Our wonderful US Mail

[Kevin Stenberg]

A week and a half ago i ordered a new Lee melting pot. I have been tracking the shipping through the computer.
The pot is not here yet. So far it has been in Arizona where i ordered it from. It went to Colorado then to Nevada then from there it came to somewhere in Minnesota (location unknown) It then went to Owatana - Minn. from there it went to Mahtomedi - Minn. then it showed up back in St Paul - Minn. Then it decided it needed to go to Oseola - Minn. It must have forgot something because it went back to St Paul - Minn. After it got what it forgot it went to Bemieji - Minn. And tonight it finally decided it had enough travel and ended up at our postal center in Akeley - Minn
I still don't have it in my hands. And hopefully it doesn't want to go back to St Paul or somewhere else. Kevin

 

[Ian]

I know you must be terribly frustrated but the way you told that had me just about falling out of my chair laughing! Lets hope that with all those miles and transfers it ends up in one piece.

 

[waco]

ugh.......

 

[Kevin Stenberg]

Ian you are exactly correct.

 

[Rick]

Keith recently mailed me a part. It arrived at and left the Evansville, IN PO 3 times. It arrived at and left Memphis 4 times. It arrived at and left Little Rock 5 times. Starting to do better it only arrived at and left Harrison twice. I had like 20 email notifications of where it just went back to.

I'm not complaining about the PO though, in fact after all that I had in two days.

 

[Brad]

Damn Rick, that was a fast package!

 

[KeithB]

Glad you got part back Rick. Can't explain routing, it must make sense to somebody.

 

[RicinYakima]

Sorry Rick, it didn't' travel all those miles. It gets put in the wrong bin, scanned, realize it is wrong, new bin and rescan. Someone thinks that is error, bin #1 again, "Dummy! goes in this bin!" rescan. Worked with Postal Inspectors monitoring for terrorist HazMat after 9/11. A clown palace does not describe what happens in a PO.

 

[RBHarter]

USPS has been ok recently , but FedEx takes the Cake for me .
It left the shop in Conway AR on Tuesday , Wednesday morning it checked in in Joplin Missouri , Wednesday night it was in Memphis TN , I thought right on Reno tommorow .......... whatever . Friday morning it checked through Savannah GA ...... Monday night it was in Mobile AL , Newport News Tuesday , seriously it's like 275 miles from where it started in just 8 days ........ 2 days to get to El Paso Tx . Saturday it makes it to Tucson .........where it sets until Thursday morning . Now from Tucson Az to Walker Lake Nevada is 536 miles it rolled out of Tucson at 0440 and checked out of Kingman Az at 0630 , conservatively 135 miles , 5 slow downs for small towns and getting across Pheonix ...... At 745 it checks in in Las Vegas and back out at 750 that's 100 miles from Kingman ........ The Beatty check hits at at 935 another 100 miles down , 100 miles from a metro start no less than 15 miles in the city and still gets 100 miles 1 hr 45 min . I know that there's nothing between Beatty and Tonopah but another 100 and it was only 11:00 AM . Now you'd think that a driver might ,I don't make some drops or hit a pick up box , grab some lunch , maybe pee some place ..... Nope not this die hard 1315 , quarter after 1:00 the package shows delivered 114 miles in 135 min in a long wheel base E350 . 8 hr 35 min for 536 miles but it took 8 days from the center Arkansas to coastal Louisiana/Texas border , 2 days across Texas I get . I'm baffled as to why it went to Memphis via St Louis and why it didn't just head down I40 but went to Savannah to ride across I 10 ........ 16 days for a gun ......

 

[fiver]

I worked at UPS on the swing shift for a while a few years back to make Christmas money instead of doing the tree lot thing.
I ended up doing the 'Denver' trailer.
this was pretty much anything going east from SLC that couldn't fit or come down the line too late to be put in another [proper] trailer closer to the right destination.
at the end of the shift each night anything going east got dumped down the belt to the 'Denver' trailer which was picked up promptly at shift end and taken to Denver that night.
we scanned and stacked everything as quick as we could and what we couldn't stack we 'scanned and crammed'.
quite often just scanning it and dumping it off the belt to make room for the rest of the stuff coming down the line, leaving a spot for heavy and Haz-Mat stuff on the floor of the trailer.

 

[Intheshop]

One of the reasons I get books cheap is the seller/s either,don't know or don't care what they are. A cpl weeks ago get a first edition,never been opened book on a particular 18th century "cabinet maker" and his furniture. USPS mangled it...... was an absolute shame! It had been thrown in one of those book sacks,the insulated bubble wrap style. Probably 8$ or so to the door.

