Trusting the Mail

Trusting the Mail - Going Postal

(see the latest—below)

An essay by James A Graves, Jr.

October 2020

I mailed a birthday card to my son two weeks ago. We live in the same Northwest Florida zip code. And we use the same post office.

But I wish I had delivered it in person. Unfortunately, he was out of town, so I dropped it in the “local mail” slot in the post office on my way out of town. He still hasn’t received it. And there was a gift card in the envelope, too. :-(

Normally, I would be annoyed. Unfortunately I’m way beyond that. Because this isn’t my first encounter with the USPS. In 2019 I was working out of town. It was mid-March and my youngest daughter’s birthday was coming up the first week in April, so, thinking that even the convoluted US Mail trip from Wilson NC to Phoenix AZ wouldn’t take more than three weeks, I mailed her card…

I was wrong. Just before her birthday I inquired if she had received her card. No card. I asked again in mid-April. No card. By the end of April I gave up and sent her another card and gift card. This time I paid the $7+ to send it Priority Mail. She received it in less than a week. I was glad she finally got it. Annoyed by the experience, but still glad.

At the end of June she sent me a text; “Guess what, dad?”

If you’re thinking that she had just received the first card, you’d be right. It only took THREE AND A HALF MONTHS for the USPS to deliver a birthday card from North Carolina to Arizona. I could have WALKED THERE FASTER!!!

And that event was just a precursor of the joy that the USPS was about to bring me in 2019. Before I started working out of town in August of 2018 I put in a request for the post office to hold my mail.

When I returned home a couple of months later and requested my mail, I was greeted by a very unfriendly and indignant postal worker who informed me that “we only hold mail for 30 days. You need to forward your mail.”

I replied that, “I stay in motels, and don’t know how long I’ll be there. How am I supposed to forward my mail?”

“That’s your problem.” was her reply.

I had retired from a US government job five years earlier and was reminded of the infamous, counterintuitive announcement, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”

Nothing like the indifferent attitude of a postal worker to inspire the overwhelming desire to comment on the glaring absence of customer service within the US government…

‘Here to help’ my *%#! However, amazingly, I held my tongue.

I was at home most of the last quarter of 2018, so I cancelled my USPS forwarding request. But afterward, I couldn’t help but notice that I wasn’t getting mail in my mailbox. Apparently it was being forwarded, I just couldn’t find out where because, according to the customer-service-oriented USPS, I didn’t have a forwarding request in the system.

I don’t recall receiving a Christmas card that year. That was mostly my fault – the only address book that I had access to was no longer available to me. But still, I figured I’d at least get a card from my bank.

In January 2019 a friend emailed me to let me know that the Christmas card they had sent had been returned. I asked how the USPS labeled the card. He sent a picture of the envelope. The USPS had stamped it, “Unable to deliver as addressed.” “Return to sender.”

Apparently, my mailbox, standing in full view in front of my house, wasn’t a suitable receptacle to receive a Christmas card, so the USPS graciously returned it to my friend in Ohio.

I had no idea where the rest of my mail was being sent. Words can’t really express my feelings for the USPS at that point. At least not in this essay.

I returned to work in early 2019, and for lack of any other ideas on how to get my mail, I imposed on a friend and forwarded my mail to an established, trusted mailbox. And literally nothing was forwarded. Nothing, except junk mail, which isn’t supposed to be forwarded (?!) And I began to wonder if, thanks to the mishandling of my mail by the USPS, the rest of the world had decided that I no longer existed.

But I was in the process of getting a divorce. At the very least, surely my lawyer had sent me a bill.

Turns out he had. And it was overdue, because it wasn’t forwarded to me. As well as several other bills, like my homeowners insurance bill, which had been cancelled due to my failure to pay the premium because I had not received the bill.

At that point, I regretted not commenting extensively on the absence of USPS customer service.

And the fun wasn’t over…

Some months later, my son’s fiancée mentioned that my son had some mail addressed to me. I asked how he came to possess my mail, and she said it was mailed to his address in Destin, FL.

