Does anyone else not get their mail on busy mail days?

[mmpsteve]

How do I get my address and name off your list?

You talkin to me ...?

I once heard about a 'no junk mail' option, but I don't know anything about it. With saturation mail (every house), there is no name or address. Besides, I send out a lot of good stuff; local pizza coupons, furnace check-up discounts, etc... I know it must work for my clients, or they wouldn't pay me good $$ to send it out, so someone's buying their stuff.

'Merica man!!

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[igotdiesel2]

I'm a printer that does a lot of bulk mailing (junk mail), and so I work closely with the post office, and direct-drop a lot of mail to many post offices. Here's a couple points I can add:

1. All 1st class mail gets routed to a regional sorting facility to be carrier-sorted using huge, impressive machines sorting thousands of pieces per minute. It's then trucked to each post office in trays for each carrier. Depending on how close your post office is to the regional center, the carriers might not even get their trays till late morning, and that's why they may not start loading their truck till late morning. NW Indiana gets their mail from the Gary sectional center, so if you are way south of Gary, the carriers don't get their trays till late morning. Then they have to integrate, and keep straight, all the parcels that they get from Fedex and UPS. Believe me when I tell you, the carriers are not any happier about it than you are.

2. Bulk mailers get reduced rates because our mail does not have to be sorted. It does not have to go to the sectional center, nor be processed by any machines. When I drop a saturation mailing, it's in trays labelled for each carrier with the exact number of pieces for that carrier's route. They put one in every box, with no thought process involved as to whether the address is right or not. Some bulk mail does have an actual address on it, and then it's handled just like 1st class mail, and they don't get as good a rate as the saturation mailings.

3. I've dealt with hundreds of different post offices, and level of service varies, just like with any chain store. Some are very efficient and well run, and some, not so much. Mostly depends on management.

4. Just about every post office is understaffed, and over-worked. These carriers fill those little trucks to the top, and amazingly, get most of it to where it's addressed. Some routes have to load it up, deliver it, and then go back for a second load. I know it looks bad sometimes, with individual carriers, but mostly these people are working their ass off, every day.

I had a few other thoughts, but I need to get the hell out of my office.

PS. 1st class letter rates are going up to $.55 in January, and bulk mail going up too. I wish I could raise my prices 10% every couple years!!

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I drive for a LTL Carrier here in Indy. I have delivered pallets of bulk mailers and catalogs to a lot of post offices in the Indy area as well as the DC downtown. I have seen well oiled machines as well as complete cluster you know whats.

My personal relationship with my mailbox is funny. We receive no bills via mail, so unless we are expecting something we don't check our mailbox every day and most of it doesn't even make it into the house. It gets filed in the garage to be used to light fires in the firepit. -Jason

 

[mmpsteve]

I drive for a LTL Carrier here in Indy. I have delivered pallets of bulk mailers and catalogs to a lot of post offices in the Indy area as well as the DC downtown. I have seen well oiled machines as well as complete cluster you know whats.

My personal relationship with my mailbox is funny. We receive no bills via mail, so unless we are expecting something we don't check our mailbox every day and most of it doesn't even make it into the house. It gets filed in the garage to be used to light fires in the firepit. -Jason

Most of what I print ends up in the garbage, or hopefully, the recycle bin, or firepit. And that's OK, because the 2 to 3% people who use the discounts, make money for my clients. I do junk mail for nearly every type of business you can think of: Pizza, Oil Change, Dentist, Retirement Homes, Restaurants, Flower shops, Hotels ... etc. Many people save money with coupons. My main goal with junk mail is to let the consumer know what the product is, before they trash it. If you don't need the product, fine, trash it. I do the same with my mail.

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[Cameramonkey]

"The last mile" is a problem with everything.

Or last thousand mile.

Watching a slooooooow package, an advent calendar, that we ordered late october. So PLENTY of time for a Dec 1 delivery. After it sat waiting to go to the PO until the 4th of December (BAD seller!!!) we saw it hit the indy sorting facility the morning of the 5th. When it didnt arrive that night we checked it out. Destination scan that night in WISCONSIN!!!! They stuck it on a northbound truck!

Luckily we got it on the 6th, but geez. Minnesota, to Indy, to Wisconsin, back to Indy, then to us. SMH. Almost as fun as the shipment I got from NJ that checked through 6 facilities before it even left the state! (average length of each leg was 25 miles or so)

 

[halfmileharry]

I don't think they would want the business honestly, at least not and be tied to the rates that USPS is. Being required to deliver to every home, etc for those rates would break those companies.



Sign up for Informed Delivery https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action and start checking the box on every piece of mail you don't get in a day... I suspect if done often enough, things will change. I've checked the box once or twice due to an item being missing and it always showed up promptly the next day (and it wasn't because I did not get other mail that day, but probably fell between the cracks in the truck).

We had a substitute carrier today. Mailbox was over full. It was nice to get our mail as it's supposed to be delivered. Surely it can't be that difficult.

 

[mmpsteve]

We had a substitute carrier today. Mailbox was over full. It was nice to get our mail as it's supposed to be delivered. Surely it can't be that difficult.

It surely is that difficult, Harry. I'm telling you, these carriers are way stressed with their workload. I work hard as a business owner, but nothing like these mail carriers.

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[halfmileharry]

It surely is that difficult, Harry. I'm telling you, these carriers are way stressed with their workload. I work hard as a business owner, but nothing like these mail carriers.

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I watch my obese carrier play on his phone constantly. He sits in his front seat on his phone. It must be a stress relief technique I'm not familiar with.
I'm not generalizing carriers.... just my carrier.

 

[mom45]

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Just got some very important, time-sensitive mail on Wednesday.

All three letters dated for 12/5, from three different places.

So that was nice.