“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” – the motto of the USPS…until now. The cash strapped United States Postal Service is now facing unprecedented stress as nearly 400,000 workers have had to quarantine for at least two weeks after COVID-19 exposure. This will result in slower mail delivery for all of us.
Because the USPS is required by law to pre-fund 75 years’ worth of retiree benefits for new hires, it’s unable to hire additional workers and now the new Post Master General is halting all overtime, hours that result in about 20% additional package delivery. Until now, if your package, life-saving medicine, bills, unemployment checks, and other goods are on a truck for delivery, it would be delivered – even if it meant an extra trip by the USPS because the first round of trucks were full. The USPS workers are a hardworking crew, truly dedicated to meeting the expectations of its customers; both businesses and consumers.
But now, your mail will probably be late.
It’s not the workers fault. Those bags of mail, trucks of much needed packages containing medicine or the like, will sit until the next day. So what’s one more day? Likely not a huge inconvenience for most recipients expecting their Amazon delivery but if that mail sits overnight, and the next days mail doesn’t go out before the shift ends, the USPS will be facing a backlog that grows exponentially, undoubtedly slowing mail for the foreseeable future.
The USPS was never created to be a privately funded company. It’s a government service to serve all people, regardless of their city or remote location. Millions depend on the USPS as other couriers won’t deliver to remote areas, and often if they do, they actually just hand off the package to the USPS once the route becomes rural or is no longer economical.
Sadly, we can’t do anything about it. Except continue to support the USPS, their hard workers putting their lives on the line, and have patience.