> But with the Post Office I don't think we are facing specifically Chicago problem.
I don't know if your experience is unique or general to the whole system, but for what it's worth, I've mailed something in the vicinity of 21,000 small packages over the past 8 years for my business, each hand-addressed and carefully packed, and I've had no more than 10 of them go astray the whole time.
I haven't noticed any kind of uptick lately vis-a-vis lost items - and in fact I also get 8 or 10 larger packages a week mailed to me, and have had just one that didn't seem to make it here (last fall).
Of course, the vast majority of the ones I send are small "flats" - for those who care, technically "non-machineable letters", around 2 ounces in size - so they go through slightly different channels than larger Priority Mail or Media Mail items.
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/ dave /