This was last posted on April 17, 2009. It’s timely to bring this back given the news about postal service cut-backs.
by Anonymous (for obvious reasons)
Last fall I read in the news that the US Postal Service lost $2 Billion in the fiscal year that ended in 2008. The Postal Service employs close to 700,000 people and they are looking to cutting 40,000 jobs. The fact that there are three post offices in Woodstock, 2 more than needed, I wonder how many towns across the country have this kind of duplicative bureaucracy (triplicative?). The US postal service better clean up its act before everything goes electronic. Otherwise 700,000 will lose their jobs.
We used to have four post offices in Woodstock (quadruplicative?). When I visited our place in the Valley in the 1980’s, we’d drive over to the Woodstock Valley Post Office often because it was fun to shoot the bull with Postmaster Roland Demers. It was nice that the US Postal Service provided us with this entertainment. Then the Woodstock Valley Post Office closed, I think because Roland retired. Since then no one has heard from anyone in Woodstock Valley. How do those people survive with no ‘local’ post office? People tell me that there are settlers over there especially clustered around the lakes. Some say there’s more people over there than around here, but they are too remote to know about; they probably are the ones that don’t vote because of the distance to the Town Hall.
I think Alan Walker ought to organize an expedition to explore who’s over there … sort of like the Lewis and Clark expedition… Delia Fey could lead this expedition. There may be lots of squatters that are not paying taxes, and possibly Woodstock ex-patriots who were at one time elected town officials; I think there are several former First Selectmen … and who knows, there may be gold over there too.
To get back on track, we not only have the Main Woodstock post office, but we have the East Woodstock and South Woodstock post offices. I went into the South Woodstock post office a week ago for the first time in a very long time and am still wondering if the contract I signed and mailed there made it to the Northeast Placement Service next door. I probably should have just delivered it myself. This reminds me of the time my father put a check in the mail to a fellow Woodstockian who plowed his driveway. This mail took two weeks to make its destination. When he inquired at the main Woodstock Post Office as to why it took so long, the postmaster glibly asked why didn’t Dad just drive it over and put it in his mailbox? What a knee slapper 
. Of course! It was actually a shorter distance to the plowman’s mailbox than to the Main Post Office. Dad could have saved time, some gas, and the cost of a stamp.
Maybe the US Postal Service could save a couple of billion if it cleaned up its act… a spin-off of closing unneeded post offices would be that there would be less places for postal workers to go postal.
My favorite stamp.
Hey, us in the Valley still have our ZIP code. Even though it’s hard to figure the line. Some on Lake Bunggee are 06282, some are 06281.
What is worse is from what I heard, they no longer sort the local mail on the post office, it goes out to Hartford, then comes back.
I go to the Putnam Post office because it has better hours and the staff is much more helpful than the Woodstock Post Office. Does anyone else feel the same way? It is incredibly annoying to go to the Woodstock one and find the counter closed…again!
I agree that the three post offices are redundant. Especially that they’re all within a minute or two of each other. If you live in East Woodstock and you decide to run some errands, you can stop at the East Woodstock post office, pass by the main post office, pass the South Woodstock post office, and then be on your merry way to Putnam.
If anything, they should have closed East or South Woodstock. Where was the Woodstock Valley one exactly? I imagine that that one would have been more worthwhile location-wise.
The Woodstock Valley post office was in the front of Roland Demures home at the southeast corner of Barber Road and Route 171.
I completely agree with not postals comment. I go to the Putnam PO because the hours and service are better. Remember, government employees, you are actually paid to serve others!
It is ridiculous to have three Post Offices in Woodstock, especially as although Woodstock is large they are all on one side of town
The Main Post Office on 169 across from Sweet Evalina’s has improved over the years. When my mail was sent there with the 06281 zip code (I have a P.O. Box in South Woodstock for about 20 years… with the 06267 zip)it ususally went back to the sender for proper zip coding. Now, it may or may not be sent back depending on the weather? how the postmaster feels? the ebb and flow of the tides? moon phase? All the above?
Recently, I was sent a packet of information from the United Services offices in Dayville with the 06281 zip code with a street address and no P.O. Box number. Obviously, that packet was delayed for a couple of weeks but finally found its way to South Woodstock, after a new packet had already been sent with the correct address and zip code. Frustrating? Not really. After 20 years of this kind of experience I’ve become immune.
Imagine standing at the desk waiting for service while the postal person carries on a personal conversation on her cell phone. Then there was the time when we arranged to have the mail held for a week while we were on a trip … but it wasn’t and the mail was cramed into the box.
The quality of service at Woodstock post office has been an issue for years as noted by many. There simply is no incentive to get better.
One would hope that somewhere there is a person, who both cares enough and understands the issues,in charge of hiring local postmaster and closing wasteful offices. But it doesnt look like it.
I’ve never had problems at the main Post Office. I find the lady I usually see there very nice and helpful. Although, I’ve only done simple things like buy stamps and mail out a couple priority mail letters, maybe a package or two. It’s been painless every time.
