The Sewing Mom

I have lived in many places in my lifetime, many different cities, states and have even lived in the Middle East.  Over all those years, in all those many places, I have never experienced anything like the U.S. Postal Service where we are now.

We have lived here since April and in that time, I’ve lost count of the number of pieces of incoming and outgoing mail and packages that have been lost or show up weeks after their scheduled delivery.  This is a good size town with a population of around 74,000 and yet they have one post office with 3 service windows.  Yes, they do have what they call contract postal units, these are stores that sell other things and are set up to handle most USPS transactions.  However, I’ve personally mailed items from 2 of the 3 contract postal units in Allen, and had one package that I paid to ship 2 day priority mail take 3 weeks and at another center I mailed an over-sized birthday card over a month ago and it has yet to show up.

This morning, I had a small package to ship so I took it directly to the main P.O.  I arrived at 8:35 and they weren’t open yet.  Their sign says they open at 8:30.  I was the 7th person in line, we all just stood there.  Finally, about 8:40, an employee poked their head out of a side door and asked if anyone was just picking up and I said “no, but when do you open?”.  She responded that they would be open shortly, they were having “technical difficulties”. 

I did not get out of the post office until 9, what a waste of time!.  In case you’re wondering, I have started taking packages to UPS instead, I find them to be very reliable and usually cheaper.  I would’ve taken my little package there today, but I had to drop the mortgage payment into the mail anyway so I thought it would be easier to make one stop.  Don’t even get me started as to why I can’t mail bills from the mailbox that sits out in front of my house!  Of course, I think there will always be times when I have to go to the USPS and I dread those days more & more!