Loop Mail: Oh, De Joy!

The USPS seems to have another change we didn't know about. We used to have to notify the home PO to forward mail, and the away PO when it was time to stop the forwarding. You did it early enough that it had time to get into the system (which we did do) and by the time you arrived home your mail either was being held or being delivered, depending on which box you checked.

We filled out the cards and gave them to the postal clerk in tiny Shafer. She never breathed a word about our need to also notify the home PO to stop forwarding our mail. There was no longer a box on the form to check for holding your mail for pick-up. The deliver-to-home date was a couple days before I even left Minnesota, figuring that Rich was checking in daily at the house, was still getting his own mail there, and it would be no biggie. Since Steve's flight was still a week after my departure, I figured any mail still heading north would be brought down with him.

A week after I returned, I was still getting no mail here. It was when I tried calling the home PO that I discovered 1) that they had changed their number, 2) that my phone had problems. By then, and after the hassle of trying to improve phone service, it was too late in the day to actually go to the PO.

There was stuff to deal with the next day, so it was late morning before I hit the PO. Their clerk, 1 of 4, was very helpful. She quickly filled our names on a new orange form, took it back, and came back with the news there was no mail for us waiting. (Interestingly, there was mail for me in the afternoon delivery.)

Then she told me about what had been happening in the more than 2 weeks since I filled out the original form. First, everything had been sent north. Second, anything reaching north had been sent back south. Then, everything arriving south had again been sent north, and around and around. It's called "loop mail." 

It's apparently fairly common. She's well practiced in explaining it. While I was at the counter waiting for her to come back front, the next person down was going through the same thing. Just another way of messing with speedy mail service, in the name of "saving money." Like traveling around the country in a repeating loop is saving anybody anywhere money.

Damn good thing there wasn't an election happening, eh?  Thanks, De Joy!