LOMBARD – Several businesses in Lombard say they’ve experienced chronic poor mail delivery service for at least the past year and in many cases, longer.
The charges come about a year after the Lombard post office was inundated with complaints about spotty service. Unlike last year, however, the fresh complaints cannot be chocked up to the weather.
Jozie Kiyabu, an employee at B. Haney and Sons at 1200 N. Lombard Road, said her issues with the mail service have nothing to do with the company’s regular carrier, but “more to do with the management of the post office.”
Whenever the regular carrier is off, the mail comes late and sometimes it simply doesn’t come, Kiyabu said. Employees at three other businesses in the area also reported late mail, days without delivery and missing mail.
“We’ve had customers come here and drop off contracts because they don’t trust the mail,” Kiyabu said.
She said her company has experienced these problems for at least two years.
“We started noticing we were having some issues, and part of it was our mail carrier has been with the post office a long time, and any day he is on vacation or anything like that, our mail would always be late that day,” said Terri Tihlarik, accounting administration manager for Yorke Print Shoppe, 930 N. Lombard Road.
Like Kiyabu, Tihlarik said there also have been times when her business did not receive any mail at all – and they aren’t the only ones to make that complaint.
“Sometimes it’s a couple of days that we don’t get our mail,” said Joyce Nemecek, a sales associate at the Chicago Roll Company, 970 N. Lombard Road.
Nemecek said poor mail service has affected her company for at least the last year.
“I would say that the trouble in the mail delivery times has been one that we’ve been plagued by for almost two years now, maybe a little less,” said Ed Walendy, finance manager for Green Horizon, 960 N. Lombard Road.
The problem became so bad that Walendy now drives his mail to the U.S. Postal Service distribution center in Carol Stream. It’s an inconvenient solution, but one that has alleviated the problem, he said.
The impact poor mail service has on day-to-day operations of Tihlarik’s business is “devastating,” she said, adding her company has considered having its mail sent to an address in Addison to bypass the service in Lombard.
problems with delivery when the regular carrier is out stem from a number of issues. The first is that the subs are usually given more work than the 1 route. Second, if the sub is unfamiliar with the route, then they might not know where to deliver the mail. I know in my town, all the businesses have terrible delivery points. The mail should not be brought in to each business. There should be centralized cluster boxes for all businesses. The regulars don’t care because it’s money in their pocket at holiday time. Subs get frustrated when they go in a business and don’t know where to leave the mail. Then have to wait to find outgoing mail. Most of the time when a regular is off, their route is divided 4 or 5 ways so whoever has to help has no clue where to go. The post office is so screwed up in just about every way, and they really don’t want to address these issues. So, knowing what I know, if I had a business, I’d get a P.O. Box. Even there, management never has the staffing to get the mail boxed early. There is so much more to say, but why bother, the USPS is a joke