Over the course of the last 3 decades, I’ve respected the service of the USPS,† sort of the exception to the rule that a business run by government must be a flop. Looking at its bottom line over the last five years, it pretty well breaks even: some years it’s in the red for a few billion, some years in the black. Generally within the 2–5 billion dollar range.
This year, however, the USPS posted a loss of $8.4 billion. And its budget over the next decade (as announced toward the start of this year) shows no pendulum: a $238 billion deficit over the next ten years.
The agency’s demands for “more flexibility in setting delivery schedules, price increases and labor costs” suggest that the root of its insolvency lies in government strictures.* However, I wonder if it’s just incompetence. Here’s the ‘Track & Confirm’ report for a parcel that was shipped to me last month.‡ Read the ‘Detailed Results’ from the bottom up, and see if you can spot what’s wrong.
Here’s what’s wrong: A parcel coming to California from Wisconsin went through Hawaii? I’m familiar with the practice of sending planes to hubs not directly along their path, but this is not the same thing! Can someone explain this?
†Remeber when Doc Brown made that crack about the unreliability of the postal service in Back to the Future II? I stood by the USPS even then. (You know, right after they arrive in the future, and the weather service stops the rain right on time.)
* (I have no difficulty believing that the cost of labour is problem for them, as retirement benefits for state and federal employees tend to be exorbitant.)
‡ It was Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire (1998). Now I’m stuck after the second Rite of Rulership. Am I supposed to be looking for the assassin or trying to reach the Hydra?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Seriously? Through HI? How wasteful.
That makes me wonder though… maybe they were able to somehow drop off packages in Hawaii on the way to California… first.
Or, maybe their employees were able to be dropped of for holiday leave on “the way”… *cough*
I’ll go with option #2. At least that way, some one got something out of the whole craziness…
I had a friend who used to work at the sorting facility here in Utah, and one who currently works at the UPS sorting facility now. Both have stated that there is roughly a 1-250 screw up difference in package assignments. This is because as the bar codes are sent en masse through a scanner sometimes they just don’t read right. Both entities have humans to verify on the receiving end of shipment sorting facitlities but neither have any humans for out going shipments or “pass-along” shipments. Those are presumed accurate from the sending facility (whether that be the individual post office branch or a sort facility that is passing a shipment through another sort facility, to its final sort facility.) Therefore in your case the computer that assigned your packages destination to HI, did so (most likely) out of a bar code reading error, and there was no human on the sending side to verify that what the computer had done was accurate.
However once in HI, the computer there pulled the barcode and detected an error with the listed zip code not being in one of its servicing areas, and therefore your package was sent to an error detection specialist, who realized (while blaring Metallica’s “Don’t Tread on Me” on his SkullCandy headphones, and enumerating the ways that our country is royaly screwed…) that your package should actually be in California, and then would manually erase the previous sorting facility information, and entering in the code for the GRANITE BAY,CA sorting facility. Then put it in a out going box which was picked up probably within 30 minutes and dumped in a pile of other packages, which were then placed on a conveyor belt. This delivered the package again to another computer that – whether it read the code correctly or not – could not override the manual information put in by the Metallica Officianado, and therefore sent the package back on a plane which then wisked it away to California. The End
One possibility, but not likely option was that occasionally in smaller sorting facilities (Oak Creek, probably doesn’t qualify being that it is a moderately sized suburb of Milwaukee) they have general direction piles for packages that are going outside of their normal areas of shipment. In other words if you had a sorting facility let’s say in……Sioux City, IA which has a moderately sized airport, of which probably rarely to never has flights going to Granite Bay, CA. Therefore they will put a package going from that location in the general direction pile, and someone who is on duty at that time then will have the responsibility to get that package in the air as soon as possible going west. So instead of sending it on a specific flight they will find the first set of available connection flights that can get that package in the air NOW or as close to NOW as possible. Which may have meant sending that package to Honolulu because it is in the general direction from Sioux city to Granite Bay.
This last example is not only unlikely because of Oak Creek’s larger size and proximity to a large international airport, but also because usually these small types of sorting facilities usually have 3-4 stops before getting it to their destination. In the example of the Sioux City sorting facility, most likely it would have included stops in Omaha (which in the case of a bar code shipment error it would probably be at this location that that would occur), then most likely Denver, then possibly LA or San Francisco, and then Honolulu where someone finally got to look at the shipping statement and realized the error and would correct it and then re-mark it for its correct shipment.
Truth-In-Disclosure…this post was created by 2 different authors, Edwin and Jake (via telephone) who worked at the USPS sorting facility. No I didn’t call him up to type this…he called me in the middle of me reading this article and therefore became involved through inquisition.
Actually, the Hydra is in HI, so the game was trying to help you out.
I think you should just be happy that you aren’t this guy : http://bit.ly/hFgC96