Over the past couple of months, you have probably seen the news reports detailing the massive delivery backlog experienced by the U.S. Postal Service.
Over the past couple of months, you have probably seen the news reports detailing the massive delivery backlog experienced by the U.S. Postal Service in November and December.
There were images of overflowing bins of unsorted mail, and scores of unloaded trucks parked outside distribution facilities.
Mixed among all that mail were copies of Sprint Car Courage, Still Wide Open, Life With Luke, Hewitt‘s Law, Lone Wolf, and others. Our books were on the way to you folks before large chunks of the mail came to a standstill.
We worked on a couple of publishing projects late last year (the debut of Sprint Car Courage and a reprint of Still Wide Open) and, as autumn approached, we were already nervous about the holiday shipping season. It‘s always a bit of a challenge to get books to folks in time for Christmas, especially as the hour grows near.
A COVID outbreak with a printing supplier in early November slowed us down by a couple of weeks, but we managed to get all of our backorders in the mail the first couple of days in December.
I figured we were in good shape, but a random phone call in mid-December opened my eyes to the situation.
Looking at USPS tracking for our shipments, we were shocked to discover that dozens of our parcels were still sitting at distribution facilities around the country. Five, 10, 20 days — sitting without moving!
The good news: by early January all but a couple of our orders had finally been delivered. The bad news: many of our customers did not get their new book in time for Christmas.
That‘s a tough pill to swallow, because we‘ve always tried our best to make everyone‘s holiday as bright and enjoyable as possible.
With the COVID outbreak, it‘s reasonable to understand the challenges facing the USPS. Widespread work outages and an unprecedented volume of mail (and an unprecedented volume of revenue, it should be noted) are an impossible combination.
I used to be interested in politics, particularly at the national level. But with the passing of time I‘ve spent less and less time following the nation‘s political flow, particularly over the past few years.
I‘ve become deeply skeptical of politics — and politicians — so I‘ve tried to quit worrying about it. For better or worse, that‘s how I feel.
I‘m old enough now that I‘ve voted in a bunch of presidential elections. Through the years, my guy won about half the time. But with every election, both sides predicted “the end of America as we know it” if the other guy got in.
Guess what? America — and Americans — kept right on rolling, no matter who got in, just as we‘ve done for 200-plus years.
That‘s one of the reasons I don‘t invest myself in politics like I used to. Frankly, I don‘t have time to invest in hours of political news shows or podcasts or blogs. I mean that literally: my discretionary time is very limited and I‘m not interested in spending it watching the news or reading about politics.
Through the political PR and grandstanding and glad-handing, what I care about is this: regardless of who is in office — R or D — I want the roads and bridges maintained, our kids educated well, our cops and fire departments on duty, food and airplanes inspected properly, and I want the environment clean enough that our great-great-grandkids still have a decent place to live.
I also expect the post office to be working properly and efficiently. That‘s not a want; that‘s a need.
Small business is the engine that drives our economy. It always has, and probably always will. The recent USPS stumble brought into sharp focus how much small business needs an efficient postal system.
If we want small business to flourish — and believe me, we do — we‘ve got to make sure merchants have a cost-effective and efficient way to deliver goods to customers.
With our book publishing, we are the tiniest of small businesses. Too small for anybody to worry about, really. But there are tens of thousands of people like us: little guys working to create something and serve our customers.
For many of us, the U.S. Postal System is the only viable way we can do so.
Despite my skepticism, I hope somebody in Washington realizes that we‘ve got to invest in the postal system. Consumer habits have changed, and we‘re going to be getting more stuff by mail than ever before. And it can‘t possibly all come through Amazon.
Back in our little corner of the world, the best part of the past few weeks was this: not one of our customers raised hell with us about late delivery. Through phone calls and e-mails, every person was understanding and patient with the situation.
It was enough to give hope even to an old skeptic like me. Aren‘t racing people great?