U S Postal folly

[Bad Water Bill]

I purchased an item and it was shipped from Lancaster Tx.

The wonderful postal system shipped it to Dallas then to SALT LAKE CITY UTAH and from there to Chiraq.

Total mileage traveled over 2,600 miles.

Dallas to my home is less than 1K.

Wonderful way to run a business not to mention that they will be 2 days late on their guaranteed delivery date.

[6bg6ga]

I have had the same experience as you. I've had a package leave USPS and go to a UPS center and spend almost a week bouncing around to different sites before making it to my home. I average length of shipping time for my package shipping straight USPS or UPS has been 2 days but when it goes between the two the time doubles or even triples.

Another instance is having a package leave the east cost and make it across the country to say Utah and then down to Texas followed by a trip to Nebraska, Illinois and then Iowa. They have their stuff together.

[Hickory]

I used to publish a news letter for our local homeschool group, most of the news letters would arrive within 2-3 days after sending. One would not get to the person it was sent to for 12-14 days after being sent, just 17 miles away. After few months I drove there to hand deliver it.

[novalty]

Another member purchased a Redding T7 from me last year. It was supposed to go from Maine to Kentucky--which seems like a pretty straight shot down the east coast. The USPS must have wanted an extra work out with the heavy package as it went from Maine to Washington, then to Ohio, then to Kentucky.

[jcwit]

Considering the number of items the USPS handles on a daily basis I think they do one heck of a job!

[dakotashooter2]

Our local mail is sent to a "hub" 45 miles away where it is sorted and then sent back to be delivered in the same town.

[Mumblypeg]

If I mail a letter across the street, it goes 45 miles to Charlotte to be sorted first.... just the way they do it but yes, what jcwit said..... they do a pretty good job.... just too many employee perks.... I've never done it so who am I to judge? I do have a close friend that works there part time so I know how a lot of stuff is done and much of it makes no sense.

[HATCH]

Well the problem isn't always just with the USPS.

I sent a SBR receiver to be engraved using UPS.
It was going to Arkansas from South Carolina.
I sent it 2 day air.
Well on the 3rd day (the day it was suppose to arrive), I tracked the package.
It was sitting in California.
I had to call and complain. They didn't care. Well After my second call I explained that the item is a restricted NFA item and legally can't be in California to start with (I lied slightly).
Needless to say it was out of California within 2 hrs on a plane heading to the correct destination.

The Postal service is run by PEOPLE.
People make mistakes.
It happens.
I had a postal money order get lost for a year. It only had to travel 100 miles.

[bubba.50]

on the other side of the coin, I made a trade with a feller from Winchester VA which is straight up I-81 about 150 miles or so. my item to him sent by USPS got there the next day. he used UPS to send his item to me. from Winchester it went to Hagerstown MD, some place in KY, to Charlotte NC, to Roanoke VA then to me here in Pulaski County. so, I guess they could all use some efficiency lessons.

[texassako]

Sometimes watching where an item goes via tracking cracks me up. I recently Priority mailed some H&I dies to Hawaii, 2 days. Every time I buy something from up in the Northeast, it sits in NY for a week before heading here if it shipped USPS.

[DHurtig]

I bought some knives from Ontario Canada. They crossed the border to Elk Grove Il, then to Sioux falls SD, to Elk grove Il, to Sioux Falls SD, to Des Moine Ia to Sioux Falls SD and finally to Rapid City SD. Hmmm?

[Mtnfolk75]

Last month I " won " an auction on Sleazebay for 3 Glock 26 O round Mag Extenions for my SWMBO's CCW. They were shipped from Texas. After 8 days I began to look into the tracking using the # supplied by the shipper and found they were sitting in Fort Worth and had been since pickup on day 1. The next day they were shipped to Honolulu and lanquished there for 4 more days before being overnighted to CA and delivered the same day .... :o

FWIW, I had " won " another lot of 3 from the same vender 2 weeks before and they had been delivered in 2 days ..... :o Now SWMBO has 8 magazines for her Gen 3 that are setup identical. She now leaves me alone & lets me play with my revolvers ......:bigsmyl2:

[DLCTEX]

Our local mail has to go 100 miles and back before it can be put in the boxes at our local PO. I mailed a priority mail package to Alaska Guy three weeks ago and it's still not there. It beats me driving it up there though.

