Being stood up at the mailbox is never pleasant, but now is an especially trying time. So many vital documents are due to arrive: county property tax bills, graduate school admission test results, income tax forms, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue . . . .
So it is not surprising that anger over erratic postal service in some city neighborhoods seems to be nearing a peak. Nowhere is this clearer than in the overstuffed files of constituents` postal complaints in U.S. Rep. Sidney Yates` (D-Ill.) office.
In them are many versions of the same story: people furious at and fed up with the manner in which their mail is (mis)handled.
”I think that after six years of trying to get my mail delivered to me even only mostly correctly delivered and only mostly on time, that your problems are not solvable by anyone currently in the employ of the United States Postal Service,” wrote one resident of the 60614 (Lincoln Park) ZIP code, the city`s most troubled. He addressed the letter to the Chicago postmaster, but sent a copy to Yates.
Such complaints prompted Yates to request investigations by the General Accounting Office and U.S. Postmaster of mail service in his 9th Congressional District, a request that became public knowledge last week and is being acted upon, Yates said.
Poor mail service was also the topic two weeks ago at a public meeting in the 48th Ward, a session that Ald. Mary Ann Smith said was more emotional than any public protest in her experience. ”Nothing compared to this. Nothing,”
she said. ”The temperature in the room became so hot, people had to leave. When we say it was a hot meeting, it was a hot meeting.”
”The people there were just raging about the postal service,” said Rep. Yates, who also attended.
Poor service is, apparently, an ongoing topic of discussion in the neighborhoods. Organizations including the Wrightwood Neighbors Conservation Association in Lincoln Park and the Old Town Chamber of Commerce have registered their beefs publicly and repeatedly in recent years.
The highest number of complaints, according to Yates` office, came from the Lincoln Park and Lakeview 60614 and 60657 ZIP codes, but they have also come from Uptown`s 60640, Old Town`s 60610 and 60611 and the Northwest Side`s 60641, among others.
Typically, they include delivery to the wrong address; languid delivery, even of first-class mail; delivery less than every day; and rudeness on the part of postal workers, an already beleaguered group after a Time magazine article in December pointed out that a disproportionate number of the people who have gone on public shooting sprees in recent years have been employees of the postal service.
Northwest Sider Helen Glowacz reached her breaking point this January, when she received mailed notice of a Jan. 9 public meeting with Sen. Paul Simon on Jan. 16. That same day, she says, she got an official post office notice urging her to ”mail early for Christmas.”
”Our furniture store had a one-day sale on January 1st,” said Glowacz, a retired employee of another service monopoly, Illinois Bell. ”We got that card on the 13th. We got 42 pieces of mail one day. I counted it, `cause I went, `What is this ?`
”And then,” she continued, ”all I had to do is read that they`re gonna raise the postage five cents.” This planned increase in the price to send a first-class letter raised a simple question in her mind: ”Uh, for what?”
Tom, Dick, Harry
”I was interested and gratified to read that you are enquiring into the postal service in this area,” one Lake Shore Drive resident wrote recently to Yates. ”As a resident, you will know that deliveries have been irregular, carelessly sorted and performed by `Tom, Dick & Harry` instead of by a regular mail person.”
The letter goes on to detail specific complaints before ending with the following paragraph: ”For all the above reasons, I am taking the liberty of delivering this by hand.”
Another man sent a copy of a letter he wrote to Chicago Postmaster Janet Norfleet detailing his dealings with ”rude, impertinent, otiose bureaucrats” in an attempt to track down his monthly package of medication.
”Ms. Norfleet,” he wrote, ”in pursuit of my package, I have been forced to speak to one impertinent bureaucrat after another, and repeat my case without effect at least a dozen times. It appears the postal system is a maze of caustic unprofessional bureaucrats who perpetuate the inefficiency by hiding behind the ignominy of telephones and nonrelated departments. The great run-around.”
A self-described ”oldster” in the 60613 ZIP code wrote of going to the post office with several of her peers to complain about poor service and being told by a worker, ”I don`t give a damn.” ”Is this,” she asked, ”what is happening to the Post Office?”
”All of us depend on our Social Security checks to get here on the third day of every month. We also need our pension checks, dividend checks, and letters from our family and friends.”
After eight more paragraphs, the woman wrote, ”I have to change the subject before I have an attack.”
Etc., etc.
There are more, many more:
– An Evanston woman last year sent out 75 postcards inviting people to her home. Fifteen of them came back to her ”for no obvious reason at all.”
As near as she could figure, workers had not bothered to discern which side of the card had the stamp, and thus the delivery address, on it, and which side had the return address.
– A ”formerly happy postal customer” wrote of ”mail for sites as far as two blocks away with totally different names and addresses. . . left in our box several times a week.” This correspondent did not sign his letter, saying, ”I am very dependent upon the mail, so I must remain anonymous.”
– A resident of 60657 told The Tribune that, in order not to put his credit rating at risk, he has all his bills sent to his 60611 work address.
– Ferd Isserman, president of the Old Town Chamber of Commerce, said that the group`s monthly newsletters, mostly to the Near North Side, are mailed first class. When they are mailed from the suburbs, they arrive within two or three days. When they are mailed from the city, ”it requires seven to ten days, average.”
– Planners of big-deal Chicago functions routinely find themselves doing last-minute scrambling to reissue wayward invitations. Organizers, for instance, of Friday night`s ”Very Special Dinner” honoring Gov. James Thompson and sponsored by the Grant Park Concert Society had to call every invitee by hand, after they discovered that about half of the ones they had sent didn`t arrive in time.
Junk mail overload
Many of the people who`ve filed complaints express some sympathy for the enormity of the post office`s task, given the number of high-rises and forwarding addresses and the increase in junk mail and such.
Postmaster Norfleet herself struck a note of defense in a communication she sent to Yates` office last week. ”I know you certainly agree with me that this type of letter is definitely refreshing,” said her cover letter. Attached was a letter from a well-traveled Ph.D., who defended the Chicago postal system as ”all I could ask for, every day.”
This missive, according to workers in Yates` office, was sent by messenger.
