The other day the Daily Southtown featured a mail carrier from the Mount Greenwood station who lamented about the days gone by when his van was full of packages, like a government Santa Claus. They were the good old days, the sentiment went. But in my experience, Mount Greenwood's letter carriers - and specifically the post office itself - are among the most disappointing in the city.

The carrier - whose coworkers make on average $67,000 annually - told the paper that a lot has changed over the years. And it has: The Postal Service has experienced a 10-billion item decrease just from last year alone, and overall the amount of mail in Chicago has decreased by about 5%.

But the frustrations haven't. Several times a month I open my mail box to find neighbors' letters while she regularly calls my wife to tell her that she's got some mail waiting next door.

And forget about making a "quick" stop at the post office on 111th Street. Last week eight of us stood in line as one clerk assisted customers while the other two decided to step in the back room for a few minutes. Only after 10 minutes did I realize that the credit card system was down ... and even then I only happened to overhear one of the clerks alert a coworker of that fact. They never even made a public announcement to those of us in line, credit cards in hand and blood boiling over.

I've never experienced this level of incompetence in any other ZIP code in the city.

The U.S. Postal Service is considering eliminating one of the six days of the week that mail is delivered, and some post office locations might even be on the chopping block.

Too bad the Postal Service isn't considering eliminating some of the most inefficient mail carriers in the city ... who happen to be delivering what little mail is left in the 60655 ZIP code.