Lost in space

 

I've written previously about the marked decline of the US Postal Service in recent years.  Rapid price increases accompanied by poorer service doesn't seem like a good business model to me.  However, even all that couldn't have prepared me for the atrocious episode I am about to relate, one which is not yet concluded.  And that's part of the problem.  On January 15, 2025 I mailed a small parcel to a recipient in the small southeastern Kansas town of Pittsburg.  The shipment in question was simply a letter and a USB memory stick, within a common Priority Mail® flat rate envelope.  I used the USPS Click-n-Ship web page to generate and print at home a shipping label in the USPS preferred format.  I dropped it off at my local post office, expecting delivery in the promised 2-3 days.  I remember a few years ago when Priority Mail was reliable and almost always met this service goal.  However, it is now 16 days later, and my package has not yet been delivered to a destination about 650 miles away.  If tracking information is to be believed, it is this morning further from being delivered than it was a week ago...when it was already over a week overdue.  I reproduce below the current tracking status as of a few minutes ago (click on the photo to enlarge it for better readability).  If it is to be believed, the package has travelled from my home town of Helena, AL to the processing center in nearby Birmingham.  From there it went to Memphis, TN, and then to St. Louis, MO.  Then it unaccountably took a quick side trip to Greensboro, NC for reasons I don't understand (though it was such a fast diversion, I suspect this may have just been some sort of tracking service glitch.)  After the quick side trip to Greensboro, it returned to St. Louis.  Then it continued on to the Kansas City, KS processing center, where it arrived Jan 22, or 4 days overdue. It then took three days to make the short journey to the Springfield, MO Distribution Center.  Getting close to delivery, I thought! But after a couple days, it returned to Kansas City, where it sat for three days!  And then, hoping against hope for an eventual delivery, I see this morning that tracking shows the package now in the Chicago, IL International Distribution Center.  Chicago seems like an odd route between central Alabama and southeastern Kansas.  And I have no idea about that worrying "International" part.  Is my package headed overseas?  Stay tuned!  I'll post updates as the adventure continues.  Two days ago, I contacted the USPS through their online form to inquire about lost packages, and have not yet received a response.  Until then, this is just absolutely pathetic performance on the part of the USPS.