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If you have a box at the Old Mission Post Office or have checked in there lately, you might have noticed that there’s a person missing at the counter. In fact, the counter hasn’t been open much, and we posted a job opening for the post office a while back.
The official word from the Traverse City Post Office is that they are working to get the Old Mission Post Office job listed on the USPS website. I just checked, however, and still do not see the job opening there. And of course, people can’t actually apply for the job until it gets posted.
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OMP resident Barb Berthelsen, our liaison to the Traverse City Post Office, talked with Postmaster Darren Whipple. “He is working diligently to get someone from Traverse City out here every day to pick up mail and get mail into our boxes,” says Barb. “It is not an ideal situation. But they are short staffed, and he sends someone out from the counter in Traverse City.”
She adds, “Federal wheels turn slowly, and Darren first had to get permission to apply to fill the job. There has been a lot of pressure to close down small post offices like ours. It’s a remote population, and the business we all go out of our way to give it have been in our favor. Darren is in the last stages of getting approval.”
As of Feb. 26, Darren said he had one last hurdle to get the Old Mission job posted. Once that happens, it will be posted for ten days, and when a person is chosen, they have to go through orientation and training. “With all that being said, the best case scenario will be the beginning of April before we have a new person there full-time,” says Darren.
For now, the best way to get packages at the post office is to be there when the mail is sorted, usually around 11:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Darren says there is generally someone there from about 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
For anyone interested in the job, keep checking the USPS Careers section here.
SUPPORT YOUR INDEPENDENT LOCAL NEWSPAPER: I started Old Mission Gazette in 2015 because I felt a calling to provide the Old Mission Peninsula community with local news. After decades of writing for newspapers and magazines like the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Family Circle and Ladies' Home Journal, I really just wanted to write about my own community where I grew up on a cherry farm and raised my own family. So I started my own newspaper.
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I mailed 7 letters from OM on 2-19 (holiday). As of today not one of the letters has reached the recipient. I mailed them inside the PO. Where could they be…maybe still in the office?
Hmmm! According to the TC Postmaster, someone comes out every day to collect and sort the mail, and is usually there from 10a to noon. Maybe swing by and investigate during that time?
We appreciate the update! Hope it is solved soon.
Thank you! I hope it is solved and our lovely OM PO opens again!
That’s where the card and pic are I bet!!!
Exactly! Makes me so mad!
No worries – you’re on the right track!!! The mystery continues!!!
If I lived closer I’d fill in. I left the PO in August. Miss it at times.