A Postal Rant

[Utah Bob #35998]

Delivery will now take longer as the Postal Service tries to cut back and reduce their debt.

 

Here's my rant. It's not against the Postal Service. It's against the Congress. The USPS receives no taxpayer dollars. They are expected to pay their own way yet deliver a myriad of services efficiently and at a bargain price. It ain't gonna happen.

I expect mail delivery to be a government function. Maybe I'm wrong but I would rather my tax dollars get spent on something I use other than pi**ing it away on foreign aid, entitlements, and stupid government programs that benefit no one. Sure the USPS pensions are high. Would you want to do a repetitive thankless job like mail sorting and delivery? Not me. Not without a good benefits package I wouldn't. The whole idea of privatizing the USPS was stupid.

Fund the post office and be done with it you idiots. Use the tax dollars where they'll do some good! Arggghhhh!!

 

Rant off, I think my biscuits are done. (some would disagree)

[Old Scatterbrain]

Delivery will now take longer as the Postal Service tries to cut back and reduce their debt.

 

Here's my rant. It's not against the Postal Service. It's against the Congress. The USPS receives no taxpayer dollars. They are expected to pay their own way yet deliver a myriad of services efficiently and at a bargain price. It ain't gonna happen.

I expect mail delivery to be a government function. Maybe I'm wrong but I would rather my tax dollars get spent on something I use other than pi**ing it away on foreign aid, entitlements, and stupid government programs that benefit no one. Sure the USPS pensions are high. Would you want to do a repetitive thankless job like mail sorting and delivery? Not me. Not without a good benefits package I wouldn't. The whole idea of privatizing the USPS was stupid.

Fund the post office and be done with it you idiots. Use the tax dollars where they'll do some good! Arggghhhh!!

 

Rant off, I think my biscuits are done. (some would disagree)

I generally agree with you. I have never understood why people bash the USPS so. Certainly it has its problems, but it is the only government "program" which I can use one day, and not the next. There is no mandatory participation; I am free to go elsewhere to ship packages, or use facsimile or e-mail to send documents. At the same time, I don't have to fill out a mountain of paperwork to apply. I don't have to "qualify"; so long as I have a few coins in my pocket, I'm good. And, once I use the USPS, they don't assign a case manager to tell me how to run my life.

[Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172]

Bob, I think IDIOTS is the operative word here.

 

Rarely does the government do anything that is rational and has a modicum of common sense to it.

I believe common sense is outlawed in Government circles.

[Gateway Kid SASS# 70038 Life]

Until recently my experiences with the USPS were pretty positive. But in the last year or so my daily delivery shows up at about 7:30 PM (sometimes later) and we now get Saturday delivery on a random basis and sometimes not at all.

The lady who used to deliver the mail retired last spring (good for her after 30 + years) and we have a different mailperson with each delivery . The biggest problem with that is one will bundle up the magazines and mail (meaning we get multiple persons mail in our box) and the next will put our mail in who knows who's box. (currently tracking an order that was shipped USPS 3 weeks ago )

I have a great deal of respect for anyone who will consent to perform such a thankless task but right now is not the time for the USPS to be asking me to "bite the bullet" as they reduce an already suspect service even further.

 

I am with ya UB!

in the words of the immortal Elwood Blues "how about a biscuit?!!!"

 

Regards

 

 

Gateway Kid

[Loophole LaRue, SASS #51438]

The world has changed. We don't send common letters anymore - it's email.

 

Look at your mail for a week - it's 90% or more junk mail, and most of the rest is bills. I can see why the need for overnight delivery of the material that is commonly sent by mail is fading.

 

It's going to be painful, but the USPS has to adjust to the modern realities of what folks are actually sending and what kind of service they actually need. If it were a government service, it would be much harder to change.

 

I use the US Mail rarely; if it were gone tomorrow, it would have little impact on my life.

 

LL

[Chantry]

Until recently I was generally pro post office, but of the 2 boxes I shipped recently, one arrived heavily damaged and one has gone missing, despite being a "2 Day Priority Flate Rate" package.

 

If the boxes I am expecting as a result of my Christmas shopping show up the same way, I will probably start paying bills online and ship through UPS.

 

Crappy customer service and damaged packages doesn't cut it.

[Clueless Bob]

I may be living up to my alias, but I just don't understand. They are not governmently funded, but any changes they want to make to help themselves and even try to make a profit, they have to have the governments permission. With gas at $3+ a gallon, the price of a stamp does't cover the cost to get my letter to the Post Office.

[J-BAR #18287]

I still pay my bills with handwritten checks mailed to the payee. It gives me an illusion of control. I dislike the thought of paying on line, or worse, automatic withdrawal; too many stories about computer foulups and hackers stealing identity.

 

Yeah, I'm a Luddite. What did you expect from a Frontiersman!!

[Utah Bob #35998]

I may be living up to my alias, but I just don't understand. They are not governmently funded, but any changes they want to make to help themselves and even try to make a profit, they have to have the governments permission. With gas at $3+ a gallon, the price of a stamp does't cover the cost to get my letter to the Post Office.

 

They are not govt funded but they are govt controlled.

 

Sound familiar?

