REWahoo
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give
The US Post Office is often the butt of jokes, but until this week I didn't really realize how bad their service had sunk.
Many of you know I live in a rural area a few miles outside San Antonio. Our mail comes out of Castroville, TX and is carried not by an employee of the US Post Office, but by a contract carrier. Evidently that's a tough job to fill since the postmaster tells me our local carrier walked off the job Monday morning, and the back up carrier quit on Tuesday. Bottom line, no one in our area of the county (an estimated 400 homes) has received mail for the past three days, and I'm not sure any of us will get mail today - it's almost 3PM local time and we haven't yet.
I've spoken to the postmaster twice about the problem, once late Tuesday and again late Wednesday afternoon. His parting comment: "There is nothing I can do about it."
That's when I lost it.
After explaining to him his statement was absurd, insulting, and unacceptable, I asked him how much hassle it would be for him if the local residents complained to our Congressman about no mail delivery for three days. It got very quiet on the phone and he almost begged me not to do so. Didn't stop me for a minute.
Yep, I called up the office of the Honorable Ciro D. Rodriquez (D -TX), and vented my frustration to a nice lady who listened to my complaint, took all my information...and promised to send a letter to the USPS about the problem!! Yes, a letter! I was so dumbfounded I was speechless. It was all I could do to mumble a "thank you" before hanging up.
Then I decided to go the internal route and sent an email to the US Postal Inspector. I got a response within a few hours asking for more details. I sent the information the Postal Inspector's office requested last night, and received a response a few minutes ago. I am to expect a phone call from someone at the local post office within 24 hours. Jeeze Louise! I fired back a response saying I'd not gotten any results by talking with the local postmaster, I wanted to talk to his boss!
Sheesh!
Has snail mail service degraded this badly everywhere, or am I just "lucky"?
Many of you know I live in a rural area a few miles outside San Antonio. Our mail comes out of Castroville, TX and is carried not by an employee of the US Post Office, but by a contract carrier. Evidently that's a tough job to fill since the postmaster tells me our local carrier walked off the job Monday morning, and the back up carrier quit on Tuesday. Bottom line, no one in our area of the county (an estimated 400 homes) has received mail for the past three days, and I'm not sure any of us will get mail today - it's almost 3PM local time and we haven't yet.
I've spoken to the postmaster twice about the problem, once late Tuesday and again late Wednesday afternoon. His parting comment: "There is nothing I can do about it."
That's when I lost it.
After explaining to him his statement was absurd, insulting, and unacceptable, I asked him how much hassle it would be for him if the local residents complained to our Congressman about no mail delivery for three days. It got very quiet on the phone and he almost begged me not to do so. Didn't stop me for a minute.
Yep, I called up the office of the Honorable Ciro D. Rodriquez (D -TX), and vented my frustration to a nice lady who listened to my complaint, took all my information...and promised to send a letter to the USPS about the problem!! Yes, a letter! I was so dumbfounded I was speechless. It was all I could do to mumble a "thank you" before hanging up.
Then I decided to go the internal route and sent an email to the US Postal Inspector. I got a response within a few hours asking for more details. I sent the information the Postal Inspector's office requested last night, and received a response a few minutes ago. I am to expect a phone call from someone at the local post office within 24 hours. Jeeze Louise! I fired back a response saying I'd not gotten any results by talking with the local postmaster, I wanted to talk to his boss!
Sheesh!
Has snail mail service degraded this badly everywhere, or am I just "lucky"?