By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
JULY 13, 2021 | If for some reason you are considering changing your postal mailing address, be forewarned!
You are about to face a problem, that of your mail being significantly delayed, no matter how diligent you are in following the correct procedures for forwarding mail to a new address.
Here’s what has recently happened to me. Needing to switch from having my mail delivered to my office in Peachtree Corners, to a post office box in Norcross, I dutifully filled out the postal form, online, as my postman instructed.
The date was May 18, and I asked that mail be sent to my new address beginning May 20…..and never did I give it a second thought. I should have.
By the way, the distance from the old Zip Code 30092 in Peachtree Corners to the new Norcross 30091 post office is 3.6 miles, no more than a normal 10 minute drive. Come to find out, that distance is insignificant.
Here’s why: all mail from any post office in the United States that patrons ask to be forwarded to a new address is first sent to……(get this)…..Tampa, Fla. What? Yes, it must go to a forwarding location in Tampa, Fla. Google tells me that’s 475.8 miles from 30092 to Tampa.
You could walk mail from 30092 to 30091 before mail could go round-trip 950 miles! And we wonder why service is bad and why a political appointee, or at least someone who acts like one, is heading the post office. Is the postal system in trouble?
So, here’s unaware me, not checking my mailbox on May 20, but checking it on May 21. No mail. And so it continued each successive day into June, still no mail. Finally, on June 10, I got my first mail, addressed directly to that postal box. Over the next few days, I got more mail, but only mail that was addressed to the postal office box. There was still no forwarded mail from my previous address.
Finally, on June 19, one day shy of one month when I said I wanted to get forwarded mail, I got a single forwarded letter. The second forwarded letter came June 22.
At least three people called me saying that they got a returned a letter they had sent to me. I could understand one, since it was mailed to the old business address. But two letters were returned to senders which were addressed to the correct post office box. Postal officials could not explain that. (By now I was on a talking basis finally with several postal officials.)
Then on July 6, a letter came that had been mailed directly to the post office box and returned to the sender. (She telephoned, and she again addressed it to the box number.) The original letter was postmarked June 2. No telling where it had been hanging out for a month, but it appeared it did not travel to Tampa.
Finally, on July 8, in talking to another postal official, I learned that I had made a mistake in filling out my forwarding form online. In the space for the name of the person wanting the mail forwarded, I had put my name, along with the name of my two businesses.
Wrong! Instead, she had me fill out three different cards for forwarding, with only one name or business in the blank where it asked “name?” The inference was that all these delays were my fault for not filling out the form correctly.
Sure, it was!
If you are about to change your mailing address, now you know: expect delays!
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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