US Postal Service

[Keysguy]

USPS is up to their eyeballs and beyond in ballots right now. I'm not sure I'd risk using them for anything that's alive until spring.
That's not a knock on them, it's just what it is right now.

[Ray]

Not just ballots! (After all, there's only one of those per person; how many Christmas cards have they handled every year without issues?)

The pandemic has increased the delivery load on all carriers. Online ordering was already growing in leaps and bounds, but that put the growth on steroids.

I live in the west end of our island, which consists of an area of 30 blocks long by 3 blocks wide. When we moved here, we had two USPS carriers for the area - one did the package pickup and delivery, the other handled the "letter" mail. Now we have 4. UPS had 2, now they're up to 3 or 4, as the volume requires. FedEx had one Express and one Ground, now it's 1 & 3, respectively. In most places, Ground picks up all ground and Home Delivery, but only delivers to business addresses, while Home Delivery only delivers to residences. Here, because of our relatively rural nature, Ground handles it all.

[WaterWitchin]

So true, Ray. The "stay at home" quickly stretched both USPS and FedEx as far as the uptick in packages to the bending/breaking point. I'm just one person, and easily have doubled if not tripled the things I used to buy in store to online shopping. Multiply that times the population... BOOM!

I try to help the process by not ordering often, but now and then there's something I need asap (like a broken drill bit or broken power stapler) and it's one more trip for the delivery guy or gal. I'm simply sick of this Covid crap.

[Dollythehun]

As we all are. So I went to the post office today and talked to a supervisor, who also could not track my package. He was very pleasant and apologetic, and told me that his supervisor would be calling me. He said that somewhere along the line between here and Phoenix someone had to have scanned the package. However that does not appear to be the case. He said they had also been having a lot of trouble with plant material. Why that would be I don't know. And he told me that in 30 days I could file a claim for a refund of the plant and the shipping. Since I grew the plant, and it was exceptionally nice, I have no idea what it would be worth. It was a sentimental thing. And that's my update.

Like ww, I also order more online now. Like a good minion I've been told I can't go out, and so I've been shopping for the things I need online that aren't available in the store. So I can see why people are overloaded. However, I've ordered a lot from Wayfair lately, and they seem to be able to get their packages here in a day or two.

[Roberta]

USPS was doing fine until June... when unmentionable started messing with it. It's a complex enough system that it didn't take a lot to gum it up. It's gotten a bit better, but not yet back to what it was at that point.