Several months ago, I warned fellow Leotians that if mail is not being sent to the Wichita County Post Office with your FULL and CURRENT mailing address on it, it is entirely possible that that particular mail will NOT be delivered to you.
I received information from a Leotian yesterday who told me that her bank called her and told her that all of the statements, etc that they were TRYING to send to her, were being sent right back to the bank.
Of course, the lady nor the bank were pleased with this situation. For as long as I can remember, postmasters and employees made gallant efforts to get the mail to all of us no matter if the full address was written on the front of the envelope or not. You need to remember that you can no longer count on this being done today.
So, here is what we all need to do. Contact any family and friends who may be mailing any kind of mail to you and let them know what your FULL address is. Even if they normally do not send out regular letters to you, they may try to get wedding invitations, birth announcements, packages, etc to you. I know of a lady in Leoti who never received a wedding invitation from friends just because the sender did not have the current address for the sendee. This caused heartache for all concerned. The sendee never went to the wedding because as far as she knew at the time, her attendance was not wanted.
What I have done is sent an email to our family and friends who I have email addresses for and updated them on our mailing address, phone numbers, etc. I did not have to pay for stamps to do it this way. Plus, the information was delivered to the recipients practically immediately after I pushed SEND. I would appreciate it if you would have the same courtesy for me if there is a chance that we may try to send mail to one another at some point in time.
Our mailing address is as follows:
Stan and Lynn Blau
703 N. Second Street
Leoti, Kansas
67861
Contact any companies that you do business with and let them know what address their mail needs to be sent to.
Several years ago, most Leoti residents were given the option to have their mail delivered at home. To qualify for this service, you could NOT live within a one-mile radius of the post office. Many of us opted for this service. So...at that time, we went from having a post office box address to having a rural address. For instance for us, we went from P.O. Box 767 to Rt. 1-Box 95 F. That was our current address until around a year ago when the 9-1-1 address system went into effect. Now, our mailing address is 703 N. Second Street.
Legally, if you try to send mail to us at one of the older addresses or General Delivery, there is a good chance that we will never receive it. Much of this mail is literally THROWN AWAY at the post office--not returned to the sender!!!
So, if you don't want your mail to be returned to the sender or, worse yet, discarded permanently, contact your people and advice them of your current address. Don't forget your zip code when doing so!
Always before, I tried to write the complete address on my envelopes but there were definitely times when I just wrote who the mail was to go to, their city, state and zip code. I mainly was just trying to help out our postal workers. But, now, we have no other choice...
VLE-B
Lynn, with all due respect you really should check out what the "legals" are when it comes to the mail. You have made many errors in your statements. YOU need to remember, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure that the address that is on YOUR mail is correct. It is not the PO's job to make a gallant effort to TRY and figure out just where a piece of mail is SUPPOSED to go. You are correct that all need to contact family/friends/vendors/etc. to ensure that YOUR mail is addressed correctly. Its YOUR job. NOW where did u get the idea that mail is thrown away?? and not returned to sender?? That is a WILD accusation and one that I personally take offense to. Get it right...I advise you to go speak to our postmaster to ensure accurate information that you are posting. Think of this, if today you were asked to go onto the workroom floor of the Postoffice and put away all the mail (about 6000 pieces) and 10-20% had no address (no P.O. box on it) what would you do with it? That is 600-1200 pieces of mail with nothing more that Leoti, KS on it. I would like your answer to that question. THAT is why it is YOUR job to get the address on YOUR mail correct! I am sure any time you would like to sit and observe the casing process of the mail and to see just how much mail has no address on it, the postmaster would be happy to oblige. Please just get your facts straight before you start bashing the post office workers for doing THEIR job correctly.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there was any bashing being said , But if there is no return address on the items where do they go.( trashed ) I bet they don't hang on to them. I would sugest a return address is as important. And the post office don't seem to read some correct addresses just the last name.
ReplyDeleteI sincerely appreciate your comments and information! No. I have NOT taken the opportunity to watch our postal workers at work. My information has come from employees of post offices who have told me that, at times, they have no other option but to throw improperly addressed mail away. That happens when the sender fails to leave a return address on the mail and the address to which the mail is to be given is not deliverable such as in cases when the sendee has a different name than what they have today. THIS WAS NOT A SLAM AGAINST ANY POST OFFICE!!! I do NOT want anyone to have that idea!!! I have no idea how many pieces of mail come into any post office. I am sure that it is quite substantial no matter how many people receive their mail from that office! Not having correct and ample information on your mail when you send it, greatly complicates the jobs of the people who are then supposed to put it into the right mailbox. Here, in Leoti, we have been so very fortunate that our people in the mailrooms go out of their way to make sure that we get our mail quickly. But, as you pointed out, if WE do not do OUR part, how can we expect the employees to be able to do their work??? Thank you!!! I will try to clarify this information to other readers also! VLE-B
ReplyDeleteI KNOW that Lynn's post is correct our POSTMASTER STEVE DOES THROW THE MAIL AWAY!!!!!!! Even if the 18 month forwarding proccess is not up yet magazines that a person pays for & this should STOP AT ONCE!!!! Who is above him anyway? Could someone answer that? His boss should be contacted THANKS LYNN FOR GETTING THE WORD OUT!!!! Sure Miss Casey He was a great postmaster. at least you could get a smile from him not like Don or Steve NOW LET's ALL GO POSTAL!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd you know this how!!! Magazines are a second class mail service therfore they will only forward for 6 months then they are returned. Same goes for your newspapers, these are called periodicals people and they only forward for 6 months. Which should be plenty of time for you to call your subscribers and get this changed. But we would rather blame this on the postal service. Why would you want to make the correct changes when you can be lazy and let someone else do it for you, then complain when your magazines aren't delivered. It's been this way for years. Casey was a great postmaster. Maybe if you could set your petty bull aside and give Steve a chance you would see that he is a great postmaster also. Everyone's work ethic is different that does not make them a bad person. He takes his job seriously and does it well or he wouldn't have been in the service for so long. As soon as you finish postal training then we might be interested in what you think you might know about the postal service.
ReplyDeleteAs far as postal employees throwing away mail, they are allowed to throw away 3rd class unendorsed mail only. This is "junk" mail the sender does not want returned to them. It will clearly say 3rd class or standard mail on it. If it is 1st class mail undeliverable with no return address then it has to be sent to the one dead letter facility that has the authority to open it & hope to find a clue as to where it should be returned. All this takes time & so hurt feelings happen over "lost" wedding invitations, etc. A simple address sticker or 60 seconds out of your busy schedules to hand write it shouldn't be so hard. But it is easier to blame the Postmaster & employees. Marilyn Legg
ReplyDeleteI am amazed at the controversy. I grew up in Wichita County. Back then all you needed was a name of an addressee and Leoti, Kansas. Later the 5 digit zip code was used. If you were out in the county generally you would have the added RR 1 or whichever route you were on. Interesting how much change has happened. Funny though, the population is still about the same.
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