I vote that somebody is stealing the mail!!

It's no secret that this economy is causing everyone - individuals and businesses - to have some cash flow issues lately.

It's also no secret that the US Postal Service has been talking about cutting mail delivery down to 5 days a week due to budgetary constraints. I personally think that the government should get its hands out of everything and let the postal service be privatized. I think it would run a lot better that way.

Case-in-point:

Last Friday, exactly one week ago, we (The Accounting Department at my place of employment) mailed out 40 checks. Most of the checks were going to vendors who had been patiently waiting while we dealt with some end-of-quarter cash flow problems. All of these vendors were either insurance providers or vendors who had been waiting for the checks in order to release shipment on parts or material that we were waiting for in order to do business.

As of today, not a single one of those checks has been delivered. This includes vendors in Chesterfield, MI and Newark, NJ. Not a single person has a check. If things were running slow and there were big weather problems I might be able to understand out-of-state deliveries taking a full week. But in-state? Even in-county?! I mean, Chesterfield is a 20 minute drive from here!!

The Post Office here in Memphis is actually located in our building. They rent from us! My mom also informed me earlier this week that someone from the city had taken some packages to the post office on Friday to be mailed to city council members. As of their meeting on Wednesday, none of them had received those packages. My mom's wasn't delivered yesterday or today either. There's really no excuse for mail going from Memphis, MI to Memphis, MI to not be delivered the very next day.

We took the matter up with our post office. They assured us that while rare, occasionally this does happen and those checks will show up and be delivered soon. They also guaranteed us they had left that particular post office.

So I called Royal Oak. That's where all of our local incoming mail is postmarked as being from. They told me that they no longer sort our mail and to call Pontiac. So I did. They wouldn't answer the phone. I've left four messages and have not gotten any replies.

Something fishy is going on here, and if it doesn't clear up soon we are going to be in trouble. Without those checks, vendors won't release shipments, and without shipments, we will eventually run out of the materials we need to continue operations.