• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

USPS deliveries

#21
MJ5150 said:
Not really.
You two are the only ones who mentioned politics.

-Mike
Click to expand...
I didn’t mention politics. I just said if the USPS is going to try to deliver ballots this fall, I hope they can do it better than they have done with these basses that are sent being back and forth between hubs. I thought that was a shipping issue, not a political one. I didn’t think that violated any rules.
 
#22
Bunk McNulty said:
From a friend of a friend:


"A truck driver who drives from a USPS processing plant reported that five full trailers remained untouched on Wednesday night; the loads remained stored in the trailers over night. I do not have an exact reference point but during the holiday season, 23 trailers was a large delivery. This would constitute about 25 percent of a large evenings work. The major acts of sabotage of the USPS is going on in the processing plants, outside the public’s eye. Congressional inspectors need to check the conditions within the processing plants.

Last week a major hub station did not dispatch any of its mail for Wednesday until the next day. The dispatch truck left empty,

The USPS is refusing to call in help for sickness and vacations. Upper management forces stations to fail in their own delivery standards.

The APWU has signed a Covid MOU with the USPS management that is allowing management to violate the negotiated ratios between career workers and bottom tier workers. The Union received Covid and family leave in return. These temporary workers have no union protection and no benefits. Without the ratio re-instated, the APWU is essentially allowing management to break the union and flood the USPS with less skilled and trained workers. Management is busting the union with union approval."

I don't know about you, but I'd be giving the USPS a wide berth right about now. I shipped a laptop computer to a friend, Priority Mail 2-3 days delivery. It is now Day 12 and every time I check delivery status, it says "delayed."
Click to expand...
Where I live (a mid-sized city in Cali) there is no overtime. Carrier shifts end at 4:00. Work stops for the day. At the offices, the windows open and close as scheduled with many unmanned. Lines are long. Mail is piled up all over in the back areas. It is a slowdown orchestrated from the top to crash the system. I’ll say no more than that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bunk McNulty, OldDog52, roccobass and 1 other person
#23
Guild B301 said:
I didn’t mention politics. I just said if the USPS is going to try to deliver ballots this fall, I hope they can do it better than they have done with these basses that are sent being back and forth between hubs. I thought that was a shipping issue, not a political one. I didn’t think that violated any rules.
Click to expand...

Politics are a slippery slope in the TalkBass Off Topic forum.
Comments are made that the poster may think to themselves, 'hey this isn't political, so I'm going to say it'. The difficulty with that line of reasoning is thousands of people from around the world see our comments and others don't always think like we do.
An innocent comment we thought we made can be the fuel for someone else to take the thread in another direction.
One could then argue that's its not their fault if someone else turned their comment political, which is true to an extent. We can't control how others react.
But rather than take that approach, we have the policy here that politics aren't discussed. Period.
If you come across a post that you feel is political, please use the 'Report' button so it can be reviewed by moderators for that forum and the admin staff.
There is no need to discuss forum moderation in this thread any longer.

-Mike
 
  • Like
Reactions: two fingers, OldDog52 and Guild B301
#24
I spoke up in another thread, I work for USPS. Anyway, I realize we don't want to get into politics, but let me say while there are definitely delays going on right now that didn't use to be there, when it comes to certain things, ie express mail, or in the case of the issue at hand...political mailers and ballots.....there isn't a single instance where management does not drop everything to make sure that those go out on time. They will pull PSEs, the ODL, and everyone else to make sure those get mailed on time. So don't buy the political b.s. about the ballots and them not being able to get out on time. It's an outright lie. That's all I'll say about it as I don't want this to devolve any further. Simply stating, if you do mail in ballots, it WILL get counted. Trust me, I've worked 12-14 hr days in the past making sure they all got out. It's a lie.
 
  • Like
Reactions: catcauphonic, Jhengsman, drummer5359 and 4 others
#25
I'm waiting on a package from USPS. Tracking shows that it left the Warrendale (local) distribution center at 6:52 PM on Thursday, the 16th of July. I understand that there are delays, but should it really take eighteen days for the final twenty-two miles to my local post office? It's an $875 snare drum.
 
#27
At my USPS they are at least honest. Nice lady explained that "3-5 day" or "next day" does not really exist anymore. It still comes up that way on the kiosk or on the receipt, but there is almost no chance that it will get there when you paid for it.

Kinda lame, but at least they're being up front. I look like a jerk if I sell something and it takes way too long to get there.
 
#28
0089FFAC-C7DF-4503-9188-ED23951C584B.jpeg
Gazman said:
It been a while since I’ve ordered anything from the US, but I bought a NUX headphone amp from a store in Redondo Beach CA, and in 8 days, this is the progress:

View attachment 3928334

At that speed, to reach me in Australia, it will be about 12 years.
Click to expand...
Latest update....it’s going in the wrong direction, very slowly.

I half suspect it is going to spell out “SUCKER!” Before disappearing completely.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rickengeezer and MCF
#32
Gazman said:
View attachment 3946803
Latest update....it’s going in the wrong direction, very slowly. I half suspect it is going to spell out “SUCKER!” Before disappearing completely.
Click to expand...

