USAKilts shipping is quick, USPS not so much.

[RockyR]

Sorry to hear the Post office took so long. They're an odd company... I've shipped things out on a Friday and had them arrive in FLORIDA on Saturday via Priority mail (go figure THAT one out) and I've had things like this that take 10 days to go a few hundred miles. No consistency.

It MAY be due to the time of year, but that's not much of an excuse. I'm just glad they arrived safe and you're pleased with them.

[MikeS]

Sorry to hear the Post office took so long. They're an odd company... I've shipped things out on a Friday and had them arrive in FLORIDA on Saturday via Priority mail (go figure THAT one out) and I've had things like this that take 10 days to go a few hundred miles. No consistency.

As an employee of the USPS for nearly 14 years i'd like to offer some insight. I'm a carrier so I work in a local post office delivery unit, so my observations are mainly based on that.

1. Scanning devices do not live update to the web like UPS does. If I scan a package 'delivered' at 9am, it will not download until i plug in the scanner at 4 or 5 pm which means it won't show up on the web until sometime after that.

2. USPS tracking is not true tracking in the sense that every little stop along the way will show up.

3. The arrival time listed on the web site are most likely the 'best possible outcome'. The post office always assumes everything will always work perfectly.

4. Parcels are still largely sorted by hand by standing in front of 40 or 50 bins and throwing them one at a time. If it lands in the wrong bin it may take 2 days to come back (1 there, 1 back) from wherever to get resorted to the proper destination.

5. Mail does not always take the shortest path to its destination. For instance, I live on the Ohio-Michigan border,literally less than 1/4 mile away, in Toledo. If I mail a letter to Bryan Ohio which is near the Indiana border about 80 miles west of Toledo and drop it in a box in Toledo at 9am it will be in Bryan the next day, because the mail for Bryan is sorted at the processing center in Toledo. If I mail that letter just over the line in Michigan it will go all the way to Lansing to get sorted to Toledo to go to Bryan. This seems to add 2 days to the trip.

6. Most importantly, most postal workers are unable (not unwilling) to do anything about it when we do find something wrong. Being a government agency that is largely staffed by military vets, it is run as a top-down paramilitary style organization and does not accept input from the employees doing the work.

Mike

[BoldHighlander]

I was told the other day by our local post office that if you ship a package via ground (rather than priority or express) that right now it could take 3 weeks for it to arrive. This is because all their shipping containers are filled to capacity (no more room).