Post office was $3.8 billion in the red last year

Associated Press Via Yahoo News ^ | 11/17/2009 | Randolph E. Schmid

[raccoonradio]

>>and a majority of employees are veterans and it runs about 50-50 dems/repubs

A very small example, but at my postal facility someone put up a pic of W waving and it says “Miss me yet?” A couple of my co-workers wrote, “Yes”.

Oh:and we’re force fed CNN in the break room. I don’t know if I should try to ask that they give us Fox News to be fair and balanced...At least they changed it from CNN-Headline to reg. CNN. Every night we were getting BREAKING NEWS!!!! from
Nancy Grace. Ugh.

[raccoonradio]

>>and in our office we have a desperate need for more help that we’re not going to get.

in our office we’re getting swamped with mail every night, more than before—actually it’s more a case of same amount of mail but less people to sort it...because “so and so, so and so, this guy, and that girl” have taken early retirement...

...and not gotten replaced. Jobs abolished.

[Route797]

Has anyone, other then Newman and Cliff Clavin, ever aspired to grow up and be a Postal worker? it’s a government job with no incentive to do well and no punishment if you don’t. Kind of like communism, it is soulless.

I spent a quarter century at the USPS flogging myself to try to perform well. I can say that the internal pressure to perform can be a much more onerous burden than any applied by a supervisor. There are plenty of good Postal employees, both in rank and file and in management, who try to do their best under difficult circumstances.

[Route797]

The military does not have an alternative that is eliminating its need like the post office.

With the rise of Blackwater type security firms, who knows? In fifty years we may be reading complaints about having to pay for benefits and pensions for "lazy gubmint soldiers."

[dragnet2]

Do we want the government running healthcare when they can’t even run the post office?

Last time I was in a PO, there were 6 cash registers, with one open, occupied by a bloated black female taking about the weather to another black female, moving as slowly as possible, while totally ignoring 30 other people standing in line...

I never want to go to another post office.

[Route797]

I’ve been retired for a couple of years but I feel for the people left in understaffed facilities. It’s a wonderful thing to have a job, but sometimes it can be awfully trying.

[Always Independent]

So I guess Postmaster General will be getting another bonus.

[MortMan]

They shouldn’t order their red ink to be delivered by UPS, then...

[votemout]

Announce a 7 year plan to close the postal service.

Start closing and combining branches. You can begin in downtown Oceanside. Within 7 blocks from my house there are two post offices.

Stop Saturday delivery of mail and stop replacing employees who retire or leave.

Remove any restricton on private mail and delivery services.

Cancel the union contract and pay raises and benefit increases starting July 1, 2010.

[dragnet2]

There are plenty of good Postal employees, both in rank and file bla bla...

The government needs to get the hell out out of the delivering letters and packages business...Gezzz

[votemout]

Isn’t buying stamps online efficient enough for you?

[Erik Latranyi]

In fifty years we may be reading complaints about having to pay for benefits and pensions for "lazy gubmint soldiers."

At least military members do not have a union that funnels money into the liberals' back pockets!

[Skenderbej]

Do you enjoy being a smarmy ass?

[Big Giant Head]

The government needs to get the hell out out of the delivering letters and packages business...Gezzz

Dude, it's Article One, Section Eight. Congress has the power and authority to run the post office.

I won't say the USPS is the best, or the most efficient. They are certainly not, but they're improving. Some times the service is OUTSTANDING. I delivered a package to a lady out in the country, ordered from Amazon the prior day. All the stories and anecdotes about the terrible service are out there, while all the outstanding effort put forth day after day are merely taken for granted.

I would personally like to see the Unions done away with. I don't think they serve much purpose anymore. The massive rules to follow, mind-boggling. Too many upper and mid-level management bean counters doing too little and making the work much more difficult than necessary.

But as far as killing off the Post Office, I would rather kill off things that are NOT included in Article 1 section 8. Remove the spending on unconstitutional stuff and things like the post office won't be a problem anymore.

[muawiyah]

Amazes me too since the highest paid postmasters always made LESS THAN I DID and my retirement is not at 6 figures.

I think you are talking about Postmaster General, and there's usually only one of them at a time. The current guy has a substantial "deferred income" ~ the article about him getting paid $800,000 computed his retirement out for 20 years or thereabouts. Turns out that due to his much shorter tenure as a postal employee (than my own) he will have an annual retirement only marginally better than my own even though his working annual salary was about 80% higher than mine.

Remember, all postal salaries are limited to the same top salaries federal employees get. Plus, postal employees don't get the area differential the federales feed on.

Now, regarding federal retirement in general the average federal employee (non-postal) starts working for the fed at age 35+. That means he's going to retire with 25 to 30 years work time. It's the number of years you work that provide the greatest benefit in federal retirement. These guys who come in at age 50 as federal czars may well leave government with only 4 years and not even qualify for a federal retirement (outside of their 401(k) equivalent. That's one of the reasons you don't see Obama getting any first class talent in his regime. No one with any sense wants to waste 4 years with this bunch of clowns only to find out it doesn't count for a good retirement and it will make it difficult to get a decent job with a respectable organization down the road.

[muawiyah]

Good point ~ the post office is a federal responsibility. Doesn't mean they have to exercise it with USPS but that's a start eh.

Now, about relative levels of efficiency, I believe the USPS continues to be the most efficient postal service in the world, and it still handles about half the mail in the world.

Europeans used to crow about having FASTER SERVICE but that was just for domestic service in a small part of the world. USPS had nearly equal service times from Nome to Miami ~ nothing more to say on that front.

[votemout]

Your comments about the USPS may be received more favorably if you familiarized your self with their services which would stop you from whining about your trip to a post office. Is that too smarmy?

[dragnet2]

The government needs to get the hell out out of the delivering letters and packages business...

Dude, it's Article One, Section Eight bla bla bla

Dude?? Get yourself out of the 1970s, and stop with that babble about delivering packages being in the Constitution. No one cares...

Get the government the hell out of the mail business....Gezzzz

[dragnet2]

And get off the government payroll and go get yourself a real job...Stop being a tax parasite.

[votemout]

I don't have complaints about the service at the post office, but that it has a 3+ billion dollar deficit. It is clear that the service has not adjusted to new technology and how it has impacted communication.

Closing post offices is a political issue. It should be a business decision.

The federal government is too big, as most of us agree, cutting an out-of-date money losing service would go a ways toward government efficiency; and I would hope it might start a trend.