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Someone explain this one to me.

I won some parts on ebay that were to come to Rochester Minnesota from Trevor Wisconsin.

Trevor is about 45 miles south of Milwaukee, which is about 275 miles from Rochester MN.

Combined, that's about 320 miles.

My parts are now in Warrendale Pennsylvania, 790 miles in the complete opposite direction!

Figure that one out!

Something makes me think that my parts are on their way to Rochester New York!

 

Steve

Edited by StevenGuthmiller
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Have had it happen several times.

Best one was coming from Tennessee to KY , but went to California 1st, then a day in  Michigan , from there to  North Carolina finally to KY. Took almost 10 days , when it should have been 2 days TOPS. Thank god for tracking or I would have blew a gasket with the seller .

Once it made it ,,,it  was all good and we both got a good laugh out of it in the end.

 

A few years back when I was doing a lot of 1/1 restoration parts selling. I mailed 2 boxes same day. One to New York , the other one to Australia.

The Australia one got there 1st by about 2 days  ,,,,go figure.

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I live about 25 miles west of Overland Park Kansas, which is the main sorting facility for the KC Metro area, at least on the Kansas side of the state line. My wife's mother lives another 10 miles due west of the same hi way. When ever anything is mailed between them it is always sent the next day from the local Post Office too O.P.K were it is sorted and then loaded into a truck to be go too the Post Office closest to the addressee  and then delivered. This means any mail will take at least two days but usually 3 days to go 10 miles. At this rat of two days to go 10 miles it should take a minimum of 10 working days for you to receive your order. Anything less and you will owe the USPO a bonus for speedy delivery.   

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All of these routes are due to cuts in manpower and resources. This includes cutting the number of sorting facilities which means some stuff takes strange routes. They shut the one here in Chattanooga down and now mail that goes down the street has to go almost to Atlanta, GA to be sorted. They also have many other ridiculous requirements such as funding their entire healthcare requirements for their present and future employees for the next 75 years.  Some politicians are doing everything they can to bankrupt and shut the USPS down.

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Dad lived 5 miles up the same road I live on. If I sent him a birthday card it traveled 2+ hours away to Charleston and then back to his house.....LOGISTICS!!

And it's actually very efficient.

In New Jersey there are 650 post offices. Back in the day, each one of those had a cancelling machine in the back, and a staff of 1-4 people who sorted the mail. Today they don't even even have a local slot at my local post office.  EVERYTHING goes off to a sorting center  (there are currently 4 in NJ) where the mail is sorted by automated equipment, postmarked and bar coded (and now we learn it's photographed) and efficiently sent onward. Less than 1/2 a percent of mail is actually sorted by a human.  So if you consider that there was an average of two sorters per post office, that's 1300 less employees!

The logistics are done by where sorting centers have capacity. For instance here in Exton, PA  half the time we get a Trenton, NJ postmark and the other half we get a Wilmington, DE postmark.  The mail is simply sent to the facility that's less busy.  With everything going by air, it doesn't matter if a pallet of packages makes it's second stage sort in the region or in California. It's all on to it's next stop within 24 hrs.

When this same topic came up a few weeks ago I decided to try something.  I addressed an NNL East postcard to myself and dropped it in to the mail box at my local PO about 3pm on a Friday.  It was in my Saturday mail.

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This isn't USPS related but logistics related. For the GM dealers here in metro Detroit, the main parts distribution center is in Cincinnati, Ohio. So, for example, if a part is stocked at the Willow Run or Dayton Plains or Livonia warehouse it goes down( by truck, not air) to Ohio and back up here to Michigan. Made no sense to me or anybody else. And don't get me started on the way they assigned dealers to the delivery routes. That made even less sense.

Edited by ZTony8
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Sorry.....logistics has some validity.....Still ain't buying it 100%. 

Lets take UPS....package ships from Chicago area.  Ends up in Charleston WV. Then is sent to Roanoke VA.....my issue??? The UPS center my packages are delivered from is 10 yards off I-64 at Caldwell WV.....which our truck passes by on the way to Roanoke. Why not pallet Caldwell stuff and drop it?? Caldwell is literally on the I-64 exit ramp!!!  No my package passes my house and the UPS depot only to be sent back on the same road to Caldwell....and adds a day!!  Also add my package has now passed within 50 miles of my house 3 times before being put on a truck. 

My years as a analyst will not allow me to say this is the very best method available.  

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At the risk of starting the typical firestorm with insults of "angry old man" and "living in the past" liberally thrown around, I just have to say that today's obsession with over-complication of everything, and doing things by somebody's idiot numbers when in fact those numbers don't really make any logical sense to someone who actually still thinks, is just another indication of the creeping idiocracy.

But don't criticize it. Accept that a package that's "passed within 50 miles of my house 3 times before being put on a (delivery) truck" is the bast way to do things, because some twerp in logistics says so, and a mindless computerized system follows the GIGO rule faithfully.

