It has been a little over a week since headlines were flooding local media about the overdue and missing mail lying about the Soddy Daisy Post Office parking lot. In that time since being exposed, I’m here to tell you that nothing has improved.
In six days now, I’ve had a single delivery last Tuesday at around 9:45 p.m. when my security system outside went off and I discovered the mail being delivered. There have been zero deliveries since then, despite the parking lot at the post office being overloaded as ever with mail. In fact, packages that were marked “out for delivery” on say Nov. 30, are now curiously deleted and the next day is queued up instead.
Imagine my surprise when the post office not only deletes such dates after failure to deliver from your tracking, but now that same package from Nov. 30 has mysteriously traveled from the Soddy Daisy Post Office all the way to Calhoun, Ga. some 66 miles from my home where it currently sits at the post office there.
Heart medication? It’s been changed from eight week auto-delivery to six weeks because there’s zero faith it will be delivered when the prescription runs out. How dangerous is this situation becoming?
I have contacted the local Soddy Daisy government, Hamilton County Commissioner Gene Shipley, and Rep. Chuck Fleischmann on the issue. No answer from any office to date.
Billy Thomas
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Please, no one rely on the United States Post Office in Soddy Daisy for any medications, important documents, bills or ever have an expectation of good service. Then you cannot be harmed by that office.
The Soddy Daisy Post Office has been the subject of years of formal Federal Inspector General Office complaint filings by me and many others. These complaints were an exercise in futility. My letter to our Congressmen Chuck Fleischmann by certified mail went completely unanswered last year. I collected digital video evidence that showed no mail delivered or picked up from most of December last year. It does not matter if you prove violations of federal employees holding important mail for weeks. The manager of the Soddy Daisy Post Office makes no apologies for the inept operation of her office. It is their way of life.
Soddy Daisy Post Office read my lips, your incompetence is detrimental to the Soddy Daisy business and the elderly community.
Mr. Thomas, with all due respect to your well-written concerns, you are dealing with the most incompetent federal employees I have ever encountered. They are unfixable in employment spirit. I frankly have zero confidence that a Hamilton County commissioner could fix an inept federal office that has the most complaints in Hamilton County, or perhaps second to Signal Mountain.
Hamilton County Commissioner Geno Shipley is genuinely attempting to advocate. It is a systemic problem engrained in the core of their postal organization. I wish Commissioner Shipley well in his attempts.
Mr. Thomas, all the king's men could not fix that post office, so protect yourself from them, and disconnect from them.
This is how we disconnected our important deliveries from the Soddy Daisy Post Office:
1- We rented a post office box in what I believe to be a competent Post Office in Chattanooga. We never have problems. All of our major bills and important documents are tied to our Post Office Box outside of Soddy Daisy zip code jurisdiction.
2- I contacted Amazon and advised them I would pay extra for UPS or FedEx delivery. It was a lot of work, and sometimes Amazon allows. Mostly, change where you have your packages mailed. If you have family or friends out of the Soddy Daisy zip code, ask them to kindly receive your medication by mail.
3- UPS and FedEx still do a great job. Paying a little extra for competence is the way to go.
4- The most important. Sign up for USPS informed delivery. This allows you to see pieces of mail that were scanned in, and held by the Soddy Daisy Post Office. That is where I determined they were holding my mail for weeks.
Finally, I have my due diligence of filing complaints for three consecutive years. I would not waste a minute of time trying to change that office.
I truly feel years of your frustration, and respect you for sharing your thoughts.
Best wishes to you.
April Eidson