This is a strange question, but I was wondering something. I mailed someone a letter a little while ago and I was wondering if they receive it tomorrow or will it be Friday before they get it? I know in the past that I receive letter the day after the post date on the letter. But I don't know if that is the same day that it was sent.

By Enchens on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 - 01:23 pm:

It depends on how far away the mail is going and if the mail was sent before or after the mail pickup. Around here, if I send a letter locally, it's there on the third day meaning I send it out one day, wait a day, and on the third, it's there. If I'm not sending it locally, I wait about a week. I don't know how things work elsewhere.

By Adilanylkoorb on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 - 04:02 pm:

It was mailed before the mail ran today and we do have a post office in my county and it's going to someone else in my county. But if I remember correctly in the past when I'd get some kind of card (like birthday or get well) from family in the area that it would be stamped from the main post office which is a couple of hours from here. Now that I think about it, I believe that my nieces get their birthday cards a couple of days after we mail them. But for some reason when we send out their Christmas cards they don't always get them on the same day, even though we mail them all at the same time. That's happened the last two years in a row. That's strange, but it's probably because the post office is dealing with more mail during that time of year.

By Yjja123 on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 - 06:28 pm:

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to our mail here. I can send something locally and it will take a week. I send it out of state and it gets there in two days. It drives me nuts!

By Dawnk777 on Thursday, April 17, 2008 - 08:20 am:

If I'm mailing something just across town, it has to go to Milwaukee and be "processed", only to come back here and go across town! LOL! Milwaukee is an hour away. It just seems silly to me, that local mail has to take a trip to Milwaukee, but it seems that people get it the next day, anyway. If I've mailed something that only has to go somewhere on the east coast of WI, they seem to get it pretty fast. If I mail it Tuesday morning, they will get it on Wednesday.

By Karen~admin on Thursday, April 17, 2008 - 09:09 am:

Ditto Yvonne - no rhyme or reason. A lot of the mail in the New Orleans area goes through the main post office in New Orleans no matter WHICH post office you mail it at. Things that were mailed at the post office that was near my office went through New Orleans, and *almost* everything mailed there reached it's destination the next day with few exceptions - and those were almost always to a couple of specific rural-ish locations.

So it really depends not only on your LOCAL post office, but on where it's going as well.

When my inlaws were alive, it would take a solid week for anything to reach them - from New Orleans to West Palm Beach, FL. Go figure.

And 2 years ago, I sent my nephew's Christmas gift in the second week of December Priority Mail - and it took FIVE WEEKS to arrive.

I always allow a week when mailing something - and if it's a card that is meant for a certain day, I just write on the back of it *do not open till....*

:-)

By Hol on Thursday, April 17, 2008 - 11:03 am:

My DH works for the post office and he tells me that the reason that mail posted locally gets sent to a city post office, just to come back to town (as with Dawn's mail going to Milwaukee) is because mail is no longer sorted by hand. It is all done by machine, and the big city post offices are where the processing plants are. We have the same situation here. We are in a very small town 40 miles from Providence. If I mail something to someone in the next town (3 miles away), it goes to Providence overnight, then comes back). There is no rhyme nor reason here, either. I can mail something to my sister in Rochester, NY, and it can sometimes get there the next day.

There are a lot of variables. Even if the mail leaves your town or state the same day, it may not be distributed in a timely manner at the other end. That's why most bills will say "allow seven days for processing". That's why I pay almost all of my bills online now. They are right there, you get a confirmation number, you save a stamp and the possibility of it getting lost. My hubby says that by doing that, I am "taking food out of our own mouths", but I tell him "Well, do a better job of delivering the mail". LOL!

One thing I do if the piece of mail I am sending is going to someone in my own zip code, I ask the clerk to "hand cancel" (postmark) the item and put it in that person's PO box, or give it to the rural carrier.

It's another example of "government efficiency". LOL!