Happy Holidays to the Post Office (and helpful tips for mailing)

Today I’m doing something unexpected . . . thanking the Post Office!

Yes, I’m one who has grumbled plenty about rarely seeing the same carrier twice and misdelivered or lost mail.

But one recent morning I was in the vestibule of my local San Mateo post office waiting while a gentleman harangued a supervisor about delivery. Afterwards I spoke with the supervisor and was amazed to learn about the amount of mail they handle and all the work “behind the scenes”. As is the case with many other industries, when the system works at capacity smoothly and seamlessly, we in the public tend to take it for granted.

The sheer numbers are staggering. During the holiday season nationally the Post Office will have delivered approximately 15.5 BILLION pieces of mail. In addition, they will have delivered about 600 MILLION PACKAGES between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve – an increase of 10.5% over last year. In major cities an average of 5 million packages will be delivered on each of the four Sundays before Christmas!

According to Megan Brennan, Postmaster General and CEO, even with such volume we can count on getting our mail because of investments in infrastructure including package sortation equipment, new delivery vehicles and scanning technology. An additional 30,000 people have been hired to help the 600,000 regular employees.

I found www.usps.com/holiday/ particularly helpful and easy to use. You can do almost anything – track a package, find shipping dates, schedule a pick-up, order free priority mail boxes, print shipping labels, and more. If you sign up for alerts at www.myusps.com for select packages you will receive real-time delivery notifications within a few minutes of the delivery scan.

Busiest Days

Monday, December 14th is predicted to be the busiest mailing and shipping day for holiday packages, letters and cards. That is also their busiest day online with over 7 million customers predicted to visit www.usps.com.

Monday, December 21st is predicted to be the busiest delivery day for packages and cards. More than 30 MILLION PACKAGES will be delivered on that day!

Deadlines to Remember

For delivery before Christmas, keep theses deadlines in mind:

December 15th – For standard post
December 19th – For First Class Mail
December 19th – For Global Express Guaranteed
December 21st – For Priority Mail
December 23rd – For Priority Mail Express

By the way, did you know that the Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations?

So to all the hard working carriers and clerks please hear
You bring us our holiday cheer;
You slog through weather with all your gear, and
Your proud history unites us as America’s mirror

Thank you for all that you do.