I know how you feel. Last year I bought something from China to ship to Los Angeles. I watched the tracking go from the eastern side of China, to the their east coast where it sat for a week, then west to Dubai, then to Germany where it sat for a few days, then to Chicago where it sat for about a week, then to the Los Angeles hub where it sat for a few days, then finally to me, about a 4 week trip, this long before covid. I still don't know why it couldn't go east over the Pacific to San Francisco, to LA, then to me in probably 2 weeks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gazman
#33
MCF said:
Where I live (a mid-sized city in Cali) there is no overtime. Carrier shifts end at 4:00. Work stops for the day. At the offices, the windows open and close as scheduled with many unmanned. Lines are long. Mail is piled up all over in the back areas. It is a slowdown orchestrated from the top to crash the system. I’ll say no more than that.
Click to expand...
Lucky you, we are still being mandated to work for 12 hours daily. The only thing that has changed in the last 3 weeks is that they no longer call people in on the standard off day without approval from the next level of management.

The 5 day backlog in non Amazon parcels at carrier stations remain as healthy clerks (PSEs) have been shifted to the processing plant to make up quarantine losses there. So letter carriers on hour 11 of their 12 hours throw parcels in a do something attempt to keep up.

There have been rolling blackouts at retail windows since the beginning when the toilet paper shortage and empty supermarkets happened. Since window clerks were at tight, just enough staffing before COVID and now a call in sick means no replacement. Only when people stop showing up to try to pick up mail on routes not being delivered do they have time to throw a few parcels.

Meanwhile due to social distancing concerns and lack of personnel staff whoever is showing up to be City Carrier Assistants and COVID emergency only Temporary Carrier Assistants are also stuck in a HR choke point from getting on the payrolls and out to the stations. By the time one shows up to work and is sent out to deliver, at a much slower rate than an experienced carrier we have two more going into quarantine for weeks.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Winslow, GregC and MCF
#34
Guild B301 said:
I didn’t mention politics. I just said if the USPS is going to try to deliver ballots this fall, I hope they can do it better than they have done with these basses that are sent being back and forth between hubs. I thought that was a shipping issue, not a political one. I didn’t think that violated any rules.
Click to expand...
Ballots are automation friendly letters which the service was optimized to handle. Since they are not worked by hand they move easily and along with the other letters which there are less of every year, thus more room for ballots, are what still moves now.

Parcels eventually hit a point where they must be processed by hand and sent to a choke point for a scan and a picture. Much of the manpower needed to do that is now either on vacation, this being the prime vacation season for the postal service or are out sick/quarantine because someone in their household tested positive.

During political seasons official government mail was never a problem. It is the odd sized, thus not automation friendly and prepared by hand, political advertising which the service reg tags to give priority service to even if 3rd class rates are being paid for it that is the tie up and clogs the system
 
  • Like
Reactions: Winslow and GregC
#35
I'm in the same boat here as OP. Shipped a Lollar Overwound pickup from SoCal to a TB'er with a delivery address in Miami, FL on July 30th, with an expected delivery date of Aug 3rd. To date, I am told it still has not arrived, and the package estimated delivery date changed from August 3rd to Delayed. Last I checked it shows "Sorry, we are experiencing delays with our tracking system..."

I did put a trace on it on the USPS site, which I encourage any/all of you who are having issues do as well. I received a call pretty quickly from the Field Office Manager who had already reached out to the business it was supposed to be shipped to. She alerted me, that "Priority Mail, currently, is taking 2 weeks *at least*, and First Class is taking even longer, that it will all be delivered, but we don't know how late."

I would also advise anyone here on TB who is selling something to ship via UPS/FedEx, as USPS unfortunately has slowed to a crawl depending on where you're shipping to/from, and I haven't seen anything like this before. Good luck OP, hope the laptop made it.

Edit: correction on date, I'd listed February lol.
 
Last edited:
#37
I started using ShipBikes.com for all my instruments, they use FedEx with a substantial discount and have insurance. In the last 3 months I shipped 4 bass ukes around the country that cost about $25 each to ship, where the other services were about $55.
 
  • Like
Reactions: catcauphonic, MJ5150 and sludgetail
#38
I ordered an item from a shop in Seattle Sunday night. It arrived on my doorstep Tuesday early afternoon.
We have a nice friendship with the man who delivers our mail from the USPS. He mentioned to me how the volume of mail and packages to deliver has been increasing over the last few months. He commented how usually it would stop, but now it just keeps coming and coming.
What I appreciate about him is that no matter busy he gets, he is always smiling and takes out a couple minutes to visit with us and our dog.

-Mike
 
  • Like
Reactions: GregC, catcauphonic and sludgetail
#39
I was experiencing some PS provided Priority box delays in the past couple weeks, but something tells me we're suddenly about to return to our regularly scheduled programming. Thank goodness. Other than this recent 'whoopsie', i have had nothing but 99.8% positive dealings with the USPS system. Our mailman is the coolest (too bad for us he's retiring at the end of this year), and i even sent one of the gals in my local office a card when she was out for chemo treatments a few months back.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GregC, sludgetail and MJ5150
#40
catcauphonic said:
I was experiencing some PS provided Priority box delays in the past couple weeks, but something tells me we're suddenly about to return to our regularly scheduled programming. Thank goodness. Other than this recent 'whoopsie', i have had nothing but 99.8% positive dealings with the USPS system. Our mailman is the coolest (too bad for us he's retiring at the end of this year), and i even sent one of the gals in my local office a card when she was out for chemo treatments a few months back.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that sounds like something you'd do buddy regarding the card. You're a good guy.
Maybe someday we shall meet again at The Original Philly's.

-Mike
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back