OT: Keeping the Christmas Spirit Alive

[Colour Sergeant Bourne]

Hey, hey, hey. Guess what came in yesterday's mail-- a Christmas card from my niece postmarked December 4, 2023. It was mailed from "up north" to me-- "down south".

Google maps says it traveled 831 miles. Listed transit time by car is 13 hours 11 minutes, by bike three days and change, walking is 13 days.

The post office? Four months and two weeks-- or 135 days. Way to go guys!

Yup, sure feeling OK about the upcoming postal rates increase to 73 cents for a first class letter...

I'm thinking bring back the Pony Express!

[Cindy Hamilton]

1. What is the price of first-class postage in comparable Western democracies?
2. How much would it cost to send a letter from, say, London to Monaco?

Your letter no doubt ended up in a mislaid bag of mail or something.

In any event, I don't use the mail anymore, unless I can't avoid it.

[Ed P]

I use it a couple of times a month. As for the price, when I send a letter 1200 miles and it gets there in 2-3 days, 73 cents is quite a bargain. I'd not walk down the street for that price.

Given the size of the USPS system, there will be some screw ups at times.

From Mr. Google- - - On average, the Postal Service processes and delivers 23.8 million packages each day. On average, the Postal Service processes 4,877 pieces of mail each second. The Postal Service processes an average of 292,628 pieces of mail each minute

[Retirednoguilt]

It's sad when the Federal and many State income tax bureaus advise mailing tax returns from inside a post office and by some means that includes tracking. Same thing happened when we just renewed our passports. The Department of State web site advises mailing the application including the old passports by priority mail to provide tracking. They even used priority mail when sending our new passports to us.

[Retirednoguilt]

I'm signed up for the free "informed delivery" e-mail notifications of what first class mail and packages they plan to deliver to my address that day. It used to be accurate. Lately I receive first class mail that was not included in the e-mail notification and notification of mail that fails to be included that day but generally shows up in the next day's delivery. I'm beginning to wonder why I bothered.

[Scott Lurndal]

Does it matter?

The real problem is the grifting loser running USPS.

[Ed P]

May vary with location, but I find it fairly accurate, especially for packages. Most is junk and not worth the walk to the mailbox.

They do cover themselves with this line though: Mail may arrive several days after you receive this notification. Please allow up to a week for delivery before reporting missing mail

[Bob F]

I wonder how much of these problems is a result of DeJoy trashing the mail sorting machines and other such changes he made.

[Colour Sergeant Bourne]

According to postal commission figures, last year, the average first class mail delivery time in the South was 2.6 days. So far this year, it's 4.9 days.