As a close relative of a retired postal inspector, I can make a suggestion. The postal inspection service doesn’t handle customer service complaints but if there are this many of them and all of these complaints are filed with the inspectors, they might make a determination that there’s possibly enough monkey business going on to justify an audit of the branch. That’s a postmaster’s worst nightmare but because everything has to be accounted for down to the last stamp. It does have the benefit though of forcing the postmaster to get his/her house in tip-top order. There’s nothing to prevent it from going back into disarray after the audit is finished and the inspectors have left but it will fix things in the short term because everyone will be on their toes. They could also find themselves being put on notice that future audits could be re-conducted if things don’t continue to add up properly.
If the front of the house is in shambles, imagine what the back of the house must be like. That’s what would be of concern to the audit division of the postal inspection service. The audit division exists to try to minimize monetary losses to the postal system due to fraud and negligence. In one post office my relative audited on the Cape many years ago, it was a nightmare because the inspectors were finding postage stamps stuck behind the boiler that had obviously not been accounted for. These audits can get that technical if need be.
THE REMINDER advertising circular seems up to it’s old tricks again. Has anyone else noticed more of REMINDERs tossed here and there like litter onto property owners driveways, lawn, side of the road?
(obliquely related to postal service…)
You are so right, Con.
A day or two after the big snowfall I found two of them on my front, one in my driveway and one thrown on the snow bank a day or two after the big storm. This happened after I had succeeded in getting the Reminder to cease and desist.
When the snow melt, who knows how much Reminder Trash is found. Our last campaign against this was successful. We will speak up on this if it persists.
On second thought, a concern that I do have is not with the post office but with the transfer station. I don’t think anyone enjoys going there, and the guys who work there probably don’t enjoy working any more than we enjoy going. That said, some some of the guys there are very nice and pleasant, but I’d rather not see a couple of them. Yesterday, I pulled up there just as this one guy was starting to close the right gate. Instead of barging in, I asked him if it was too late, out of courtesy. He said, “Well, you’re supposed to be here by 5 of… make it quick!” It was 7 of, and I think that the car’s clock is a minute or two fast. He made it sound like I were going in past the cutoff time and seemed irritated.
I did my business there, literally running around with the recyclables, symbolically being shoved out the gates by the worker who was now sitting in his truck (black Chevy Colorado / GMC Canyon, whichever), waiting for me to leave. I hurried to the trash compactor, put a few bags in, and left only 10 seconds or so later than the woman who got there a while before me. Due to being excited and rushed, and not normally driving a car with a standard shift, plus the excessive amount of sand on the pavement, the tires spun a little bit as I drove away, and the guy yelled, “Eeeeeasyyyyyyyy!!” I won’t let the gate hit my bumper on the way out, hope you have a nice evening as well.
I think, next time, I’ll turn around and go home, or stick to my guns and take my time while he waits. If he doesn’t want me to get worked up and accidentally spin the tires to get the hell outta there (in spite of the quick start, I went very slow through there as usual), return the respect I’ve given you by rushing and be more… discreet… while you wait.
I understand that this guy wants to get out of there on time and get home. People probably end up being there past 4:00 all the time and he needs to wait for them. But if he’s going to shove me out the gate and yell at me when I rush to get out there sooner so so can get his self home a minute earlier, he shouldn’t let me in. I am extremely patient. It would have pained me less to simply come back the next day than for him to leave a minute later and to hear the gritty sound of a tire slipping on sandy pavement, I suppose.
Or perhaps his hostility was because I am young and he thought I was screwing around when I slipped the tires. If so, that was the first time that I saw people stereotyping young people. Yesterday evening, I was at Stafford House of Pizza and the lady in charge was on the phone to a complaining customer and she said, “Well, I made it extra crispy, what else do you want me to do? …Thanks a lot for your business!” and rudely hung up, then said, “Kids….” She proceeded to bark out orders to the chefs with hostility.
I got home and enjoyed my lasagna so much that I decided to call there and tell her how satisfied I was, and she really appreciated it and acknowledged that she was having a rough night.
So I miffed one guy but probably made another person’s day.
Most of The Reminder out of area advertisers, buy into the Reminder sales bull, that Woodstock loves the paper, reads the Ads, and of course, will buy the product. Too bad we couldn’t get the word out, that advertiser dollars and lots of trees, are wasted on this literary piece of crap.
Studen-
They are out there all day in the cold, have people obviously bringing stuff from businesses, stuff not from Woodstock, putting stuff in the wrong container, and almost running them over hourly. All this while in charge of garbage. Cut them a little slack.
Doubtful, I am sympathetic to the transfer station workers, hence the fact that I said that they probably don’t enjoy working there any more than we enjoy going. However, an attitude is something not to have regardless of what your line of work is. I’m miserable about school in general but I keep it between my family and friends and try to keep things pleasant and positive while I’m there.
Hmmmmmmm. I wonder if the EPA would do something about all of the plastic bagged trash that is deposited on the ground/thrown routinely at mailboxes.
A Postal Audit is not the appropriate tool to deal with what amount to minor complaints. It is far too expensive and we pay that bill.
First course of action ought to be a series of anonymous letters if that hasn’t been tried. I bet if more than one letter is received, they would correct that specific complaint.