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Toledo Talk   (musing about Lake Erie West and beyond)
From babbleman's workspace   

Only with a government department

Below is the tracking information for a purchase I made last week. No, it is not a joke - the shipper is the US Postal Service. Keep in mind, the destination is Sylvania. According to this, it left 5 days ago and showed up back at the origin today. Could you imagine UPS or FedEx publishing information like this?

DateTimeLocationEvent Details
June 20, 200801:50:00 AMALLEN PARK MIShipment has left seller facility and is in transit
June 25, 200805:53:00 AMALLEN PARK MIArrival Scan

Time to get rid of this appendix on the federal government. I'm not sure which has outlived its usefulness more, the USPS or the FCC.

created by babbleman on Jun 25, 2008 at 10:15:34 pm     Comments: 8

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Comments ... #

"Shipment has left seller facility and is in transit" So did the Postal Service manufacture, or sell this item? If it left the "seller" facility in Allen Park, MI could it have been waylaid by the seller's transit, or was the USPS responsible for the whole route of the shipment? Was it shipped totally via USPS, or was it sent via other means (the Postal Service has shipped sacks and boxes via FedEx for transshipment to airports via their routing for almost a decade now). Could it have spent five days getting from the "seller" in Allen Park to the Allen Park postal facility where it was scanned (again) to indicate it was being shipped to Sylvania via the Main Post Office in Toledo. If it was Express Mail there should have been information indicating each "scan" along the way (if everyone did their job). Each piece of Expres Mail is "scanned" as it leaves a facility, and as it arrives at a facility. If it is other than Express Mail then there is probably some scans at each large facility. That piece of mail from Allen Park had to come through the Main Post Office in Toledo before going to Sylvania, OH (unless it was already sorted to Sylvania in either Allen Park or Detroit, MI, and there usually isn't the volume to warrant that).

posted by oldsendbrdy on Jun 25, 2008 at 10:45:40 pm     #



brdy, you bring up lots of great points about the arcane inner workings of the USPS.

All I know is that with UPS and FedEx I can watch my stuff move from one point to the next until its on my doorstep. Easy to use, easy to understand.

This should be useful and actionable information for the end user, not an exercise in advanced logistics analysis. The information above is completely useless to me.

posted by babbleman on Jun 25, 2008 at 11:01:33 pm     #



Babs, I'm sure you know that the Fedex shipping model demands that all packages get sent to a central facility (the Tennessee hub) and then out again to the destination. This happens even if the shipper and receiver are literally next door to each other. Of course, Fedex gets that done overnight, instead of in 5 days.

Discriminating with addresses would introduce a decision point in the system that would slow it down or introduce more labor. I'm not saying that doesn't make sense, but the managers in the USPS would have to weigh those factors against the advantages of speedier delivery of local streams of packages. At least, that's the THEORY of management.

posted by GuestZero on Jun 25, 2008 at 11:15:12 pm     #



Is it possible that "left the seller facility" means that's when the seller of your item printed the postage? But the seller delayed dropping it off to the post office?

(I'm envisioning a scenario where perhaps your seller uses a setup where they purchase/print postage online through the Post Office. Obviously once you print the label, you still have the responsibility of getting the package w/that label to the Post Office or your regular mail carrier in a timely manner.)

I could potentially see where the seller could have printed the label on 6/20, then slacked off and didn't hand off the package to the mail carrier until 6/25.

Just a thought. (I'm not always a big fan of the Post Office either...been on the wrong end of a few of their errors. But I still think my scenario could possibly be a reasonable explanation for your situation.)

posted by mom2 on Jun 25, 2008 at 11:20:50 pm     #



GuestZero...speaking of sending something to a hub, did you know that if someone mailed a letter from Monroe County to Toledo, the letter would be routed through Detroit?

Always seemed bizarre to me, but I guess they use the same justification as your FedEx/Tennessee example.

When I lived in Lambertville, I made it a point to use a mailbox in Toledo if I was sending outgoing mail to the Toledo area. It made no sense to me that my letter would go from Lambertville to Detroit to Toledo, when I lived only a mile or two over the state line. lol

posted by mom2 on Jun 25, 2008 at 11:23:20 pm     #



Wow, I'm really convinced government is bad.
Thanks.

posted by charlatan on Jun 26, 2008 at 09:23:10 pm     #



So nothing showed up yesterday. With private carriers, at least in my experience, the estimated delivery date is usually a worst case scenario. Packages almost always seem to show up prior to the estimated date.

So I went back to the tracking page and there was a new entry for yesterday:

DateTimeLocationEvent Details
June 26, 200806:17:00 AMDEFIANCE OHMis-sorted by carrier

Here is the description:

Your item was misrouted. The error has been corrected and every effort is being made to deliver it as soon as possible. Information, if available, is updated every evening. Please check again later.

Yea, right. Whatever.

posted by babbleman on Jun 27, 2008 at 09:34:38 am     #



Its simple carier either ofrgot about package or didn't feel like delivering that day. Threw back in truck or never took it out and took it back to the shop.

posted by Linecrosser on Jul 01, 2008 at 02:25:32 pm     #