Mail?

[Redtravel]

For several weeks, getting mail has been a real struggle. Some days, we get it. some days,  nothing.  Yesterday I looked for my mail after 6 pm and it still hadn’t shown up. I use the post office informed delivery so I know when it is worth walking to the mailbox.  Everything shows up eventually.  Even tracking packages coming has been spotty.  Packages eventually show up.  Placing email orders is a maybe.  Trying to get a grocery time slot from my local supermarket never happens. Leaving a phone voicemail is often ignored.  I know people are working from home or have been laid off.  Communicating has been a challenge. I live in NJ which continues to be a hot spot for the virus.  after several weeks of not getting any advertising or brochures, we got 2 cruise brochures this week...Oceania and Viking ocean. Has anyone in other parts of the country had similar experiences?  

[alaskaca]

17 minutes ago, Redtravel said:

For several weeks, getting mail has been a real struggle. Some days, we get it. some days,  nothing.  Yesterday I looked for my mail after 6 pm and it still hadn’t shown up. I use the post office informed delivery so I know when it is worth walking to the mailbox.  Everything shows up eventually.  Even tracking packages coming has been spotty.  Packages eventually show up.  Placing email orders is a maybe.  Trying to get a grocery time slot from my local supermarket never happens. Leaving a phone voicemail is often ignored.  I know people are working from home or have been laid off.  Communicating has been a challenge. I live in NJ which continues to be a hot spot for the virus.  after several weeks of not getting any advertising or brochures, we got 2 cruise brochures this week...Oceania and Viking ocean. Has anyone in other parts of the country had similar experiences?  

In  already trying times , this must be a frustration you could do without. 

 

It will be interesting what others have to offer, but from my location in Michigan, a small community along the western shore of Lake Michigan, mail has not been a problem.  It is delivered pretty much at the same time, but the volume of mail has decreased, and I can remember only one or two Oceania/Regent brochures being delivered since early March.  Our local newspaper has also reduced its publication to five days a week and it is less that half of what it used to be in number of sections.

 

Online orders take longer is they go the USPS route, while UPS and Amazon are close to what they were, maybe lagging by a day or two if items are coming from the west coast.

 

We do our grocery shopping every week or so, so no experience with grocery delivery except what I hear from friends, and that can require waiting longer to secure a slot and delivery.

 

Wishing you continued health and safety.

 

 

 

[orchestrapal]

Sorry you’re having that problem in in NJ.

Here in Center city Philadelphia no such problems, we are very lucky.

Mail has been delivered every day, groceries come within a few hours of my ordering and local small businesses have been wonderful about delivering to us as well.

I hope your situation improves quickly. Down

Edited May 14, 2020 by orchestrapal

[pinotlover]

We haven’t seen anything different except a lot less advertising.

 

Realistically, something has to give. Losses at USPS are astronomical . They had a problem before the pandemic and now it’s even worse. I go days now without getting any mail. That’s lost revenue for USPS, but the mailman still runs the route.

 

Something has to give. 

[LHT28]

yes  took 2 wks  for  a card to come from Texas  to  Canada

 Ordered some things  for curb pick up at a local store  took 3  days  for the email to say it was ready

The local grocery store  the shelves have one or 2 items in some  categories  ..not being restocked  daily

They close  early supposedly to clean & restock   ..not sure what they do  certainly not restocking

We get post  maybe twice a week  

 So annoying

Why can't these people that still have jobs  work faster 🙄

 

😉

 

[sunlover12]

1 hour ago, pinotlover said:

We haven’t seen anything different except a lot less advertising.

 

Same with me.  We've been getting mail daily.  I'm in Dane County, Wisconsin which is the 2nd largest county in the state. USPS is losing money because there is much less bulk advertising.

We go grocery shopping once a week and the shelves are fairly well stocked with the exception of hand sanitizer which is impossible to find. 

[ORV]

They're always out of Hydrogen Peroxide. 

 

Lot's of other items the stores seem to be short on. Fortunately rum is not one of them. 

[LHT28]

1 hour ago, ORV said:

Lot's of other items the stores seem to be short on. Fortunately rum is not one of them. 

DH  stocked up on the Cuban Rum (the good stuff) last week   plus  his Gin  yesterday 😁

 

[njhorseman]

6 hours ago, Redtravel said:

For several weeks, getting mail has been a real struggle. Some days, we get it. some days,  nothing.  Yesterday I looked for my mail after 6 pm and it still hadn’t shown up. I use the post office informed delivery so I know when it is worth walking to the mailbox.  Everything shows up eventually.  Even tracking packages coming has been spotty.  Packages eventually show up.  Placing email orders is a maybe.  Trying to get a grocery time slot from my local supermarket never happens. Leaving a phone voicemail is often ignored.  I know people are working from home or have been laid off.  Communicating has been a challenge. I live in NJ which continues to be a hot spot for the virus.  after several weeks of not getting any advertising or brochures, we got 2 cruise brochures this week...Oceania and Viking ocean. Has anyone in other parts of the country had similar experiences?  