[Grouchy Greg, SASS#71981]

The world has changed. We don't send common letters anymore - it's email.

 

Look at your mail for a week - it's 90% or more junk mail, and most of the rest is bills. I can see why the need for overnight delivery of the material that is commonly sent by mail is fading.

 

It's going to be painful, but the USPS has to adjust to the modern realities of what folks are actually sending and what kind of service they actually need. If it were a government service, it would be much harder to change.

 

I use the US Mail rarely; if it were gone tomorrow, it would have little impact on my life.

 

LL

=============================================================

90% of my email is junk too, even with the spam filter set high, but the delete button takes care of that. Wish there was a delete button for unwanted snail mail.

[Wimpy Hank Yoho]

Just thought I'd add my 2 cents here.

I think the Post Office does a Fine job here in my area.

I too hand write checks for my bills and use the USPS to send them in.

I would also mention, I live 35 plus miles from UPS and other places to ship things.

I use the USPS for all my package sending needs.

I have mailed out I would venture to say over a hundred

packages per year for over 15 years. I only remember 2 times,

packages showed up late,( but they did show up,)

and I only know of one time a package was damaged in transit.

Yep, Bob, Congress, I won't go there, Cuz' we ain't supposed to !

[Gunner Gatlin, SASS 10274L]

Like ALL civil government programs - it is a failing enterprise...

 

 

No surprise here.

 

 

 

GG ~

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

"The Post Office is nothing to write home about"

 

(Alfred E Neuman, Mad Magazine mid '70s)

 

 

[Captain Woodrow Cahill, SASS # 54363]

I have a hard time being sympathetic towards anyone making $89,000 a year with $8,000 in bonuses who can't read a four-digit house number and put the correspondingly addressed envelope in the right box.

 

Thanks to these pinheads I have almost had my insurance cancelled and been late on a mortgage payment because they can't perform a task so simple that if my dog had thumbs he could do it.

 

Not to mention the surly attitude you have to put up with when you complain about the shoddy service.

 

"Not responsible for lost or misdirected mail" my butt.

[Dusty Balz, SASS#46599]

Fedex -profitable

 

UPS----profitable

 

USPS---Government Run

 

 

here ends the lesson

[Hacker, SASS #55963]

Please guys don't be so cruel to the Post Office. After all it was designed by a famous American, Benjamin Franklin more than 200 years ago.

It has remained virtually unchanged since that time.

 

IIRC At one point the Post Office had a legal monopoly on delivering letters.

I wonder if that still exists. Or was that fiction.

Remember that what Fedex, UPS and other express companies deliver are not really letters.

 

I do think there are better ways of handling things than to slow down the mail.

In a day and age when speed is everything.

[Rye Miles #13621]

It's time to privatize it, that's if they can get someone to buy it! It's run by a bunch of idiots who have no business sense whatsoever and mix that in with gov't control which ties the idiots hands and you wonder why it loses money???? This is a no brainer! :wacko:

[Utah Bob #35998]

Every time the government tries to privatize something it's a disaster!

[Major E A Sterner #12916]

Privatizing the USPO will never work because nobody want to take on the nonprofitable routes,UPS,FedEx etc would only want to deliver to the easy access addresses.

[Matthew Duncan]

When demand for services went down the USPS was locked into the high cost of union labor

 

Now the only to become profitable is to reduce services and or go bankrupted to eliminate debt

[Long Branch Louie]

I lived in Mexico for 4 years. If you mail a letter in Mexico, it has about a 70% chance of not getting there, more if it looks valuable. Forget about in 2-3 days, I'm talking about not at all. Anything that matters must go UPS or Fedex, and that don't always work, we had a $60,000.00 mold that was in a Fedex truck when it was stolen, never recovered. I'd pay a few more cents to send a letter, but only if some of the postal benefits are reduced to levels like the rest of us enjoy. But if you figure the percentage of mail delivered on-time every day, the USPS does pretty good. Not so for the Federal governemnt....

[Captain Woodrow Cahill, SASS # 54363]

You'll like this one Matthew - the USPS ought to adopt the same pricing structure the Confederate Postal Service used.

 

They charged based on the distance involved.

Within a certain radius = one stamp. Next zone out = two stamps. Really long distance = three stamps.

 

The country is about 2860 miles from Maine to California, so if you divide by three, anything within 950 miles of the sender would be one stamp; 1900 miles gets two; beyond that three. Couldn't be easier.

[Yukon Charley, SASS Life #14739]

Postal employees have some of the best work benefits in the nation & hats off to 'em, but it could be their ruination, too. Our local postmaster said the USPS is having to fund salary & benefit packages 75 years in advance, thus funding staff that haven't even been born yet. I'd really hate to see the federal gov't take over ANY service at this point. Look how well the feds did with TSA!!!!!

[Mean Matt McCord, SASS #24683]

Delivery will now take longer as the Postal Service tries to cut back and reduce their debt.

 

Here's my rant. It's not against the Postal Service. It's against the Congress. The USPS receives no taxpayer dollars. They are expected to pay their own way yet deliver a myriad of services efficiently and at a bargain price. It ain't gonna happen.

