We’ve certainly had a sufficient pool of examples to complain about service deficiencies in the U.S. Postal Service over the past several decades.
But when there’s a sign of improvement, and of good service, we certainly want to acknowledge it.
We thank each of the postmasters at local post offices in Alamance County (and in Whitsett and Liberty, as well) for their assistance in getting our newspaper to area subscribers on time last week.
As noted in last week’s edition, an unannounced decision by Duke Energy to undertake some maintenance work on lines and poles behind the Alamance News office and the adjacent county office building on Wednesday night – right as we’re in the midst of preparing the paper for publication to meet a weekly midnight deadline – put us out of commission for getting the newspaper to the printer in time for our normal weekly operations.
Instead, at about 7:00 p.m., the power went out – and with it all computers, lights, phones, etc.
We also thank our printer, which was very understanding of our dilemma and accommodating to make special arrangements to call a press crew in earlier than usual on Thursday afternoon to print the newspaper about 12 hours later than usual – on Thursday afternoon, rather than in the middle of Wednesday night.
Most inconvenienced, as it turned out, were our newsstand readers who were unable to get a copy of the printed newspaper until late Thursday night or, for the most part, Friday morning.
But each local post office was willing for us to leave our addressed newspapers on their back docks overnight Thursday – or to be brought early (and we do mean early, 5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Friday morning) in hopes of having “normal” delivery on Friday.
In a true testament to each post office’s extraordinary efforts to accommodate our later-than-usual arrival (we’re usually there by mid-afternoon on Thursdays), we had not a single call of a missed newspaper on Friday.
Thank you, one and all (except Duke Energy), for exceptional service last week.
(And even Duke sent an emissary to apologize for the inconvenience – and admitting that they never let us know about the planned work.)
