It will come as no surprise to most folks in Ellijay that postal service has been struggling to keep up with
the volume of mail over the last few months. You may have experienced delays or cancellations on items
sent via the US Postal Service in recent months, and we know how frustrating that is. Some of these
delays stem from problems at a new distribution plant in Palmetto, Georgia, that has been having a
negative effect on service around the whole southeast. Our own local branch of the post office has also
been struggling to keep fully staffed since the covid 19 pandemic hit in 2020, as most employers have
been hesitant to pay what workers now expect to make due to the rising cost of living.
The lines may be slow and the delivery may not always be perfect, but we always need to keep in mind
that the people who work at the post office are not responsible for the poor choices the management of the
post office has made in recent years, and its just as detrimental to their day to day life for things to be like
this than it is for the rest of us, if not even more so.
If folks like Kim and Amanda and the other kind and patient people who work at our local post office
were running the national post office, instead of the self-aggrandizing political appointees that run it now,
I think we’d be in a much better position. But until we figure out how to elect people that understand that
the people who do the work have the best understanding of what improvements to make, the best we can
do is to be nice to our neighbors working at the post office.
Plan your errands with a potentially long wait at the post office in mind, or try to use online services like
label printing to avoid the line at the counter. Keep a good accounting of your receipts and documents in
case you have to file a claim for a missing package. Do everything you can do on your end, hope for the
best, and be nice to the folks at the counter.