“Mailing” It In!

I’m not exactly going out on a limb when I say there has been a bit of recent controversy surrounding the United States Post Office. The issue of whether you are pro or con on mail-in ballots is fodder for a future column, but I digress.

Sadly, since 2007, the USPS has posted more red ink than all my corrected math and English papers from grades 2-12. $78 billion to be exact including a $2.2 billion loss the last quarter. Now one can point to a litany of reasons for its bottom-line malaise, but again that’s content for a future debate.

Not long ago I spoke with a former assistant Postmaster General who explained that one of the major causes of the downhill slide was the advent of electronic bill payments, which resulted in a precipitous drop in volume of what is known as remittance mail. Why take the time to hand write checks and affix stamps to your utility and credit card bills when you could pay with the click of a mouse?

Add to that delivery competition from UPS, FedEx, DHL and Amazon Prime and you have what basically has become a Blockbuster Video economic model in era of Netflix.

But my experience with the post office on a local level is likely a microcosm of what’s happening nationally.

In the 24 years I have lived at my present address I can honestly say we have never gone a month without a major snafu regarding delivery. Sometimes mail comes after 7 p.m. Sometimes not at all. On more than one occasion I have received a notice of a registered letter taped to the mailbox and instructions to pick it up at the post office. Trouble was someone had been home each time. The driver just neglected to leave the truck and knock.

On another occasion our neighbor was digging new septic fields and our street was lined with a small bulldozer and a dump truck. That resulted in a three-day delivery moratorium. Yet somehow the neighbor was able to receive multiple packages from UPS and FedEx during that time.

And lastly, over the past two weeks I have received a total of 15 pieces of mail delivered to the wrong address. One day, the mail truck came back on THREE separate occasions to place packages and letters designated for the resident on the next block whose address begins with the same number as mine. I finally had to tape a sign to the mailbox reiterating our address and street pleading for the driver to give more than a cursory glance to the label.

And as far as mail-in voting, well I will let you decide.

But let’s just say from personal experience, I have serious doubts as to its execution.