Slooow mail

Went to my PO box this morning, and a surprise was waiting: a small insured airmail parcel from Australia -- sent at the beginning of May! No indication of where it had been the last 8 1/2 months, either.

Whether this was a USPS screwup or something Down Under, I cannot say. But just last week I got a package sent domestically (from Michigan, I think), that had taken a full two months to arrive -- even though it had been sent by Priority Mail. Again, no indications of where it had been.

I do a lot of mailing of small parcels, and over the last few years the loss rate has been negligible, maybe one or two items in a thousand. Yet every month or two, something ends up taking an inordinately long time to arrive. Is this the result of some post-9/11 (or post-anthrax) measure? I don't know, but I doubt that's the entire explanation. In too many ways the Post Office screws up things in entirely visible ways -- such as their policy of returning undeliverable Express Mail packages by the slowest possible means (I recently got back two such parcels over a month after they'd been sent), or of subcontracting delivery of Global Express Mail to foreign partners chosen more on cost than competence (ParcelForce in the UK, GLS for much of continental Europe).

Posted by David on January 29, 2004 10:37 AM