I was thoroughly confused. My son had stayed at my place in late 2017 and early 2018. I was living in Arizona at the time. He moved out and had his mail forwarded before I moved to Florida in April of 2018. And apparently, at some point, the USPS had arbitrarily decided to forward my mail to my son’s address despite the fact that I’m “James A” and my son is “James P”.

It was an honest mistake; the letters “A” and “P” are soooo similar… :-/

And my mail fiasco continued. I gave up on getting mail delivered to my friend’s address that I specified in my forwarding request, so, in the summer of 2019 I cancelled it and rented a ridiculously expensive giant post office box that would hopefully hold all of my mail that arrived while I was working out of town – assuming I ever received mail again, that is.

It took me the remainder of 2019 and the first part of 2020 to finally get “most” of my mail delivered to my new post office box. I have no idea where my mail went to before that. I never received it. I spent a fortune sending mail to my family and my lawyer via Express Mail or Certified Mail to make certain they received it in a timely manner, or at all.

And literally every time I trust the regular, First Class mail, I find myself regretting it, just like I did two weeks ago.

I keep hearing reassurances from the US Post Master General and the Postal Workers Union that America need not worry, the United States Postal Service is fully prepared to handle the influx of mail-in ballots for the November 3^rd presidential election.

Who are they kidding?! The USPS can’t even get birthday cards delivered on time… or ever!!

Update: October 30.

My son just received his birthday card.

It took the USPS Over A Month to deliver his card!

In the Same Zip Code!!

He lives seven miles from the post office!!!

I could’ve CRAWLED that far in less than a month!!!!

Update 2: Dec 2020.

I sent Christmas cards to my daughter and family in Avondale Arizona on Dec 7th.

I coughed up the $7.75 for 2-day Priority Mail, $4.70 for insurance (I sent gift cards), and $3.15 for a signature—I wanted the envelope to be placed in her hands, and a verification signature to be certain those hands were actually hers.

The “2-day” promise was broken on the receipt that stated, “Expected Delivery Date Fri 12/11/2020”. But I realized that it was the Christmas Season. Lots of mail. Naturally.

I used the tracking number on the receipt and signed up for text alerts.

The 11th came and went. I was a bit anxious because I had also sent my grandson a birthday card and wanted him to receive it by his birthday on Dec 19th.

I finally received a text on 12/17 at 4:11pm; “Arrived at USPS destination facility Phoenix AZ Distribution Center Annex”.

Early the next morning I received three texts:

“2:52am arrived USPS facility Goodyear AZ.”

“Expected delivery on Friday, December 18, 2020 between 6:15 and 10:15am.”

And “3:41am Arrived at Post Office Goodyear AZ.”

Apparently they have a USPS facility in Goodyear that’s not the Post Office, and a Post Office in Goodyear that’s not a USPS facility. But I digress – at least the envelope was moving, I was getting lots of texts and I certainly couldn’t complain that the texts weren’t detailed enough.

Then, at 7:52, “Latest status Out for Delivery 6:10am”

Then a delivery time update, “...between 6:45 and 9:45am.”

Not concerned. It’s on the truck, headed for my daughter’s house. Good enough.

10:50am, “Delivered, Left with Individual 9:50am Avondale AZ.”

Relief!! I texted my daughter. Relief cancelled. No envelope had been delivered. She had not seen the mail carrier. She began tracking from there.

I had also requested email updates, so I checked. The email stated, “Your item was delivered at 9:50 am on December 18, 2020 in AVONDALE, AZ 85392. The item was signed for by D RAPP.”

Well, that was enough to assume that someone had looked at the name on the envelope and signed that name to accept it. The only problem; that person just wasn’t my daughter!

Shortly, another email arrived. “Thank you for requesting a Proof of Delivery letter on your shipment. Your Proof of Delivery letter is included in a PDF file attached to this email.

On the attached PDF, beside the Signature of Recipient block, was scrawled,”JV9222 C19”.

