Tag Archives: USPS

More than “just” a mail lady

Sandy Tharp was the best the USPS had to offer and she was my friend.

Sandy Tharp - from her facebook page

Sandy went to be with Jesus Saturday night and I was so sad to learn this news. I’m still so very sad.

We’ve had Sandy delivering our mail for as long as we’ve lived here. She was the epitome of what you’d want in an outstanding mail person. She was efficient and friendly and she cared.

We travel pretty extensively and Sandy always made sure things were right at our house. One time, when  FedEx delivered an unexpected parcel and we were gone, Sandy picked it up and held it for us until we were back in the country.

One time, she called me and said she saw someone going into our house and was that okay. We did have someone watching our house at that time and it was okay that she was there but I was touched that Sandy was paying attention and alerted me in case it wasn’t okay.

Sandy was a mom and a grandma and she loved all of those kids from old to young. She would tell me about them and what they were doing. When she learned I was going to be the grandma to a little girl, she shared with me the things she did with her granddaughters.

I know that Sandy’s family is devasted at this loss and I’m fairly sure that the people on her mail route are all feeling the same sad sense of loss that I am.

Rest in peace, my friend. I will miss you so much.

 

And the USPS wonders why

They wonder why no one is mailing things anymore.

I was recently in Texas visiting my friend, Denise. As she did the time before, she handed me a card she had sent me that had been returned to her.

Denise is the new mom of twins and she had addressed the first card to Bartlesville, TX. Bartlesville is in Oklahoma, though, so it made sense why it was returned to her.

This card, however, was addressed correctly.

I looked at it and looked at it and couldn’t figure it out. I guessed I was missing something and stuck it in my purse to look at later.

When I arrived back in Little Rock, I went to our mail box and found this:

Clearly marked DO NOT BEND, this envelope was pretty mooshed and I struggled to get it out of the box. It’s a good thing that the newborn photos I ordered were on a  disc and weren’t damaged by the carelessness with which the envelope was jammed in my box.

I looked at the envelope from Denise again after a good nights sleep but couldn’t find any reason at all why it should be returned.

I went down to the post office to see if they could tell me why my mail was returned to Denise marked VACANT when we have been living here for over a month and have been receiving our mail. Well, except for the certified piece of mail I had to track down at the post office last week that we never received a notice for.

She had no answers and asked if she could keep the envelope to show the carrier. I told her that was fine. She taped it to a piece of paper with all of the info on it and I left.

Yesterday, I opened my mailbox and found this:

With no explanation. LOL! I guess I should be happy that they were able to finally deliver it correctly.

If the USPS wanted to just step back and take a small, little look at their situation, it wouldn’t be hard at all for them to figure out why people aren’t mailing things anymore.