You've Got Mail, But the Mailman Hid It (overpaid, whiny union USPS thieves)

NBC Connecticut ^ | Dec 14, 2009 | Yvonne Nava

[max americana]

You've Got Mail, But the Mailman Hid It By YVONNE NAVA Updated 1:53 PM EST, Mon, Dec 14, 2009

If your mother-in-law's mail goes through the Waterbury or Wallingford post offices, she might not have received the birthday card you sent in time.

Apparently managers at the post office have been hiding mail, Ray Arcovio, president of the Waterbury area postal worker’s union, told the Waterbury Republican-American. And he wants to sincerely apologize.

Workers have been stuffing mail into closets and unused rooms at mail facilities in Waterbury and Wallingford because they don’t know how to keep up with such a high volume of mail, he told the newspaper.

"They're just pushing it aside for the next day," Arcovio told the paper. "We've had issues with them hiding the mail.

In an effort to cut back on costs, the postal service now transfers mail processing from Waterbury to Wallingford.

Arcovio says the problem is being handled.

"We have dealt with it and got the assurance it wouldn't happen again," he told the Republican American. "The employees who see it and are aware of it are fearful to speak out about it for fear of repercussions."

[Leo Farnsworth]

Thank you. I appreciate the information!

[FrankR]

"One of them is an old coot who is known to slam the window door at customers, "

Years ago we lived in townhouse, and if anyone parked so he couldn't pull right up to your mailbox, he would spit on your car, cuss a blue streak, and refuse to leave your mail...he wouldn't walk 2-feet to the mailbox.

The very definition of "going postal".

[grame]

I am sorry for all these bad apples, but I do try to go the extra mile, literally and figuratively. I'm not required to go to houses with pkgs where the lanes are more than .5 mile, but I do anyway. And I do go to the door, but if I miss you I'll bring it back the next day if you ask. But those little old dogs are the worst. So many bites come from older dogs. Thanks for being patient with us, especially during rough weather.

And I can't believe they were hiding the mail and nobody knew. They just weren't telling.

[tutstar]

I sell online and mail mistakes are a soapbox for me. They happen all the time.

The past few wks USPS has been weighing and xraying everything that has preprinted postage. There are quite a few people (learned this from the mail man) who will ship heavy things by media mail because it is the cheapest way. They keep the extra $ they charged the buyer for parcel post or first class. USPS figures they are losing millions of $ on these kind of things and this is the reason they are doing this. They sent back some of mine that they weighed at 1.1 oz and I had it posted for 1 oz so those had to be paid for 2 oz. Ugh gotta get a new scale. They also returned 2 things to me that weren’t mine so that person was waiting days before the things got back to them to fix. Some of the things they sent back to me were not weighed incorrectly and I had to wait in line to get those straight when there wasn’t anything wrong to begin with. The things they’re sending back are being are bundled up, taping over the bar codes and recipient address ( they aren’t being scanned at all )and it is a big mess. They make mistakes on a normal basis so know that they’ve thrown a wrench in the mix it has messed up a lot of pkg. Fwiw I bought something from a lady who lives a 2 hr drive from here and it took 18 days for my pkg to get here. I bought something from NY priority mail so it mailed on a Friday and I should have had it by Tues (NY to FL) but they sent it to Michigan and it was a total of twelve days til delivery for a priority pkg. You won’t believe this one: On July 15 2009 approximately 6:30 pm we were behind an 18 wheeler usps truck and the driver did not have the trailer door closed. When he pulled away from the stop sign big cages of mail fell out of the truck and on to the road. He was continuing to drive away unaware until we flagged him down then he backed up to come retrieve the mail. After witnessing this nothing would surprise me. These are 2 pics I took with my cell phone.

http://yfrog.com/41photo0514j

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/295/photo0513.jpg

I had a lady in CO bought something and after a week her pkg shows up in TX. Ok fine, send it on to CO, it’s halfway there. No, they send it back to FL and then back out to CO. It seems that 90% of the time when they misdirect an item they return it to the originating post office instead of a straight direct path to where it’s supposed to go.

