By Judy Jarrett
Special to the 830 Times
It has been my pleasure to get to know a number of the US Postal employees working in the two Post Offices here in Del Rio. Also I have learned that they have to obey postal restrictions that don’t lead to efficient services for our country. Those restrictions I have learned over time and think it is time to share them with our community.
Several years ago, I mailed about 10 local 1099’s in the large drive-up mailboxes outside the main Post Office. They never arrived and I had to reproduce them. This time I took them into the Post Office and was told that, “We are not responsible for those boxes.” What! Ever since that time I have hand carried all my mail inside
the Post Office and placed them in someone’s hands.
Over time I learned a few other things. All mail is sent to San Antonio and then returned to outlying towns for local distribution. Also unless requested to be hand stamped, it will not have a stamp showing that it has been mailed until it is stamped in San Antonio. This can make a big difference — especially in mailing a check. Those receiving a check in the mail — especially if it has a deadline to be paid — will go by the postal stamp on the envelope rather than the date on the check as to whether or not it is on time. Needless to say, I have every letter leaving Del Rio, graciously hand stamped by a Post Office employee.
Anything mailed in Del Rio, even if it is going to someplace in Del Rio, will be sent to San Antonio, whether it has been hand stamped or not, and then returned to Del Rio, to be delivered locally. This even goes for mail to be put in a local Post Office Box in the Post Office. This is also true for other towns surrounding San Antonio.
Because of these rules, I have, for some years now, hand-carried any mail, especially bills, to local establishments. Even if you were mailing something to someone in your neighborhood, it would have to go to San Antonio and back before the local Post Office is allowed to deliver it. That’s at least, a three-day delay. And if you were mailing something to Comstock, it normally takes six days. I don’t know how long it takes to get to other towns in our area. No, it doesn’t make sense, and certainly is not efficient, but those are the rules the Postal employees have to abide by.
Recently, I mailed a check to Ft. Worth and had notified the recipient that it was on its way the day I mailed it. Eighteen days later, I received a call saying that the check had not arrived. I reproduced the check and took it to the Post Office for next day delivery and questioned the delay of the check because I had had it hand-stamped here. I was asked if I had written in script or printed the address on the envelope. I said I had written in script and then learned a very interesting fact. The Post Office system does NOT read script. It only reads print. Envelopes addressed in script are put into a pile to be read by postal employees for distribution. I am sure that fact is not generally known because those folks would lose their jobs if there was not a pile of mail to be sorted. By the way, the late letter did arrive later that day at its destination. By then, I had cancelled that check and overnighted another one, which arrived on time. However, I have had “next day mail” arrive a couple of days late
— even though I had paid a higher fee to have it delivered “next day.”
Hope you find this helpful and the information helps with your mailing efforts. Just remember, the Post Office employees are doing the best they can to graciously assist you with your mail, but are required to obey the inefficient and ridiculous regulations being used by our nation’s postal system.
