Postal customers across Vermont are complaining about erratic delivery as Christmas approaches.
Joel Thompson’s business in Bennington depends on him being able to get mail on Monument Avenue, the busy street where he lives.
“Sometimes we get mail,” Thompson said. “We go through long periods of time when there’s no mail being delivered.”
Thompson is a reinsurance intermediary. He advises insurance companies on how to buy insurance themselves so they can cover all the claims of the people and businesses they insure.
A few weeks ago, Thompson went to the post office to find out what was causing the delivery problem. He said he was told that his mail carrier had quit and they were looking for a replacement.
“So all the mail was in the post office,” Thompson said. He said he offered to deliver the mail himself, but was turned down.
“Meanwhile, I was waiting for a check from a client,” he said.
As a recent transplant to Vermont, he also was waiting for tax documents, unemployment compensation and ID cards for health insurance.
“November was kind of a nightmare in terms of receiving mail,” Thompson said.
He said mail has been coming in bunches — 20 letters one day, four packages the next.
“The post office here is definitely stressed,” he said.
Statewide, the Postal Service has openings for 87 positions, according to Stephen Doherty, a Boston-based spokesperson for the U.S. Postal Service.
He said open positions include city and rural letter carriers; local window and distribution clerks; mail handlers; and mail processing clerks who work in distribution facilities.
During a recent Monday morning trip to the Montpelier Post Office, Johanna Nichols saw the problem firsthand, she told VTDigger. Although the post office opens at 8 a.m. on Mondays, no one was attending the counter when she was in line at 8:30, she said.
John Poulin, who lives in Shelburne, has also been seeing the problem first hand. He has been getting erratic mail delivery: none for a few days, then all at once.
Earlier this month, he called the post office to find out why he was not getting mail. He said he was told that management had given instructions to deliver only packages.
Doherty told VTDigger that it’s not unusual during the holiday season for carriers to be sent out on “dedicated package runs” during the early mornings and Sundays because of a “large swell” in such deliveries.
“But this is done in addition to, and not in place of, regular mail delivery,” Doherty said.
After getting no mail at home for several days, Poulin said he went to the post office and was told regular delivery had resumed. He found mail at home late that day, he said.
Poulin asked if there was a postmaster to talk to and was told there is none. When VTDigger called the Shelburne Post Office, a person answering the phone confirmed that there is no postmaster and said the supervisor was out delivering mail.
Doherty said that, as the Postal Service moves past what he called “short-term employee availability issues,” it will continue to use all of the tools at its disposal to ensure that Vermont customers receive their first-class mail.
