PREPARE FOR DELAYS

‘Never Seen It Like This Before’: USPS Totally Overwhelmed as Christmas Nears

“I don’t think anyone, including the post office itself, knows just how bad delays are.”

The U.S. Postal Service is seeing more mail than it ever has before and is struggling to keep up. One out of every five hours logged by employees is overtime, and workers told The Washington Post they’ve never seen it this bad. The coronavirus pandemic is pushing people to do their holiday shopping online, leading to a sharp increase in packages from previous years. “We’re really gridlocked all over the place,” a USPS manager in Ohio told the Post under condition of anonymity. Another carrier told the Post, “I don’t think anyone, including the post office itself, knows just how bad delays are.” UPS and FedEx recently began rejecting packages for some e-commerce operations, leaving USPS to pick up the slack. All this is happening during the busy holiday season and as more than 1 million mail-in ballots have been requested in the Senate run-off elections in Georgia.