It’s no wonder they are losing $ and I wouldn’t be surprised hiding mail happens at lots of other post offices. Also google, ‘postal employee theft’. If you buy something costly be sure to request insurance. I’ve seen insured pkg damaged but never seen one lost.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Way off base on the title. It was the management, not the workers, that was using the mail facility as a warehouse because of the terrible decision to shift "mail processing" to a station that did not have the personnel to handle. In my days at the PO, I saw some similar management missteps on a smaller scale. But what I did not see in this article was the whiny union thieves that were mentioned in the title.

We all are afraid of Obamacare but making up inaccurate tiitles and invalid slurs against hard-working fellow Americans do not help the cause.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

If the mindset on this thread is our best argument against Obamacare, we’re all in heap of trouble.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Never understood that - they’re already public workers, why do they need a yoon-yun?

Probably the same reason UPS workers need a union, to deal with management. But unlike UPS, postal workers will not go on strike.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

More reason to ban ALL public employee unions, incuding cops and firemen.

What did the union do wrong here? Seems to me that in this case they were the ones who had the public's best interest at heart more than management.

[wac3rd]

In 1900, yes, now, no.

It is a scam.

Here’s how to scare a public union member...say “defined contribution” vs. “defined benefit”. Meaning the participant earns his own pension, not forcing the taxpayer to cover the un-funded portion.

[Dionysius]

Alternative to welfare.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

But this article was not talking about pensions. It was a about a case where management made a bad decsion and was trying to cover it up and the union blew the wistle on them. In the this article the union was the good guys. I'm not so naive to think that the chance to make management look bad was not one of the motivations to bring attention to the issue, but there's nothing wrong with the union' s behavior here.

As far as pensions, I'm not sure about how your description applies to postal employees. In fact, there's two postal retirement systems, the CSRS which was phased out in the early 80s and FERS which covers people hired after 1980.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Alternative to welfare.

And not many alternatives to welfare give the new employee the chance to experience the joy of unloading an endless supply of 60 pound mail sacks from a sweltering mail truck in the middle of August. For those who wish to combine their welfare checks with strenuous and exciting labor in such pleasant conditions, I highly recommend postal work.

[Taffini]

Unlike Newman, I delivered the mail when it rained—I didn’t last long....it is a long day when you have to walk in the cold rain for 6 plus hours. Dogs hate us. If I heard one more homeowner say, “he doesn’t bite” I think I would have died laughing.

[ASA Vet]

I'm still CSRS.

I'll leave when the USPS shows me some real money,
or ex #1 dies, (not a solicitation for a contract,)
or one of the local 500 lb gorilla mailing services offers me a six figure, (get around the rules,) consultant position.

[Route797]

And not many alternatives to welfare give the new employee the chance to experience the joy of unloading an endless supply of 60 pound mail sacks from a sweltering mail truck in the middle of August. For those who wish to combine their welfare checks with strenuous and exciting labor in such pleasant conditions, I highly recommend postal work.

I remember at least one person from my postal career who left after a couple of hours their first day due to the harsh nature of the work.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

I remember at least one person from my postal career who left after a couple of hours their first day due to the harsh nature of the work.

How did that come about?

[Colonel Kangaroo]

I know a lot of my former coworkers who are thinking the same about retiring. The general postal employee I used to know whether management, carrier, clerk or mail handler cared about doing the job right and it’s been painful lately to see all postal employees used as an argument against Obamacare around here. There’s a lot better points to be made against that than those based on false sterotype about postal employees.

[Route797]

A person was assigned to me for training on a job which involved sorting bundles of magazines by throwing them into hampers. It was a strenuous job, but not a terribly unpleasant one as postal jobs went. This person worked with me for a couple of hours until they left for lunch. The new hire did not reappear after lunch, so I sought out my supervisor who informed me that the person in question had left due to the difficulty of the work.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

A person was assigned to me for training on a job which involved sorting bundles of magazines by throwing them into hampers. It was a strenuous job, but not a terribly unpleasant one as postal jobs went. This person worked with me for a couple of hours until they left for lunch. The new hire did not reappear after lunch, so I sought out my supervisor who informed me that the person in question had left due to the difficulty of the work.

Sounds like a hyper-libertarian type who took too seriously the anti-PO propaganda and was looking for a cushy job. The guy probably left for a job at the Ludwig von Mises Institute

[Palladin]

Weren’t the mailmen great in the “good old days”?

Ours was named Norman, and he always gave the dog a Milkbone.