Morons of the Month - January 2019

Well, our monthly moron is certainly not this kind.   He's the full embodiment of the "mailman myth."  You know, neither snow nor rain deters him from delivering that day's mail.  I am sure this fantasy still exists in the less populated areas of our country.  The friendly postman that every grade school kid in town knows by his or her first name.

Back when I was a kid in Mount Vernon, New York, that was certainly the case.  On 15th Avenue, we had the same mailman for years.   Totally reliable.  You could set your watch to his travels.  

Those were the days.   Because, in 2019 and for most urban areas, the reliability of the US Postal Service has gone out the window.   This is largely due to the caliber of "qualified" employees that are hired due to diversity quotas, etc..  It's no longer about the best person for the job.   Nowadays, it's about your last name or your ethnicity or your skin color.  

So, here's the latest ineptitude of what used to be a solid aspect of American life.  My apartment building in Los Angeles had its mail stolen from the boxes in the lobby.  Luckily, nothing of mine was pilfered.   As it turns out, the culprit was actually a Post Office worker who was taking the pass keys of apartment buildings all over our neighborhood and helping himself to what he could find.  By the way, this thief qualifies for one of these three criteria in the previous paragraph.   Ahem.

But that's not the main subject today.   As a result of this theft, I became aware of a new Postal Service feature.   Informed Delivery.   If you go on their website and apply, you can receive by 9AM every morning an e-mail from the local Post Office that shows you, by scanned screen shot, all the mail that will be delivered to you later (usually much, much later) that day.   Okay, I sign up.

And, like clockwork every AM, I get said e-mail.   The only problem is that the contents of that day's mail doesn't always jibe with what actually winds up in the box.   Sometimes, it's a day later.   Or two days later.   Or, in the case of one holiday card from a good friend, still has not arrived a week later.

So, I now know that the problem is not necessarily with the sorters in the actual Post Office but the mail carriers themselves.  The ones that work my neighborhood are often the dregs of society.   I remember seeing one such lady, a grossly obese Black woman, sitting in her truck and taking her lunch break down the block from my building.   She was leafing through an Entertainment Weekly magazine while chomping down on her sandwich.

Guess whose Entertainment Weekly showed up later that day with a mustard stain on it?

Because of this new Informed Delivery feature, the US Post Office in my area has effectively shot themselves in the foot.   I have always figured out that my postal carrier seems to show up every other day.   Is this now the case?  Hmmm.

So, when I never got the holiday card from my friend, I went back on the USPS website and asked the question.   The response I received back was even more confusing.   Essentially, they told me that those items mentioned in my Informed Delivery daily e-mail could take up to a week to arrive.   Huh?   So what the hell is the point of all this anyway??

I long for the days of the friendly carrier shown in the photo above.   I guess we all have to move to Nebraska.

Dinner last night:  Sausage and onions.