I hesitated to report it to the seller but did.They aren't going to change packing policies so,"what are you gonna do"? They refunded my $,which wasn't the intent..... just a pathetic thing to happen to a collector book.

We stuck it in the old 1840's book press as soon as the pkg got opened.... I showed it to one of the boy's the other day and it was about 90% "good". We put it back in and between the two of us,cranked the snot out of it.

So,I hear ya on the frustration Kevin.Hopefully you'll get it in a day or so,intact.

 

[Rick]

Damn Rick, that was a fast package!

Delivery was fine, tracking not so much. When I took it to the PO to send it to Keith the civil servant behind the counter says . . . They will have it on Thursday! Unless they get it on Friday.

Sorry Rick, it didn't' travel all those miles. It gets put in the wrong bin, scanned, realize it is wrong, new bin and rescan. Someone thinks that is error, bin #1 again, "Dummy! goes in this bin!" rescan. Worked with Postal Inspectors monitoring for terrorist HazMat after 9/11. A clown palace does not describe what happens in a PO.

No, of course it didn't do all that traveling. The package seemed to know exactly where to go, their tracking computers were highly confused though.

When I sent my new laptop back to HP in southern IN for repair via UPS it left here and travelled east right through the town it needed to go to, it kept right on going all the way to Pittsburg, PA. Next day it got back on the same freeway back to IN. When they returned it, it was the same route, left So IN and went east to Pittsburg, next day back on the same freeway back through the same town it left the day before on it's way to Memphis.

 

[Intheshop]

Had this discussion with a friend the other day. He does a metric ton of shipping on etsy and epay.

So,he/buyer are tracking a pkg similar to Kevin's OP. The two of them are getting a little pi$$y cause it's taking so dang long,which is understandable.My friend goes to P.O. and catches his postmaster bud and relays the event.

Post guy says,give me a minute..... comes back with a dang pic of the pkg. It's a funky shaped pkg that is obviously the correct one.Friend is like WTHeck? Yup,the post office can take a pic while the pkg is hauling arse down a conveyor.This pkg never left the distribution center it originally landed,"at".

It kept getting bumped into other bins for some reason?.... getting a new tracking destination but,NOT actually boarding.Nope,gets put into another bin headed for another Timbuktu.

Post master hits a few key strokes and pkg finally makes it out of purgatory and headed in the right direction.

 

[Fiddler]

Sold a piece of Fractional Currency on ebay last year. It got part way there and 3 days in a row at the exact same time in the AM it gets scanned and then nothing..... lost.

 

[popper]

Gee, mail here is on hold for ~ 1 week, hazmat spill at the dist. center (wife said somebody said it was a mercury spill). Guess they have to investigate that one and get a good vacuum cleaner. Looked on line, 3 other P.O. on hold in state, due to ROAD construction, by TXDOT.

 

[KHornet]

Guess I am lucky when it comes to the PO, or the
other delivery outfits. Have never had a problem,
other than my sometimes over eager anticipation
of delivery. We are an impatient society.

Paul

 

[Pistolero]

I suspect that the issue is more the tracking software going nuts more than
that actual package retracing, although the routing sometimes is 'non-obvious'
to get from point A to point B.

Actually when the deliver a 50 lb box of lead bars for the price of a flat rate package,
I grin, bigly.

I actually had the postman deliver one of these and he said, "It isn't any of my business,
but would you mind telling me what is in there?" I said - "Lead". He said, "Yeah, that is
what we figured. Couldn't be much else." Grinned and walked off. Not mad, just curious.

Bill

 

[Ian]

I've handed and received several 22 lb small frbs across the mail counter. Lead, gold, or uranium is about all it could be. The "civil servants" always give me dirty looks.

 

[freebullet]

Sorry to hear about the luck on that shipment, Kevin. Hopefully it shows up in one working piece.

We made an ingot mold, drops 5 bars, completely fills a sfrb. In fact, ya have to fold the box up around the bars. 26lb was common, & 27.45lb is the standing Florence station record for heaviest accepted & delivered sfrb. I dropped off 13 one day & warned them, they are deceivingly heavy. Got every dollar I could outa the 5 sumpthin they were charging.

 

[RBHarter]

A few yr ago some duffus to remain unnamed put a USPS MO in the mail stamped and all it went to the dead letter wharehouse in Ga ....... It was opened there and sent on to the address on the MO ....... It took about 3 weeks .....
It helps to address and put a return address on these things you put in the mail .....