[Big Boomer]

While it may be true that the USPS does a reasonably good job most of the time, much of their policy is just plain wrong-headed. For 25 years out of the office for which I was responsible, we did a weekly bulk mailing (church weekly 3rd class mail) at the post office in Portsmouth, Ohio. All pieces were already pre-sorted by state, zip code, with bar code the USPS supplied, etc. The Portsmouth, Ohio USPS shipped the whole shebang north to Chillicothe, Ohio, about 40 miles away, then it was shipped back to Portsmouth and mailed out. Make much sense? Big Boomer

[jcwit]

Makes no more sense than how the school boarders are drawn. Our local school corp. picks up kids within 4 miles of a large city and haul them 12 miles one way to school.

It is what it is, there has to be a beginning and end for all things.

[Artful]

Our local mail is sent to a "hub" 45 miles away where it is sorted and then sent back to be delivered in the same town.

In the small town I lived in Oregon - they used to send it 25 miles away to be sorted and then send back out - now I think they send it 50+ miles to come back. At least when I lived there if you were mailing to the small town next door and put it in their post office it didn't go to the hub - same day delivery usually also if it was for a PO Box.

[GLL]

I have been searching for two 2-day Priority mail boxes from Oregon for 15 days now. Four trips to Post Office and no luck.
They tracked them to my city here in southern California but now claim they are still "In Transit".
There was an attempt to deliver both to the wrong address three blocks away but now the trail is cold !
These are large 35 pounds boxes. Difficult to misplace !
The problem is they just do not care !

Jerry

[MaryB]

I sent a package from MN to a friend in TX(some of my homemade chili powder blend). It went to NY, CA, AK. HI, back to MN then finally to TX.

[shoot-n-lead]

Well, I just had the opposite experience.

Mailed some bullets from Georgia to Wasilla Ak on Fri...June 27 and it was delivered today.

Y'all can run the post office down all you want, but they will continue to get my money because of the excellent service that I get.

https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction?qtc_tLabels1=911490112308686770 0586

[Mumblypeg]

This gets funnier by the minute ... I did ship a colt mainspring housing to another member just the other week, somewhere in MI or MN( I forget :-( ) I told the postal worker whatever way is the cheapest. It got there in two days. It takes longer than that for a letter to get across town..... and this is a small town....

[fecmech]

There are screw ups in any business the size of the PO but they are set up similar to the airlines with hub and spoke type transportation. An example would be a Delta flight from Buffalo NY to Las Vegas goes Buffalo to Atlanta Ga. and then to Vegas. Delta's hub is ATL. The package business is run the same way. The first few years at Fedex everything went to Memphis TN. If you shipped something from Buffalo to Rochester NY (60 miles apart) it went to Memphis and back overnight. How they ship has more to do with how the system is set up rather than line of sight.

[dakotashooter2]

I often wonder how a "part" that I ordered out of China can be in my hands in 2-3 days but something I ordered from a place 200 miles down the road takes a week.

[Surculus]

If I mail a letter across the street, it goes 45 miles to Charlotte to be sorted first....

Don't blame the USPS for this mode of operation: the guy who founded FedEx nearly got flunked out of B-school when he made a case for the original biz plan of overnight delivery via flying everything to a hub [in Tennessee originally, iirc], sorting it there, & then flying it out for delivery wherever it was going.

His profs laughed at him. Who's laughing now? :razz:

Anyway, sometimes the economies of scale dictate that it's more efficient to do it this way. Wouldn't have applied years ago when vehicles were less efficient, roads weren't as good, transit times were longer, etc.

[Finster101]

I sent a package from MN to a friend in TX(some of my homemade chili powder blend). It went to NY, CA, AK. HI, back to MN then finally to TX.


Would that be called a well seasoned traveler?

[GLL]

Update:
My two 2-day Priority Mail boxes were mailed from Oregon on June 13th and made it to my city in California on the 16th. USPS then lost track of them for 18 days and had no idea where they went after they attempted to deliver them to the wrong address (even wrong street).. They finally arrived this morning. After four trips to the Post Office and filling out forms (twice) the only explanation they could give was "they are very heavy"... 32pounds !

Jerry

[MaryB]

Made me wonder of Homeland Security was suspecting it was a weapon... stuff is very very very hot


Would that be called a well seasoned traveler?

[Randy in Arizona]

Lovely Tucson, been here longer than the US has been a country.
Population of the metro area over a million.
Sort the mail here? Bleep NO!
Ship it to Phoenix, sort it, ship it back.
At least the local postal lady didn't bat an eye when I went in to ship an M16A1 to it's new owner!

75

[Mumblypeg]

Would that be called a well seasoned traveler?

THAT is a GOOD one.....( a lot better than what I had...)