Can anyone explain this to me??   I live in SW Florida.    I just sent a book to a member, who lives one county south of me.    Why is it heading North to Jacksonville?   For that matter, I recently received a book from a member who lives in my same county, one town over.  It should have arrived quickly, right?   It also took the long way, via Jacksonville.   Shouldn't there be a "shortcut" for local deliveries???

Thanks,

Betsy

I dont work for USPS but we have the same thing where I live. I can send things to local areas and it gets sent to another town and then back again. It just depends on where the sorting places are which are now few and far between.  Jacksonville must be your nearest sorting center.

I really enjoy watching my books travel around the country, I sent a book from SoCAL to NoCAL and it went out to TX and then up to Sacremento before going down to San Diego I believe it was. It was a present and I used DC for it, wasnt a PBS book tho but still half my PBS sent books are better travelled then me!

I'm not a postal employee either but I think it has to do with where the mail sorting stations are.  I know we don't have one locally anymore, all our mail goes over 200 miles south to be sorted and then the local stuff comes back up this way.  Several years ago, the USPS decided there wasn't enough mail volume to continue having a sorting station up here.

Everyone else is right i think, unless you mail something to someone in the same city as you it goes first to the neasrest sorting center then on to it's destination. For me, all my stuff goes to Charlotte and then on to it's destination.

I am a postal employee. I'll use my state as an example. Delaware has one P & DC. (Processing and Distribution Center) All mail sent within the state flows through this center. Anything mailed from me to my neighbor right next store is picked up by my carrier, taken back to my local city PO and shipped to the distribution center where it is processed that evening and usually delivered the next day. Anything sent from the city of Dover (50 miles away) goes through the same center. Anything sent from Lewes goes through this center. Your local PO does not process any 'raw' mail coming into it. It will go to a P & DC where it will be processed then shipped out to its destination.

Once I sent a PBS book to someone who lived in the same town as me. I was expecting them to have it in a day or two... Well it went out of town several hours away and then came back again. Needless to say both of us were very surprised.