up on the floor of the building lobby instead of in the mail boxes about once a month, and there is still the issue of receiving mail for other people on a weekly basis. So unfortunately the Postal Police didn't do much for the regular crappy service. According to this article, the Post Office is 'aware of the problem.' Well good. Let's see if they are moved to action.

The moral of the story? If I fail to pay a bill, answer a letter, or send a thank-you card, I'm not being rude, nor am I dead: I'm just in Chicago.