A few months ago, Chicago's new postmaster pledged to fix our broken system and return us to reliable, prompt mail delivery. Well, that hasn't quite happened. Here's a 4/17/07 NPR audio story and a 3/11/07 Sun-Times article on the subject.
I've heard reports from some neighborhoods of very late delivery - as late as 11 p.m. I've heard about and experienced very slow delivery - sometimes 3-4 days or more for mail within the city of Chicago. I've had a lot of experience with non-delivery of forwarded first class mail and heard about that problem from all areas of the city, not just the long-time problem zip codes (60640 and 60626). It's not unusual for me to get mail for someone who lives on the next block.
I have made many phone calls and sent many faxes to the carrier supervisor at the post office, with no results. Other folks I know have had the same experience.
To satisfy my curiousity and test the system, I've sent 6 pieces of mail over the last several months in various envelopes (plain white #10, bright red #10, business letterhead #10, and greeting card). All of these were going to the same Chicago address, used varying return addresses and should have been forwarded. One of the six was actually forwarded and arrived in about 2 weeks (bright red #10 envelope). One was returned to sender (plain white #10 envelope, Evanston return address). Four are MIA - all with different Chicago return addresses, either in plain white #10 envelopes or greeting card envelopes.
*sigh* Yet another reason to be a squeaky wheels, folks. It's gotta be better than this.
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