THE POST MAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE ... BUT NOT IN MINNESOTA

I never thought those words would flow out of my fingers, but I just watched Representative Angie Craig (D-MM2) on At Issue (KSTP-ABC) and she was talking about missing mail from 3 Twin Cities distribution centers
    Eagan (50,000 pieces missing)
    Apple Valley (30,000 pieces)
    New Brighton (15,000 pieces)

Now some of these - especially the Eagan branch - doesn't include a great number of delayed packages, including pharmaceutical deliveries .... one delaoy actually resulted in a person needing to seek Emergency care, causing an even higher medical bill which had to be paid (assumably, though she didn't come right out and say it, Medicare)

It sounded like this hadn't been looked into until recently - but I remember when my mail was being delivered by the Eagan branch ... they had switched it from a closer branch (about 1 -2 miles away) to the Eagan branch (about 1o miles away, I only know how to get there by backroads) ... we didn't realize they had even made the move until we came back from vacation and hubby went to go pick-up the mail we had put on hold.

It was not a pretty tale when he came back -- aggarently, the decision and switch were both made while we were out of town for vacation -- we were shocked that they had not given out a 30 day notice first, but it sounded like perhaps the workers didn't find out about it until the last minute either.  

It was not a pretty scene at the post office, hubby said.

Shortly after this we noticed mail had gone "missing" .... we paid a couple "late fees" (before autobill pay) and hen some things seemed to straighten out, still there were a couple packages which didn't seem to show up ...

until about a year later, when an investigative reporter found there was a mail carrier who simply took a bunch of mail home at the end of the day ... didn't look through it or nothing, just stored it at his place until he had retired.

I'm not saying any of my stuff was in there, but I found some of the missing mail suddenly in my mailbox.

Now we hadn't had any issues for the longest time ... during the "pandemic" my daughter and hubby said that often mail would only come a few times during th"e week - presumably because they had to cut back on the work force - but nothing seemed to be missing ... even at the cabin where I was helping to care for my Father-In-Law, we were only getting deliveries a couple times during the week.  I didn't think anything about it.

But one thing Rep. Angie Craig said, which popped on the Understanding Light in my head to the "on" position, she said that the reason so much mail was taking the backseat was ... well ,,,, poor supervision .... but also because of Amazon!!!

Appearently, Amazon pays the post office fees to drop off deliveries for them ... and, while she didn't say it, it sounds as if the worker gets a bit of a kick-back for doing it.  Not sure though, like I said, she didn't come out and say it.

It was so serious though that the Office of Inspector General (OIG) is going to look at the entire state's postal service to see what is going on.

No you have to remember that the USPS (United States Postal Service) is the ONLY federal entity which does NOT recieve any federal funds ... in fact, it cannot recieve funds because of the way its charter is written -- it is truly independant of the Federal Government.

This means, everytime the workers union demands higher wages, better retirement plans, more vacation time, more sick leave, etc ... all thatt works its way into the raising of the cost to mail things.

I don't think anyone even knew about it until the 1990s when email took off ... suddenly they weren't selling enough stamps, they had to raise the prices again.

Then UPS/FEDEX/DHL started sending packages for regular folk, not just businesses - there went another chunk of money out the door ... up went the prices again!

It was absolutely horrid!

Then they came out with the Forever Stamp -- great idea for regular people .... just buy the stamp once, didn't matter how high the prices got, your stamp would still work.  No need to go to the post office and buy 2cent sta,ps, or whatever denomination you would need to get it up as close as possible.

I remember putting 2 25cent stamps on a letter that should have only cost 43cents to amil because it was the best I could do.

While the Forever stamps were great for users .... it has turned out to be horrid for the postal service!

After all, the only way they get money is to sell their stamps, or have people use their package delivery services  Then too, they started with the "if it fits in our box, you can ship it for one low price" ... they wound up putting quite a few caviats on that one though - people were sending really heavy things or overstuffing the boxes and gettting them shipped for the low price.

Now - Rep. Craig did not say what the plans are for dealing with the "delayed" packages ... nor what might become of the poor person who suddenly wound up with extra healthcare costs ... 

I'm hoping that they will deliver the letters/packages to the people they were meant for ... or in case of the packages, at least return to sender so they know what happened and could possibly refund any money due.

Makes you wonder about all those "dead letter" rooms they used to have ... the place where they would store itemes which couldn't be delivered because a person had dies, moved with no forwarding address, or an address was wrong ... whatever the reason, if it hadn't been delivered, it generally went into there.

I know - that people have gotten letters sent back in WW2 ... a long awaited letter from a GI wjo made it, or didn't.

Somehow ... I smell a lawsuit coming up though.