This is the same kind of stupidity and herd-think that gave us Obamacare, and vehicles that are insanely needlessly complex and virtually un-repairable after they age beyond a certain point...and are ridiculously difficult to repair even when they're brandy-damm-new off the showroom floor...especially if the onboard computer can't tell the "tech" what to do. And it happens ALL THE TIME.

Progress is great. Stupid and unnecessary complication to achieve progress is simply stupid and unnecessary. And fashionable, apparently.

But most people are content to follow along, trying to dodge their tiny little piece of responsibility (as long as they get a paycheck for doing as little as humanly possible), play by the rules and don't criticize a hopelessly broken system that's run by idiots.

And that's pretty much the problem with everything, in a nutshell.

EDIT: And speaking of stupid systems, I ordered a must-have part from Summit because all the local parts stores had was the "just as good" Chinese version. Nah, not on a $28,000 engine. So I get an email this AM saying the part is backordered and won't be shipped out until the 20th (Saturday). I HAD to have the part, so I ordered it from Jeg's, who showed it to be in stock (as had Summit). The one from Summit arrived on my doorstep today, the day before it was estimated by "logistics" that it would be shipped out. So now I can't cancel the one from Summit, because it's already here, and I can't cancel the one from Jeg's, because they show it already shipped. I'm stuck with an extra part I don't need, unless I pay the return shipping and restocking to Jeg's.

Every week, same carp. Just stupid. And typical.

Edited by Ace-Garageguy
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But most people are content to follow along, trying to dodge their tiny little piece of responsibility (as long as they get a paycheck for doing as little as humanly possible), play by the rules and don't criticize a hopelessly broken system that's run by idiots.

Every week, same carp. Just stupid. And typical.

Lots of truth there Bill, but I think your observation doesn't include the destructive effects that political interests from one party are using to dismantle the USPS and privatize it. Always. Follow. The. Money. 

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 We all have to remember that everyone of the people in charge have a full retirement no matter how good or bad an idea is. 

That being said why do they have such poor hours for the general public. Would a staggered shift or hours break the bank when you could bring in more packages?  11 or 12 on a Saturday is the latest around here.  

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Here's the other side of the coin.

For the MOST PART, I think the USPS does a pretty good job for a reasonable amount of money. Yes, it's considerably more expensive than it was 20 years ago. So is gas. So's a sixpack, or a jar of mayonnaise.

I buy a fair amount of stuff online, much of it parts, tools and reference material for my business, and for MOST of the time, I have no complaints with the PO. 

I do see the occasional very odd routing of a shipment that defies any logical explanation, but so long as whatever I'm expecting gets to me within the estimated time window, i honestly don't care much what route it takes.

But when I see something going 1000 miles out of the way, or sitting in one PO sorting location for weeks (and the only remedy is for me to go to the local PO with a tracking printout and start making a noise), there's really something wrong.

One of the first things they used to teach you in engineering school is to identify and define the specific problem problem you're tasked to solve...so you understand exactly what it is you're trying to achieve.

The first thing they teach you in psychological counselling is that you have to admit there IS a problem.

 

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Lots of truth there Bill, but I think your observation doesn't include the destructive effects that political interests from one party are using to dismantle the USPS and privatize it. Always. Follow. The. Money. 

 

 We all have to remember that everyone of the people in charge have a full retirement no matter how good or bad an idea is.   

Yup.

And privatization doesn't always seem to be a good thing, though it's one of those still-fashionable knee-jerk reactions that avoids rationality in favor of mindless "action".

I remember when this city had a road crew that would go out and fix potholes. You'd have a single older truck blocking one lane of traffic, and three guys leaning on shovels.

Now, with privatization, you have three brand new huge trucks blocking the entire road, a couple of equally brand-new pickups idling for hours with the AC on for the supervisors, (at least two of whom are required, apparently, for every little hole), seven or eight guys leaning on shovels while looking at their smart-phones, and two more to direct traffic around them.

Explain how there can possibly be a savings to the taxpayer on the costs associated with maintaining the roads. That WAS the point, remember?

Edited by Ace-Garageguy
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Ace.......

Lots of good thoughts there........

All my ebay sales, which were in the 1000's, were via USPS but one....a 29 Ford front axle via UPS.

And the USPS did a good job for the price paid. The thing that kills them is inconsistency....a package from WV to CA gets there overnight.....same size package takes a week to get from WV to NC????  No one thinks about all those that go smooth.....but the bad ones are so unreal. 

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 We all have to remember that everyone of the people in charge have a full retirement no matter how good or bad an idea is. 

That being said why do they have such poor hours for the general public. Would a staggered shift or hours break the bank when you could bring in more packages?  11 or 12 on a Saturday is the latest around here.  