I expect mail delivery to be a government function. Maybe I'm wrong but I would rather my tax dollars get spent on something I use other than pi**ing it away on foreign aid, entitlements, and stupid government programs that benefit no one. Sure the USPS pensions are high. Would you want to do a repetitive thankless job like mail sorting and delivery? Not me. Not without a good benefits package I wouldn't. The whole idea of privatizing the USPS was stupid.

Fund the post office and be done with it you idiots. Use the tax dollars where they'll do some good! Arggghhhh!!

 

Rant off, I think my biscuits are done. (some would disagree)

 

UB, the Fed will not fund them because there are no votes to be bought. Simple as that.

[Turkey Creek Vic 80846]

The USPS has to fund retirement by law in advance to the tune of billions of dollars. No company can fund 20years in advance. Its what killing the PO. Congress will not allow them to manage there affairs so they can survive in an ever changing world. They are doomed by act of Congress.I know I retired 9 years ago after 36 years with them.

[Iditarod Kid]

Just my two pennies, but here goes....... The Postal Service was founded as a way to bind the country together, as a service (remember USPS!); a governmental agency providing a service to each and every citizen. It is hard work, and yes, the pay can be very good for that hard work. If the USPS cuts way back as proposed, UPS and FedEx will also suffer, as they rely on the USPS to deliver many of their lower service packages now. The USPS has been relying on casual ( read: part-time ) workers more and more in recent years, as older workers retire. The real problems arose when the USPS was semi-privatized. If you think that the service is costly and bad, look at some Euro countries ( German BundesPost stamps' cost can take your breath away. You know how reliable the mail service in Russia is, right ? ) Utah Bob had the right idea in mind in his post about funding. ( By the way, I'm not a postal worker ) ......

See you down the trail......

[Rye Miles #13621]

Every time the government tries to privatize something it's a disaster!

 

 

...

 

What has the gov't tried to privatize that turned into a disaster, refresh my memory please??

 

I know everything they run is a disaster!!! Rye

[Subdeacon Joe]

It always happens with those strong, silent types. I knew one day Utah Bob would go postal.

[Marty Mudd]

It always happens with those strong, silent types. I knew one day Utah Bob would go postal.

 

 

That's funny rat ther; Joe!

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Maybe if that same government that doesn't fund but does control the USPS was to start paying for the mail that THEY send out instead of allowing "franking" for government mail, we'd see the USPS become solvent almost overnight. I get stuff from every government agency in the country and see no indication that any of it is paid for.

 

I'd also like to see bulk rates disappear for the tons of crap that I get sent every day wanting me to buy something that I don't want, don't need, and never heard of. How many pairs of shoes can anyone want and from how many sources? For example, ads arrive three or four days a week for five or six different shoe stores...not to mention the other stores that also sell shoes along with everything else...each with 60-70 pictures of all the shoes they carry.

 

Let's dump bulk rates for political pollution, too. Why shoud they get lower rates so they can annoy me?

[Subdeacon Joe]

 

 

Let's dump bulk rates for political pollution, too. Why shoud they get lower rates so they can annoy me?

 

Because it's fun?

[Pack Saddle Slim, SASS #73122]

I really have no problem with the Post Office. I remember forty years ago when it cost six cents to mail a letter. I did some research on this and found that it still costs six cents to mail a letter...but it costs thirty-eight cents for storage.

[Dirty Dan Dawkins]

It gives me an illusion of control.

 

I will have to remember that line. Very funny.

[Muleshoe Bill SASS #67022]

Bob, postal retirement is not generous, those hired after 1984 the retirement is basiclly social security plus whatever the employee put into a Thrift Savings account, with the USPS making matching payment up to 7 percent. That thrift savings is tied to several different government managed funds based on stock market, government bonds, or foreign stock markets. the Thrift savings have not made any money in last 3 years, most peoples deposits remain flat or even lost money. The older retires are Civil Service retirement and for example after 30 years that is monthly $2571 (minus survivor reduction of $235, income tax, health insurance, medicare and optional life insurance and dental and vision insurance)take home is about 1700 a month. If you survive to work 42 years the base is $3657 with take home of about 2500.

 

Pay at top rate for city mail carriers is about 56K a year, Some folks manage to earn an additional 25 K a year working overtime working 10 - 12 hour days 6 days a week. Management mostly tops out at 110K a year for a PM of a large town. most line managers or supervisors make 65 -75K a year working 60 hour weeks.

Post office nationally has not been hiring replacement carriers or clerks for several years. They do hire temporary employees who are contracted for one year terms and can be fired at will. They really do not have any reason to work hard or excel. They have no health insurance, no retirement benefit.

The real story is that there are about 1 supervisor to every 12 employees

[Badlands Bob #61228]

I'm not personally familiar with the inner workings of the USPS but it seems like they have way too many post offices to be efficient. Every little town and village has their own post office. This includes counter clerks and a post master. We have 7 post offices in my county and our population is about 45,000. Sounds like about 6 too many post offices. UPS has regional hubs that serve many counties with privately owned UPS stores scattered about that provide a variety of services.

 

I say get the politicians out and sell the whole thing to UPS or FedEx and see what happens.