Changes to US postal system

I remember several years ago, our local post office had two outgoing mail slots. One was for mail within the city and one for all others. The mail within the city was sorted there at the PO and was usually delivered the next day. Now, all outgoing mail goes to a central place, I think somewhere down in San Diego, sorted, and then sent back to the post offices. We no longer have one-day local mail delivery. It takes about 3 days to get mail. It saves man power at the local offices.

Walgreens store pharmacy just said 5-10 for med delivery... Not sure if that is their handling or their choice if delivery. Worse though, is that they won't fill meds a day or two before needed..

This. I live in a small town/rural area. Local mail was sorted and you got it the next day or even the SAME day. The postal workers just sorted it as it came in and put it either in the local PO box at the PO or put it in the route carriers mail sort. My kids used to mail their grandma a note in the morning and she had it at noon. We had the same carrier, but different routes. He would do our route, take the outbound mail to the next PO he had and sort and deliver it same day.

Now it all gets loaded onto a truck to Des Moines and takes 3-4 days, or never, to get back to the small town. It is NOT more efficient. It can not be cheaper to do. And the amount of mail that just never shows up is huge.

That’s what I’m thinking. Transporting all this mail back and forth and going through multiple hubs takes so much more time snd there has to be more work. Someone has to drive it back and forth. It used to go through one but now it often bounces around for days and through the same hub multiple times. This is nuts. Always mess with this around election time. I will only drop mine off at an official drop off location.

It’s frustrating when you are waiting for a package snd you can see it come to your city snd then instead of out for delivery it’s at a hub two away from you knowing if know will go to a couple more before making it back to your city for attempt #2. Or worse gets on a pallets on the other side of the country not to get scanned for a week then have to make its way back to you.

I know we still had them in our area into the 2000’s.

Didn’t leave my small town until about 5 years ago.

I am honestly fascinated with the mail service. How it all gets sorted and such. Especially watching old movies like Miracle on 34th Street. Watching the people toss the mail up into tubes and somehow getting it where it needs to go.
I never lived in a place that had local mail slots. Seems like it would have definitely sped things up.
Envelope mail seems pretty efficient for me. Package mail takes forever. I don't know how they can promise medication will be delivered within a certain time frame. Especially as others have said it isn't clearly marked.

In the large post offices they not only local and other mail slots, they pre-sorted large slot/metered mail slot. Just seemed efficient to me!

But remember Mr DeJoy has contracts transporting USPS mail.. conflict of interest??... You bet!!!

Even with Walgreens RX packages are not marked..