We live in a mostly suburban town in a mostly suburban county in Central New Jersey and haven't experienced any USPS, UPS or Fedex delivery issues. 

 

It is a bit of  a wait for deliveries from grocery delivery services like Peapod and Amazon Pantry and hand sanitizer and some cleaning supplies seem perpetually out of stock everywhere, but otherwise we haven't had any problems keep our home supplied with food from the supermarket  and other items we regularly use.

[1985rz1]

7 hours ago, Redtravel said:

For several weeks, getting mail has been a real struggle. Some days, we get it. some days,  nothing.  Yesterday I looked for my mail after 6 pm and it still hadn’t shown up. I use the post office informed delivery so I know when it is worth walking to the mailbox.  Everything shows up eventually.  Even tracking packages coming has been spotty.  Packages eventually show up.  Placing email orders is a maybe.  Trying to get a grocery time slot from my local supermarket never happens. Leaving a phone voicemail is often ignored.  I know people are working from home or have been laid off.  Communicating has been a challenge. I live in NJ which continues to be a hot spot for the virus.  after several weeks of not getting any advertising or brochures, we got 2 cruise brochures this week...Oceania and Viking ocean. Has anyone in other parts of the country had similar experiences?  

We've seen no delays in our postal service.  We do notice that there appear to be days of early (noon-ish) deliveries and days of late afternoon deliveries.  We think (guessing) the carriers may be staggering their times at the PO to minimize contacts.  Amazon is close to normal, as is FedEx and UPS.  Our city has a population of about 70,000, if that makes a difference.

Edited May 14, 2020 by 1985rz1

[ORV]

2 hours ago, LHT28 said:

DH  stocked up on the Cuban Rum (the good stuff) last week   plus  his Gin  yesterday 😁

 

Probably HC, Havana Club. I'm envious that it's available there. Of course not to be confused with the Dominican made rum of the same name. 

 

HC is one of my favorites along with Flor De Cana(Nicaraguan). 

 

Meanwhile, to get back on topic. We live in a rural area and our mail delivery person retired on March 30th. It was something that he had planned before the CV-19 came along. I'm sure he was happy to get out. Great mailman, we got him a gift card every year for Christmas, which is something we'd never done before him. At any rate our mail carriers in rural areas are contract workers, not USPS government employees. We are on our second one since the first of April. I could tell the first girl wasn't going to make it when she was using a US left hand drive car. She kept going the wrong way down the streets to get to the mailboxes. We went two or three days without service but now have a new girl that seems to be doing great, and she has a right hand drive car. 

 

Like someone else mentioned the volume of mail we've been getting has greatly decreased. I haven't seen a credit card offer in almost a month, and I used to get 4 or 5 a week, many more of those than Oceania mailings. 

 

We seem to have plenty of food available at the stores, we're not going hungry yet. 

[Hawaiidan]

7 hours ago, Redtravel said:

For several weeks, getting mail has been a real struggle. Some days, we get it. some days,  nothing.  Yesterday I looked for my mail after 6 pm and it still hadn’t shown up. I use the post office informed delivery so I know when it is worth walking to the mailbox.  Everything shows up eventually.  Even tracking packages coming has been spotty.  Packages eventually show up.  Placing email orders is a maybe.  Trying to get a grocery time slot from my local supermarket never happens. Leaving a phone voicemail is often ignored.  I know people are working from home or have been laid off.  Communicating has been a challenge. I live in NJ which continues to be a hot spot for the virus.  after several weeks of not getting any advertising or brochures, we got 2 cruise brochures this week...Oceania and Viking ocean. Has anyone in other parts of the country had similar experiences?  

No  mail  even Saturday delevery,, Fed x  UPS   delivering even on weekends.  All retail business opening,, restaurants with takeout   food delivery   from markets with a 3 hour delay  5 to choose (safeway, vons, Stater,albertson, aldi)   Same with restraunts almost all with free delivery...   Our state just lifted restrictions on 12 counties... including sit down dining...  National forests and Parks opening in a week (yellow stone  grand teton, lake powell, Bryce, capitol reef),...._

[RJB]

4 hours ago, sunlover12 said:

Same with me.  We've been getting mail daily.  I'm in Dane County, Wisconsin which is the 2nd largest county in the state. USPS is losing money because there is much less bulk advertising.

We go grocery shopping once a week and the shelves are fairly well stocked with the exception of hand sanitizer which is impossible to find. 