Although I graduated from college a century or so ago, and I’ve never claimed to be a handwriting analyst (at times I can barely decipher my own handwriting), but I could state with some authority that “JV9222 C19” could not possibly translate to “D Rapp”.

At least not in any human, alpha-numeric language I could imagine.

So, I’m thinking that a possibly a robot had stolen my daughters mail.

Meanwhile, my daughter had the presence of mind to walk down to the community mailboxes to check the mail. There she found the $15.60, 2-day Priority Mail, personally signed for by D Rapp envelope.

So, either there’s some strange alien creature/robot/silicon-based life form living in my daughter’s mail box that has the dexterity to use a pencil, and thinks that “JV9222 C19” equates to “D Rapp”, or, the mail carrier lied. I’m guessing the latter.

But this update doesn’t end there!!!

I ordered a couple of things back in November.

The vendor wouldn’t ship to a PO box, so I had to use my home address.

As a bit of background for those who might not know; some vendors ship packages via USPS exclusively, but most prefer to use UPS or FedEx because they’re cheaper, faster and more reliable.

But when UPS and FedEx began shipping exponentially more packages than the USPS, the postal workers union cried foul. So, an agreement was negotiated whereby UPS and FedEx would ship some packages to the local post office so the USPS could deliver it on to the recipient. That way, the reliable shippers could get the items 90% of the distance safely and quickly, then the USPS could get a piece of the pie and avoid elevating too much the probability of not getting the packages delivered on time. Or ever.

This was the case with both of the items that I ordered.

I requested tracking updates, and was notified early one morning that one of my packages had been delivered to my local post office at 6am. At 9am I went to requested my package. The clerk seemed irritated to have to look for it. (Such a huge post office. I can almost spit from one end to the other!)

He found it. Said it was big and I’d have to pick it up around back. He was waiting. When I put it in the back of my car, he said, “We were getting ready to return it.” (!) They’d had it all of three hours and had already decided that it couldn’t be delivered, so it had to be returned. Brilliant.

I replied, “That’s stupid! I was just notified this morning that it had arrived!”

I was too annoyed to continue the discussion.

About a week later I was notified that the second package had arrived and went to get it.

Same scenario, except this box was small, so he brought it to the desk and said, “You’re going to have to remove the order forwarding your mail to your PO box because we can’t deliver packages to your house.”

Thoroughly confused, I asked why.

“You don’t have a mailbox. We can’t deliver packages to your house without a mailbox.”

“Why do I need a mailbox?” I asked, “The packages won’t fit in a mailbox.”

(otherwise I could have them shipped to my PO box, which is bigger than my mailbox)

I told him that I took my mailbox down because I have a PO box.

(I actually removed it because I got tired of it being filled with sand by some of the urchins that live near me - and post office issues as well)

He replied, “That doesn’t matter. We can’t deliver packages unless you have a mailbox.”

It was at that moment that the light came on - the other package delivery services will deliver anything as long as you have a physical address. The USPS requires a mailbox. That is stupid.

So, I put my mailbox back on the post. Now I’m waiting to see how long it will take the mail carrier to notice it’s back, and also wondering how long it will take the urchins to fill it up with sand again.

March 2021

I sent out two Express Mail envelopes this month:

1. Birthday cards to my youngest daughter and my youngest grandson.

2. The following day, my federal tax payment to the IRS office in Atlanta.

Naturally I received a tracking number for each envelope. Since I didn’t have any idea when the cards would be delivered, I didn’t check the tracking number right away. A few days later, my daughter let me know she had received the cards. We were both amazed, astounded and relieved.

So, I decided to check the status of the mailer containing my tax check.

The status showed it had been delivered… TO MY DAUGHTER’S ADDRESS!!

I input both tracking numbers three times each, just to be certain I wasn’t screwing up.

Not only did the USPS not know where they had sent my income tax payment, they gave me an official receipt that indicated they sent my tax payment to my daughter. Unbelievable.

Fortunately, the IRS received the mailer and cashed my check, so I have a record (my cancelled check) that my taxes have been paid.

The USPS hits just keep coming...