Misery loves company. You've heard this phrase, but really, is it true?
A lot of you are miserable with mail delays, but I don't know that you love the idea that other people are experiencing the same issue.
An alert posted on the Post Office's website says “USPS is experiencing unprecedented volume increases and limited employee availability due to the impacts of COVID-19. We appreciate your patience.”
It's hard to be patient when it happens to you. Full disclosure here, I’m showing you my tracking timeline for an item. It starts at a regional facility then it heads to Virginia then to Greensboro. The item goes out and back a couple of times from Greensboro but never gets delivered. It is then sent to Winston-Salem, back to Greensboro, and then back to Winston-Salem. The timeline says the item was out for delivery two days ago. Nope. It was never delivered.
A USPS spokesperson told one of our media partners of the more than 664,000 postal service workers nationwide, 39,383 have tested posted for COVID.
"There are backlogs and we're still working on it every day. Ten and 12, ten and 12 hours a day,” said Rebecca Livingston of the American Postal Workers Union to a CBS affiliate on January 11.
Everyone is feeling it, from those of us waiting at home for things we've ordered and the businesses that are trying to get your items to you.
“They have incredible challenges. I'm so sympathetic to their challenges but that increased our challenges tenfold," said Kris Kleindiesnt of Left Bank Books in Missouri.
The packages are piling up at Left Bank Books, waiting for the USPS to pick them up. Kleindienst says shipping delays have resulted in some packages taking more than triple the amount of time to get to her customers.