BOZEMAN — The U.S. Post Office on Baxter Lane in Bozeman continues to suffer from staffing shortages that are causing continual mail and delivery issues.
Mark Armstrong says his wife's pills have still not arrived. The Post Office claims the pills were not deliverable.
"My wife orders a lot of supplements online, and two days ago, she waited all day, said it was out for delivery and it never showed up in the box," says Armstrong. "And then the next day they said there was no access. So she's just tired of it. So she sent me down here, took a picture of the tracking, sent me down here to actually see if I can get it from the Post Office because she can't seem to get them to deliver it in her mailbox."
Armstrong isn't the only USPS customer not getting mail. One local woman told me, “My husband and I are both military veterans and receive a fair amount of communication from the VA via USPS which has been held up for over 10 days at times. I finally reached out this September after I hadn’t received my paycheck for a week and my husband was missing mail from the VA.”
Another woman claims she hasn't received any mail in three weeks and her husband can't get his medication. She says, ”We went again to the post office on Baxter, and again no mail or med packages for my husband."
I spoke with Post Office employees who wished to remain anonymous, and they say the staffing situation is bad, that the employees corporate brings in to help aren't doing their jobs, and the pay isn't competitive.
When I reached out to USPS Corporate about all of these delivery complaints and the continual staffing shortage, they responded:
"It’s no secret the Postal Service is facing staffing and hiring challenges nationwide. Our offices, including Bozeman, have skilled management in place, overseeing the day-to-day operations and using every available resource at our disposal to meet those challenges. However, hiring, and staffing issues remain.The Postal Service continues to aggressively hire in many locations across the country, including Bozeman."
For Armstrong and his wife, he's hoping for a delivery solution.
"She is really irate about that because actually it's happened a couple of times. This isn't the first time this has happened," says Armstrong, "so I'm just hopeful they'll have it and I'll be happy."
