renewal took 18 calendar days to be processed by the State Dept. I was notified it was shipped, with tracking, on Dec. 3 and had a delivery date of 12/6. Tracking shows it has been sitting in an Indianapolis facility since 12/5. There is now no expected delivery date. I live 175 miles from Indianapolis, a drive of 3 hours.
I ordered a book on Ebay 12/4. It's being shipped, from California, at 'book rate' and is to be delivered tomorrow.

El Paso, Texas. Unfortunately, the US National Passport Processing Center in Irving, TX, messed it up. I requested a large (52 page) book since the reason I was renewing it 5 years early was I ran out of pages. I received a 26-page standard one. Last thing I did before putting the damn application in the envelope was to check Large Book was marked.

Actually, they want to privatize USA so.... I guess we're on the way.

Really, it's already been sold to the highest bidder. Let's just make it official.

mansion’s and bs.

I believe DeJoy was head of XPO Logistics (transportation company). Think he allows HIS company to be run like this? If so, he's incompetent & shareholders should be screaming; if not, it is intentional sabotage of our postal system. Where's the investigators?

Jul 14, 2024

USPS awards $120 million contract to Louis DeJoy's former company, XPO Logistics, raising ethics concerns...

https://whoistimotheechalamet.storage.googleapis.com/front-page-news/usps-dejoy-xpo-logistics-38323.html

I mailed the check in the envelope provided by the PO. I mailed this payment at the mailbox in front of my small rural PO where my PO box is. The postmaster sent my payment envelope to Denver (170 miles away) to the regional sorting center. They, eventually, returned the check to same PO where I originally mailed it, whereupon I got a receipt placed in my PO box. This took 3 weeks. All the while I received past due notices by email from the PO. Before the check made it back to the PO, I inquired where my payment might be. The postmaster just shrugged his shoulders and said it "probably" went to Denver. I asked him "Why?" and he said "probably" no one looked at the address before forwarding it for sorting. Not to worry though, if I had to write a second check they had a fail safe process in place where they couldn't cash both checks. Uh huh.

BTW, my PO box rent has increased from $30 to $100 in the last few years. The postmaster's hours have been cut from full time to just a few hours per day.

You prolly could get one on-the-cheap these days. Off the back lot maybe.
If I had one, I'd turn it into a mailbox, to sort my junk-mail right into the trash can

Just before MrsK retired fromUSPS, 30 years.
I vividly remember as we lived in Bristol Tn. A shared city with Bristol VA.
She was so mad, to mail a letter, across the street, it had to go to Charlotte, first.

Koz

I sold something on Ebay for $1975. A week or two later the intended recipient said they never got it. I said, how could that be? It had to be signed for. She said she never signed for it. We both went to the PO and asked to see the receipt. The "signature" was printed. She asked her mailman who "signed" for it. He said he did, defeating the purpose of a signed receipt. He just left it at her house where it was stolen. I filed a claim explaining all of this and their answer was, "it was delivered, claim denied." I appealed. Appeal denied. I need to appeal again. I asked them to investigate what happened. By their answers to me it is evident they have done nothing to find out how my package was lost. They send me ridiculous form letters saying I didn't give them enough info. The postage and insurance was $40. I think their insurance is based on the United Healthcare model. Take peoples money and screw them. Also, in the last 5 years or so the cost to send a small package first class and my PO box fee have doubled. Dejoy is an asshole.

for sorting.

WTF?

My local post office (in the mountains in Colorado), used to have two slots for outgoing mail. One was marked "Local Delivery" the other "Out of town".

Several years ago they merged and all mail was sent to Denver for "sorting". Even if it was destined for another box in the same office.

After several years of wondering about it, I finally had a single neuron fire. Do you know of "Informed Delivery" where you can get email with pictures of mail heading to your PO Box? I signed up, and it's quite useful.

But ... the pictures ... oh.

All mail is being routed to Denver for photographing. It's a law enforcement thing. They're recording the outsides of all mail to aid in finding criminals (or dissidents or liberals).

While the contents of your envelopes are reasonably private, the outsides are fair game and now all mail is routed to "sorting" centers where they can be photographed and saved until sometime they might need it for an investigation.

If this bothers you, check out Automated License Plate Readers. Or even the current TSA practice of collecting pictures of every traveler's faces for their face-id recognition db.

I have had the "informed delivery" for some time. I would trade it in a heart beat for expedited delivery.
The Prescription they decided to send on a joy ride will not be here until Friday and I ran out of my medication yesterday.

My sympathies on the delay getting your meds. In our experience, supporting the local pharmacy has been worth 100x the savings we'd get if we ordered our meds by mail. We're tried that for a few months, it was a complete disaster.

And by "local" ... I mean a 30 minute drive to get there. But still, much better than waiting for them to show up in the post.