It’s a seven-hour drive from Charlotte, NC, to Cape Canaveral, FL. It takes two, and at times three days for standard and first-class mail to arrive when sent from either state. On the USPS site, the delivery schedule confirms the two business day delivery time, barring bad weather and holidays.
Yet for the past four to five months, it’s taken two or three times longer for mail to reach it’s destination, regardless of weather conditions. Something changed the delivery schedule, and the public has not been informed of these changes and why they were made.
According to U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Spokesperson Enola C. Rice from the Corporate Communications Suncoast and Mississippi Districts USPS Service in Tampa, FL, "In January, (the USPS) implemented operating window changes in all of our 320 processing facilities… (impacting) the schedules for nearly all processing and transportation activities nationwide," she stated, adding that the scope of this change in an organization the size of the Postal Service was enormous."
Rice said this was one of the most significant operational changes since automation implementation. The reason for this change, she said, allows the USPS to save $1.2 billion dollars annually as a result of the mail processing operational window change as well as that the planned consolidations enable better use of company assets.
"While making these network changes," Rice said, "We were also contending with some unusually harsh weather conditions. A large number of winter storms disrupted service in Quarter 2, particularly for mail requiring air transportation."
This may be true some of the times our mail has been so late, but it in most cases there has been good weather and yet the mail is still late. This is hurtful to people paying rent, receiving paychecks and when paying utilities.
Yet the USPS Spokesperson, Rice, said the company is committed to improving the reliability and predictability of mail and package delivery, and to achieving consistent time-of-day delivery for its customers.
"Our commitment to customer service is unwavering," She said. "Service performance in Quarter 3 has been steadily improving and we remain committed that the changes we are implementing will ultimately improve the overall customer experience."
Rice sited a Gallup poll released May 6, 2015, in which Americans rated their satisfaction with their mail delivery at 90 percent, reinforcing the U.S. Postal Service number one ranking among major government agencies, which was taken from another poll done in November 2014.
In the meantime, plan to send your mail out at least a week earlier than you normally would so your bills, medical and automotive insurance checks, and payroll checks two to three times earlier than you ever have had to in the past in order for it to reach its destination on time.
When asked why the USPS has not informed the public about these first-class mail schedule, "Rice said USPS wanted to work out all the bugs before making such a huge comment regarding one of he largest changes in the company’s history.
This comes on the heels of protests in Omaha, ME, On Thursday, May 14, 215, by nationwide postal workers and customers. The rally focused on the long delays in mail delivery; a reduction in service standards; and closures of mail sorting centers, which protestors say hurt consumers, seniors, small businesses and workers alike.
Postal workers rallied to keep post offices open, to stop pay cuts that have slowed regular mail service and it called for longer service hours.
With office closures, salary cuts and decreased service hours, this may lead people to believe USPS is in trouble and its earnings in the first two quarters of 2015 were down, along with the 2014 quarters.
On the contrary, despite some downs, overall revenue for standard mail was up 7.6% with a volume growth of 3.5%, compared to the volume decline of 2.8% the year prior. This growth is attributed, states USPS spokespeople, by an increase in political mail of 0.9%.
And first-class mail, which is the bread and butter that drives profit for USPS, increased in revenue by 3.7%, even though volume fell by 1.1% . But this was an increase considering in the period year prior, first-class mail revenue fell to 2.8%, as volume declined by 4.6%. The USPS made first-class mail a proirity as a result of it's overall profitability.
So why all the pay cuts, closers and delayed mail? Kristen Day, a USPS worker in the assorting facility in Nebraska, the answer is as old as time--greed-- and cares less for the true harm it causes.
*For more information, visit: http://about.usps.com/news/electronic-press-kits/our-futurenetwork/welcome.htm
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