First the easy one... my local post office is open until 3pm on Saturday.  I believe they try to have one post office in an area that does that.  Check the usps.com website and go to locations.  You can ask for a list within 10-20 miles and it lists the addresses and hours.

Full retirement is a big issue these days. Most businesses have eliminated pensions. Many companies aren't even paying for health care. Retail has a formula to keep nearly everyone part time so that nobody achieves any level of salary or benefits. 

Even with professional people, the economy of the past ten years has been harsh. I know people who were out of work better than a year and spent all their savings, and their 401K just surviving.  And without a pension system, and companies putting money into 401Ks these days, supposedly giving people the power to self direct their investments and future, this has the opposite effect.  The average person doesn't have much discipline,sees a large amount of money and spends it!  I know of a few people who have done so!  Short sighted, but these people will all be relying on the Social Security / Medicare as their sole providers in their retirement.   And quite frankly that's going to be a big problem for America in the future.

So USPS still pays every full time employee medical benefits and a retirement pension plan. I have a collection of New Jersey postmarks so I go into a lot of post offices across the state to get a postmark.  What I notice is that the counter clerks are mostly minorities and I'd say the majority have been women in the age group where they are probably supporting families.  Now you could outsource this and a company would come in and hire everyone at $10 an hour, part time with no benefits. Pretty much like working at Walmart, where some of these folks would be if it wasn't for the good employment at the post office.

That said, I have no issue whatsoever with an organization that can deliver a letter from New Jersey to California in two days for 49 cents, that also manages to give a good, dignified living to thousands of Americans!

 

 

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I am sorry if anyone has taken my first sentence as a complaint about what they have earned. It is not I like the post office they have served me well over the years. They do a fantastic job in my opinion. I was not knocking what the employees earn, I was pointing out how the people on top don't care like they should.  I am asking for longer hours to bring in more shipping so they can hire more people that make a good living. Also the rural areas do not get the same benefits as the big city folks.

I just looked and no PO  within 20 miles open after 12:30 on a Saturday. This did change when they sent the sorting to Allen Park MI for this area. 

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Alright so some thoughts on the subject matter from someone who lives this stuff 5 nights a week...

 

First off in regards to weekend closing times. Your P.O. closes at a time that allows the employees to consolidate all of the incoming mail for pickup to the Regional Zip 3 (aka the first 3 digits of your zip code) Mail Processing Center and then along it's merry way. There are no late pick ups from the contractors on Saturday, so everything had to be ready to go. Your closing time is directly affected by your distance to the Zip 3 MPC. Sure the P.O. could hire some extra Mail Clerks and stay open til 6 on Saturday,  but unless they then hire an entire swath of us Contractors who actually move the mail, your stuff would just sit at your local P.O., or the MPC all weekend. BTW the people who are working at your local P.O. are usually at work by 6am and working until 2-3 PM on that Saturday,  so they get their hours in, there's a lot of sorting and pick ups/deliveries to and from the MPC to keep your local office functional. 

Next for the old "Why is across the country sometimes faster than across a few states?" Simply anything under 600 miles is transported by truck. Anything longer than that hitches a ride through FedEx. So as long as it's not headed into Memphis over the weekend it's usually making a connecting flight and landing out West the next day or two.

To Dave's demand that UPS drop his stuff off on the way to Charleston. First,  UPS does not palletize their shipments, so there's no "drop it off en route" option. Beyond that UPS line haul is terminal to terminal usually done by pairs of coordinated drivers. One truck with two 28' doubles floor loaded full of stuff from WV headed to Chicago Metro and the opposite leaving Chicago. They meet along the OH/IN border and then return to their home domicile. That allows UPS to have two (or how many ever WV to Chicago interchanges there are) drivers assigned to the linehaul.  Having each driver travel the entire distance or having them stop en route would require twice as many drivers because one would always be stuck at the other end of the run.  Plus the additional cost of driver accommodations because UPS operates an entire daycab fleet.

To the OP, there's also a town here in Pittsburgh named Rochester, however it was more than likely a mis-scan in Milwaukee. The goal is to keep those under 1%, but they do happen.

Edited by niteowl7710
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Simply anything under 600 miles is transported by truck.

To the OP, there's also a town here in Pittsburgh named Rochester, however it was more than likely a mis-scan in Milwaukee. The goal is to keep those under 1%, but they do happen.

This has to have been the case.

The trip from Milwaukee to Rochester MN was well under 600 miles.

 

Steve

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Niteowl....I never demanded....I stated that after 25 years as a Sr Analyst for one of the world''s top 5 banks I fail to see the logic of a package passing its final destination 3 times.  During my career I had to analyze everything from how a company buys items to the buildings they own to how they transport goods.  Our due diligence was a big part of weather they got a loan or not.  UPS and USPS logic fails me.

But thanks for the input!! 

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