WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) - If you've been waiting much longer than expected for a delivery through the United States Postal Service, you're not the only one.

Last week, Christine Pruitt, Vice President of the local American Postal Workers Union, decided to visit the Wichita mail distribution center after receiving endless complaints from the 250-plus workers she represents there.

"I wanted to see it for myself. Because the frustration in some of their comments was really about why things weren't moving," said Pruitt.

After nearly four decades in the industry, Pruitt says few words could describe how bad it truly was.

"This is the worst I've ever seen it. And probably the most dejected employees I've ever walked around," said Pruitt.

Pruitt says she found the warehouse packed with pallets of mail stacked to the ceiling, overflowing into walkways, untouched for days, sometimes weeks at a time.

She says she was particularly disturbed when she heard a weird sound coming from one of the aisles.

"There were live chicks in this container in the aisle," said Pruitt. "If we hold them the extra day, they die. They can't survive without being delivered."

Pruitt says while the facility is always hiring, it does have enough workers to keep up with the current demand. So the obvious question is, why?

She says that's where things get strange.

"This is a report that tells me when that machine ran," said Pruitt, showing us documentation. "They shut down for the night at 1:25 [am]. Maintenance didn't take the machine until 6:46 in the morning. So again, we've got four and a half hours there that they didn't run the machine."

Pruitt is talking about a new package sorting machine the Wichita hub got in 2021, which was supposed to speed things up.

After studying the reports, she says now, management shuts the machine down for 10-12 hours a day on average.

"They're just holding [mail] for this new machine that they're not using. It's like, why aren't you letting them work it manually? If you're not going to use the machine, let them get it out," said Pruitt.

That's where she says things get even more strange.

Pruitt says even if the machine isn't running, the facility has workers on the clock 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and they're all trained and capable of processing the parcels by hand, which is what they did before getting the new machine in 2021.

"We've always still had manual operations. It's just part of the the nature of the beast, if you want to call it that. But they're not letting them do it," she said.

Pruitt says this leaves oceans of mail sitting stagnant, with nothing the factory full of frustrated workers can do about it.

"Employees take great pride in knowing we got it all done," said Pruitt. "They take great pride in knowing that they're serving the customer. Right now, they're so frustrated they can't see anything. It doesn't look like they're getting ahead. Because they're not."

USPS responded to KAKE News about the situation, saying:

"The Wichita, KS postal facility processes mail and packages 7 days a week and the volumes of mail and packages can fluctuate during processing times. Our Wichita, KS postal employees do an amazing job to reduce the possibility of delays, however, we thank you for bringing this to our attention. The Postal Service is committed to providing the best possible service to our customers and we're proud of the efforts of our Wichita, KS Postal Team to keep America's mail moving."

Pruitt says that as long as she's been doing the job, this whole situation still leaves her with far more questions than answers.