Squeaky wheel getting grease, or coincidence? (USPS)

[lauradi7dw]

I ordered a mask. I got a shipping notice on August 31st, saying they had send it first class mail, and giving me a tracking number. When I checked the tracking number the next week, the page informed me that things were slow, but it was on the way, and had reached DC on September 4th. I started checking every day, same message (ie no progress since the 4th). On the 16, I followed the menu chain on the USPS site and filed a request for more details about the tracking. It asked a lot of questions, including my phone number. Later that afternoon I got a call from someone who felt that it might have been lost by the PO, but he told me to wait until the 21st (three weeks) before giving up on them. The following day (yesterday the 17th), I got half a dozen emails from them, and the mask arrived in our mailbox, with URGENT stamped on the envelope. Was it a coincidence, or did my request make someone wander around a sorting station somewhere (or my local PO, come to that) and manage to find it? We'll never know. We still receive mail every day but Sunday, but I'm a little concerned about our delivery anyway. I correspond by mail with someone in Jamaica Plain, less than 20 miles away. I have been including a self-addressed postcard in my letters, asking for received and sent dates. He seems to receive it 3-4 days from when I send it in Lexington. I get the postcard back more like 5 days from when he sends it. I know that all mail in the Boston area gets routed through the facility near South Station, even things that one is sending next door, but that seems excessively slow. I got a small package from Vermont in two days. The anniversary card my sister sent from Washington state to my parents got there in four days.