Anybody ever see one of those stories about a postal worker or package deliverer who's caught hoarding the stuff he's supposed to deliver -- and wonder if your mail is involved?
It's long been a weird, back-of-the-mind apprehension of mine that a piece of mail or package I'd been anticipating would be locked up in a closet or basement or stuck under a snowbank up north after a stray bag falls off a wrecked mail truck.
Luckily we don't hear of such a thing happening often. Which is why, when it does, it feeds that apprehension.
Just the other week, news broke of a postal worker accused of hoarding more than 17,000 pieces of undelivered mail in New York. He claimed to be overwhelmed by the job."
Authorities say they found 10,000 pieces of mail in his car, 6,000 pieces in his apartment and 1,000 in his work locker," according to The Associated Press. Why he wasn't overwhelmed with the clutter in his car, apartment and work locker escapes me.
The worker assured authorities, however, that he delivered the "important mail." Which begs that question: What did he consider important? The bills? Government-issued checks? Fine, but hey, those catalogs and grocery circulars and even those campaign brochures are probably important to somebody.
Wonder if cellphone cases would have passed muster as "important mail." Hubby and I feared that we'd become victims of a mail hoarder when a pair of leather cellphone wallets, and a payment for some freelance writing he'd done, failed to materialize when expected. Tracking information indicated the phone wallets had been marked as having been delivered a certain day. Arrival of the check, which the client had mailed from Georgia two days earlier, was expected on or near that same day.
Our ending in both matters was a happy one: The wallets did show up a week later, after we'd given up on them and gotten a refund from the company through which we ordered them. We wanted to keep the cases, so we asked the company to re-bill us. The check didn't show up, but the client made up for it with an online payment.
Speaking of online payments, you'd think we'd be done with the post office. This is the 21st century, an age where we have the capability to eschew regular mail service in favor of emails, texts, direct deposit, online document services, online payment services. The banks, utility companies and other creditors seem to be afraid of lost or hoarded mail: They push us hard to opt for paperless billing and automatic payments. Some will go so far as to manipulate us into the latter; i.e., to get some old bank statements, you must opt to receive statements online only.
But, we still rely heavily on the good old U.S. mail. And every once in a while, that mail has issues getting to us. Not necessarily because some person we picture as sweaty with glazed-over eyes is hoarding a big mess of it. According to U.S. Postal Service statistics, 171 billion pieces of mail pieces are processed annually; 553 million pieces processed each day. Forty percent of the world's cards and letters are handled by the service. Although we've all had our issues with mail delivery -- whew, the gripes and curses we've read online, heard and, ahem, made about the decline in service! -- accidents and hoarders make for a microscopic percentage.
I have to point out that the thing many of us enjoyed most about the mail service -- and probably a big reason it's still a much-used option -- is when it came to sending money, "snail mail" was the perfect way to buy time. Even when we did mail a check in a timely manner, it took a few days before that check was delivered, deposited and cleared, which bought us some time if the utility due date came before payday. And we could mail our rent by the fifth to avoid a late fee and be reasonably assured that the check wouldn't hit the bank until the seventh or eighth. Of course we then turned right around and complained about how our bills always seemed to arrive sooner and more consistently than the checks we were due. And, we still silently freak out when we hear a story about a mail worker hoarding mail.
I vote that we say a prayer for the man's mental healing; take a deep, collective breath; and thank those individuals who have been responsible for the successful delivery of the mail and the continuation of a tradition that goes back to the 18th century.
Besides, telling somebody "the check is in cyberspace" doesn't work nearly as well.
No stamp needed:
Style on 04/29/2018