I think that the USPS is loosing so much money is there is very little First Class Mail.  Most people pay their bills on line, send e mails and faxes instead of putting it in the mail with stamps. A huge loss  for the post office.  Years ago I think they made most of their money with first class mail.  Just my thoughts.

[LHT28]

1 hour ago, ORV said:

Probably HC, Havana Club. I'm envious that it's available there.

You betcha  7 yr old  Made in Cuba  😉

He  had some on another cruise line but it was  made in the USA   ..not the same

 

next time we cruise together  will bring some for you LOL

 

[ORV]

I usually try to buy a bottle for the cabin when I'm in countries where it's available. 

[LHT28]

small town here  27,000  people over 16 sq kilometers

 parts of the town  are spread out

we have superboxes in some areas   but our postie still hikes up the big hill to our house   about 375 ft from the road to mailbox   ..I could live with once  a week delivery in the winter  so the postie would have have to hike up the hill or drive in the snow/ice

some days he drives up  I would if I was him LOL

Some stores are limited in supplies  no hand gel anywhere in town  for months

we do have TP  now  I guess those that stocked up have enough so the rest of us can buy some now

No flour for  months now  some frozen food supplies  are hard to find

DH  will check the shelves tomorrow  see if any improvements

as long  as the cat has food  we are OK 😁

 

[LHT28]

14 minutes ago, ORV said:

I usually try to buy a bottle for the cabin when I'm in countries where it's available. 

👍

 You need to buy an extra one to take home LOL

[Hawaiidan]

1 hour ago, ORV said:

I usually try to buy a bottle for the cabin when I'm in countries where it's available. 

Hey.....you live in the Ozarks.... I thought you guys made your own......     Here in California   being shut in we have to be resourceful

[the mice]

Our mailman also retired at the end of March but our delivery has been fine, just a lot less mail.   Haven't got a cruise brochure in quite some time (and I read something about NCL was going to reduce marketing, so maybe we won't be getting those almost daily O brochures any time soon).

As for grocery shopping, we do it online with curbside pickup at our local supermarket.  We have found that time slots are posted on Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the following week (rolling 6 days) - that is when they know how many people they will have working to staff the pickups during the next week.  Redtravel, can you call your store and ask when they tend to update the schedule?

As for supplies, we were fortunate to have had hand sanitizer, Lysol wipes, paper towels and toilet paper before the pandemic hit.   We can now get all-purpose flour, and I even got bread flour a couple of weeks ago, but whole wheat flour is non-existent and also have not been able to get Bob's Red Mill 7 Grain cereal nor wheat germ (for my bread baking).  I do get about 85-90% of my grocery order, but have yet to get everything.  Not complaining as we are well supplied and haven't run out of chocolate yet!

[Mura]

Our mail has been pretty scarce since the onset.  We still get cruise brochures, though ... the vast majority of our mail these days is in the junk category, and there isn't even much of that.  Fortunately we're notified about bills mostly by email ... or we check on our own.

 

Packages sure are piling up in the lobby, though ...

 

Mura

[RJB]

20 hours ago, LHT28 said:

You betcha  7 yr old  Made in Cuba  😉

He  had some on another cruise line but it was  made in the USA   ..not the same

 

next time we cruise together  will bring some for you LOL

 

Havana Club,  7 YO and Santiago de Cuba.   Almost gone.  Got it just before Cuba was closed to cruise ships. No problem taking it home since we drive home from Miami.  Too bad since we liked Cuba a lot.  Very nice people.

 

 

[LHT28]

40 minutes ago, RJB said:

Havana Club,  7 YO and Santiago de Cuba.   Almost gone.  Got it just before Cuba was closed to cruise ships. No problem taking it home since we drive home from Miami.  Too bad since we liked Cuba a lot.  Very nice people.

 

 

No problem here either   a 5 min drive from the  LCBO 😉

 

[rallydave]

Inmates still running the asylum at our local post office.  No change in very late and no deliveries.  Still stealing checks and credits cards.  Still at least a 30 minute wait for surly people complaining about waking them from their break yelling at us to stop ringing the bell to open the door while we listen to them laughing at us.

 

Still have to drive to another post office as many items mailed at the local one are stolen, checks white washed and try to cash for themselves.  No change at all and can't wait for all to be fired and a true business that takes over and doesn't lose billions of dollars quaterly while we borror money at the federal level to load money to the post office that never will be returned.

 

No change!!!!!!!

[ORV]

2 Brochures from Oceania today. They must be making up for lost time. I do agree that it's bad form to be sending these out while still having huge waits and backlogs of refunds to process. 

Edited May 18, 2020 by ORV

[Condocat]

+1