General Forum

That's done because the facilities are struggling, so it's shipped to a DIfferent facility that's not struggling to keep up. They do the work and send it back sorted to the different "regions" who then finish the job. The other option is to have it sit in a bin unsorted for possibly weeks while the stuff that came in first gets handled. That's what zip codes are for. They allow it to be sorted into different smaller batches...because it's a nationwide system the sorting can be done anywhere. 

This isn't a new thing and the only reason it's a big deal now is that people can track the packages. If that wasn't available you'd never see half the griping and whining (not on this thread yet, but it's probably only a matter of time) 

The system damaged itself years ago.....

I live in a rural area between Charlotte and Asheville...

Even if I mail a letter/bill across town/street, the system

takes it all the way to Charlotte to be sorted...

Then returned to the local post office to delivered....

Highly inefficient, even years before 2020.....

Same here in Canada, we have three PO in town, Station Main and two smaller ones in Shopper Drug Marts, however if i send a peice of mail to anyone inside the city (and since I live on a border) SK mail goes to Saskatoon to be sorted then returns, if AB off to Edmonton to be sorted and returned. Simply inefficient. No other way to put it.

This!

We used to have a drop box for just  "in town" mail at the PO.    Then in the eary summer of 2016 they removed it along with 45% of the drop boxes in town.   

I dont presume to "know", but from what I understand the mandate simply put the deficit on the post office, where before it was put on the Treasury Dept but theye were still operating at a loss prior to 2006.So a repeal would "hide" the deficit under the Treasury Dept, but would eliminate the pre-funding of medical pensions.(roughly 4B, but the losses reported are around 8B)  Not for/against the USPS, just simply saying it doesnt make sense....another "on the surface" example, local post office had standard mailtrucks, then bought commercial vans, and now as we speak there is a Chrysler Town and Country parked on the street (with gov plates). Just doesnt make sense, is all. I know this isnt really card related, I simply find it an interesting problem that needs to get solved somehow.and my comments are simply discussion and not statements of fact or political in any way.

Came across this video that has a pretty wild story (skip to 3:45 if you just want to see the route the package took):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuvobd-7vmY

Oh ya there has been closures in Canada, My wife works for Canada Post. And there was a case that turned into 5 case at the sorting center, So any mail that went thru there to which ever Offices were also put into quarantine until cleaning was done. Its a scary time and Once there is one case they do there damnedest not to let it get out of control. It is a thankless job as its always the person at the desks fault, My wife has come home upset a few times cause its her fault the pkg didn't arrive. But I tell her to tell the people to call me... Hmmm never got any yet lol

I was thinking exactly what Budler said, but he beat me to it.  Not only did we have separate boxes for out-of-town and local mail, but I remember the bank I worked at in the 90s, we saved a few cents per envelope on the postage meter by sorting the mail by destination before taking it to the post office.  That eventually went away too.

By the way, weren't all our packages supposed to be delivered by drones by now?

I remember the in-town and out-of-town drop boxes too. Some spots even had "metered mail" drop boxes. Now anywhere that still has 2 boxes side by side doesn't have anything different about them. They are all picked up by the same employee and put together. The only places that still have 2 boxes are high-level drop-off spots where they need more than one box to contain everything.

But I got a 1st Class Parcel today that was mailed from suburban Atlanta on Monday afternoon to suburban Greensboro, NC in just 4 days. Things are looking up in the southeast. Four days is not bad for non-Priority Mail at this time.