A spectacular Post Office goof is not that unusual. I described the Post Office’s “Looping Problem” in my last post (see here), but this time I’ll reveal the travels of a package that are almost unbelievable.
Admittedly, the Post Office has been hammered by a lengthening series of blows. Mail volume is markedly reduced. USPS is losing money, and the latest potential blow is Trump’s attempt to make the postal service monitor mail in ballots (See here).
Nevertheless, every business should operate with reasonable efficiency. And a business that earns a significant amount of its revenue by shipping packages should be able to deliver those packages reliably. If only that were true! Here is an example of a spectacular post office goof that borders on the unbelievable.
On August 24, I mailed a package from Overland Park, Kansas, to Missoula, Montana. The package traveled to across the state line to Kansas City, Missouri, before heading westward with stops in Denver, then Billings, and on to Missoula. All seemed to be moving smoothly.
The package arrived at a Missoula Distribution Center in early morning on August 27. The next day it was at a Post Office in Missoula, and at 6:10 AM on August 28, it was out for delivery in area code 59802, the very code to which the package was address. Everything appeared to be working smoothly.
THEN THINGS WENT OFF TRACK
My package was surely within a few miles of its destination when it hit an inexplicable bump. Rather than being delivered, it was “forwarded” and processed and forwarded again until it found itself back at the Missoula Distribution Center. From there, on August 29, it was forwarded to the Spokane Distribution Center, where employees took that hot potato and quickly fired it down to the Portland Distribution Center on August 30. The Oregonians had no use for it. They decided to send the lost little thing back to close to where it started from, the Olathe Distribution Center in Kansas, a city just south of Overland Park where I sent it from. What the ?????
The uncharted journey was not over yet. Olathe shipped it right past me to a Distribution Center in Kansas City, Kansas, which borders Overland Park on the north. Then came a little ping pong. Kansas City, Kansas, flipped it with a forehand across the state line to a Distribution Center in Kansas City, Missouri, which quickly backhanded it back to the Kansas side. Kansas lobbed it back to Missouri, which then conceded the point and sent it to a USPS facility in Pleasant Hill, Missouri, which in turn dashed it off to the Post office in Pleasant Hill. Then (unbelievably) the package was sent out for delivery. Guess what? That did not work! Now that poor mishandled package is available for pickup at 124 Veterans Pkwy Pleasant Hill, MO 64080-9998.
That is not the end of the story. The final notice on the USPS tracking trail is a request (or maybe a demand?) from the Post Office. I’ll paste that notice below. I’ve tried to imagine what the package looks like after being jostled, bumped, and probably tossed a few times while being transported over roughly 4,000 miles to end up withing a short drive from where it started.
Honestly, I don’t know what to do. Should I ask the Post Office to deliver the original package (or at least attempt to), or should I remove the contents (a paperback book), and let the little cowboy on the cover breathe some fresh air, and to recover a bit before he heads out on another potentially disastrous journey? Here’s what he looks like of the cover.
Do you agree? Was this a spectacular Post Office goof? I’ll try to come up with a more positive post soon.
