OP here. Okay, today I accidentally stumbled on a similar conversation, and someone whose best friend is a sorting facility worker told him something HUGE, how the out of sequence movement thing makes sense. Or let me reword that; it explains it, but I'd call it a far cry from making sense. Basically it makes as much sense as illogically **bleep** things that people do when imprisoned, shipwrecked or other desperate, helpless situations; the suffering might explain it but not excuse it.
Basically, of course, the USPS is currently stressed well beyond their limitations with far more Christmas e-commerce than ever before, fewer employees to handle it, and being a semi-public company, they don't have the option of refusing any new business like FedEx and UPS can (and apparently are; they are reportedly withholding their service from some commerce partners, temporarily, to avoid exactly what's happening to USPS). I'm sure we can't even imagine the despair that postal employees are going through right now. But like any multi-tier job, pressure comes from the top and only increases on its' way down, and it all boils down to workers being incentivized to regard each packages with this BINARY criteria:
Can it possibly get delivered by the expected delivery date? If yes, keep it moving. If no, set it aside INDEFINITELY. This is because the % of on-time deliveries is the ONLY measure by which some supervisors are evaluated and have their bonuses granted or denied. This guy didn't go into specifics like whether any supervisors are evaluated for % with opened claims or whatever--I'm sure there are such mechanisms, and I'm sure they are having one hell of a conflict right now. But % on-time is the only focus the lowest-level sorters are burdened with, so when it's all chaos and hellish nightmare anyway, a 1-day late package is no better than a 1-month late one. And this assessment could be made at any facility along the way, in the origin city, a transitional hub, or the destination city. Any location a package finds itself that is particularly hairy puts it on the crucible of "worth trying" or "sacrificed indefinitely."
And have you noticed some packages you sent (or ordered) that have a tracking number but haven't been scanned even once since the label purchase (still say "pre-shipment, USPS awaiting item")? Well look at the Delivery Date...oh wait, there ISN'T one; it's Delivery Date Unknown. --How are they supposed to predict a date for your poor buyer whose money you have, when your lazy butt won't even give them the package to start moving it? Except YOU KNOW YOU DID..... but how can you prove it, prove it to your buyer, prove it to Ebay who is counting it as a demerit, EVEN PROVE IT TO USPS, who HAS the package, but how could any search specialist employee know that? You get what I'm saying? Obviously employees are now incentivized to not even do acceptance scans, because that is what starts the clock, that is what makes the package a threat to them. Whether they'll finally do the initial scan days later, or never, you have zero control over.
Now, if you read through replies on any online discussion about this, you invariably see tons of self-righteous "That's why WE don't rely on pickups, WE take our packages to the post office, wait in line if necessary, and WE make the desk employee scan the packages in front of us and give us a receipt." Well, have a cookie if you have the transportation, time, and whatever else some people don't have (I know my hip would not handle an hour-long wait in line, holding a bunch of packages).....but here's the thing: this smug suggestion isn't even the guaranteed solution those people think it is. I have watched my (wonderful) carrier dude scan pickups, "beep" and all, on my porch, and somehow STILL not seen the acceptance in tracking for days. And in these discussions I've been reading, I've seen people say the same thing about packages scanned at the desk, and their paper receipt not even doing any good against buyer claims.
Here is where this long 'essay' post should have at least one concluding remark, but at this second I'm honestly at a loss for words. Like I replied to someone else, I certainly wish I could afford to just shut my store down the rest of the month, and if you can, you should at least consider it. But if like me you can't, at least you should know what's actually going on, and don't put absolute faith in the idea that "They're doing the best they can". They're not. They're doing the best they can for as many as they can, but for many others they're doing the WORST they can.
