The spotlight continues to shine on Chicago's horrible mail service.
Awful mail service starts at square 1
Records that Chicago postal workers use to deliver the mail contain more than 84,000 errors -- one of the major reasons mail delivery in the city is such a mess, postal officials told a congressional subcommittee Thursday.Faulty records, outdated equipment, poor supervision and the “overall work culture” were among the explanations provided for the decline of Chicago's mail operation, which U.S. Postmaster General John Potter dubbed the worst in the nation when he visited in April.
...
About 140 postal experts from across the nation have been assigned to analyze every aspect of the city's operation. They have walked about half of the city's routes so far and found that thousands of addresses on file are incorrect, Potter said.Potter was joined by disgruntled customers, union leaders, local politicians and business owners Thursday morning at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse to testify before the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and District of Columbia, chaired by U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill).
I mentioned receiving a bunch of New Yorkers last week (all nearly 1 year late); yesterday I received another, also dated August 2006. You'd think DHL was running the Chicago USPS.
For the record, my local postal branch is surprisingly staffed with nice, helpful people. Whenever I have reason to go stand in line there, I'm pleasantly surprised. I think the problem is more at the main sorting facility, and that the USPS database is old and outdated, especially with so much construction and rehabbing going on city-wide. Our building, for instance, is a combination of three buildings, and I wouldn't be surprised if the USPS address database still lists some of the defunct street numbers.
