Have you noticed anything in the last month or so (for those that have used dc) that your books have been sitting at your home post office for up to a week?

no, they are not just "sitting there" they just havent been scanned at the sorting facility.

All mail leave the retail offices every night. the workers have to sign a log at night saying the office is clear of mail and the morning workers have to sign a log that says the same thing. They have to certify this on the computer and upper management has been known to spot check offices. 

Just because it doesn't have another scan on it does not mean it is still sitting at your local office. 

The mail is sorted by class at the retail office and dispatched to the sorting facility, there it is worked FIFO(first in, first out) by class, so express and priority are worked first, then first class, then Standard mail, then periodicals, and Media Mail is the very last thing worked. If they don't get to it by CET (critical Entry Time-that is the time everything has to be sorted to make the morning dispatch to the retail offices) it waits for the next day, and it is still the last thing worked. 

Elizabeth, I have worked at the Prairie Village post office and I can tell you for sure your office NEVER has outgoing mail sitting overnight.  If a carrier misses dispatch and has outgoing mail, the manager drives the mail down to the plant in downtown KC.

All mail leave the retail offices every night. the workers have to sign a log at night saying the office is clear of mail and the morning workers have to sign a log that says the same thing.

I'm a little confused by this - my local post office box is marked that mail 'goes out" at 4pm. I've been in the post office at that time, and seen them loading up the mail truck and it drive off - so, what happens to the mail dropped off at the post office after this time - i assumes it sat there until the next days pick-up?

Well I mailed to other packages of books besides these book which had farther to go than these book.  Both of those packages have been delivered several days ago and it just says "sitting in DOthan AL."

mistie, it depends on the size of the office and the trucking arrangements.  I work in a small office, my cutoff time is 4 PM, and my truck leaves sometime between 4 pm and 4:20 pm, depending on if my carriers are back yet or not.  My office window is open until 4:30, so anything dropped off after 4 chances are does not leave until the next day.

Prairie Village is a good size town and their disptach is probably later in the day, at 5 pm or later, so everything there does go every day.

Jamie, there isn't any USPS event code that says "sitting in City-State".  It might say, "Electronic shipping info received" or "Accepted" or something like that, but seriously, we don't have anything that we scan and then click "Sitting here".  I am sorry your article has not received any intermediate scans or a delivery scan, but chances are very good it is not still at the originating post office.  I hope it gets delivered soon, if it hasn't been already.

As already mentioned, my USPS staff agrees...they are not allowed to just leave outgoing mail sitting around.  It must ALL go out at the end of the day, all of it every day...period.  It may not be scanned into the sorting center, or otherwise be off-radar for awhile but it's not sitting at my post office.

Incoming mail sitting around?  Not at my branch, but we see comments from other areas about media mail not being sorted and delivered immediately at the destination branch.

When I meant sitting there, I meant that was the last scan it has recd it the town I live in over a week ago.

Jamie, I have noticed that my media mail has been traveling slower in the past few weeks.  I used to never hesitate to use media mail because it seemed to travel as fast as the other mail.  But in the past few weeks, I have mailed at the same time first class packages and media mail packages and they have been handled differently.  One day my first class packages went to our usual sorting center while my media mail went to a sorting center in another state.  And I have seen my first class packages scanned and then the media mail scanned the next day.  

I always assumed the PO could treat media mail differently because we pay less, but I have been surprised to see that actually done.  I also sell on ebay and send things to friends/family which is why I have a variety of packages going out on some days and can compare.

I have noticed that my media mail has been traveling slower in the past few weeks.

I've had the exact opposite experience.  I mailed a total of 15 WL books (with tracking) on Monday and Tuesday this week and 10 of them have already been delivered. That's faster than First Class in many cases!   I'm in Nebraska and the book desinations were west, east and south of here.  All were sent with printable postage and dropped in a blue box near my office.

They finally got to their destination. I guess they were never scanned except for where I mailed them from.

Since the last postal increase, I've noticed fewer enroute scans.  I've also noticed more of my packages not scanned at the nearest MM sorting center...they go there and are rerouted, just not scanned.  They do show up and get delivered in about the same time.

I've notices a lot of my packages are taking forever recently to get to their destination.  Oh and a lot will have multiple scans that say Enroute to where ever and it will be up to like 4 or 5 scans for the same place.  I just had on that had 4 for Enroute to Dallas TX and it had a window of 5 or 6 days from the day if first got scanned enroute to the last day it got scanned enroute.

Jamie I have had a few that have failed to get scanned until the end of their trip but those were all ones I put in a blue box.  The ones I take in to the po get accepted scanned as soon as I hand them over.  I did notice though that pbs system is still lagging because  got a couple of packages accepted scanned the other day the day I sent them and it was a couple days later when the scans finally showed up in PBS system but this isn't a new problem.  Its been happening since the postage changes of this year!

I've had several packages coming to me too that have gone past here and had to come back.  Like I got a package from RI that instead of hitting I think its Earth city near St Louis (which is where my mail coming from the east cost usually stops) it goes past to Kansas City, KS and then comes down Eldon, Mo.  Is there a reason for this is the Earth City distribution center closed or something?  Something that used to take 4-6 days is now taking 8-10 days.  Which is still not a long time I'm just curious as to why its happening.