Posted on 03/06/2024 11:39:14 AM PST by PBRCat
A paid a visit to the local Post Office today. At the counter, I was told that the branch had no postage stamps available for purchase.
None, nada, zero.
How is this possible?
My U.S. mail lady gets a nice gift every Christmas, because I’ve never had a problem with mail; and before she came on the job, if anything was returned to the post office, I just had to call and have it redelivered. I know a lot of people have problems with the Post Office, and it could be different in different areas, but I’ve never had a problem with the U.S. Mail.
(FedEx is another story...)
I heard the same thing from a postal worker to the woman right in front of me about a month ago.
18 eggs 🥚🥚🥚 at WalMart were $1.85 on sale 3-4 months ago
Went back up to $2.24 afterwards
TODAY $4.12.
I walked away.
Thanks, Democrat Joe Biden!!
24 pack soda pop $4.98 under President Donald Trump
TODAY, $8.54 - bought it though
Thanks, Democrat Joe Biden!!
2 litre soda pop $0.88 under President Donald Trump
TODAY $1.68
I walked away from that as well
Thanks, Democrat Joe Biden!!
Yes. That was a very good idea.
Pay your bills early during the holidays. Companies will claim it’s the post office’s fault if you get a late charge. Lie. When other payments arrive in plenty of time, then that’s proof, imo, companies are gouging customers with plausible excuses. Funny how it’s always the same company and other customers get the same story.
Some PO branches do not sell postage at all, usually posted at entrances. Others sell postage only in vending machines.
In 1970, a first-class mail postage stamp cost 6 cents. In 1980 it was 16 cents. Today it’s 63 cents. I still have “forever” stamps. I don’t mail letters anymore. We will see the $1 stamp soon.
I worked at the post office for ten years before I retired and this is probably the fault of the manager /post master for not ordering more supplies. When I worked there most of them were incompetent with awful personalities.
You are lucky. My post office contracts deliveries out to a third party agency. Who hires unqualified underpaid and over worked employees who burn out in 6 months. And another takes their place.
Our community has cluster mailboxes at the gate. There’s always someone else’s mail in our mailboxes.
There is a great service from USPS called Informed Delivery. Each morning I get an email of the snail mail that is to be delivered each day. It’s the bestest.
I tried to mail a box on my last visit.
The only requirements were size, length plus width plus height must be under 108” total.
The clerk would measure length plus width plus length again plus width again plus height (on the floor because she didn’t want to lift the 42lb box to her work area). which was then deemed entirely to large to ship.
No amount of remedial area mathematics would penetrate her ridiculous hairdo and underlying cement skull.
I ended up taking it to UPS and was assisted by a professional.
In our Post Office they can’t keep employees. They have 21 openings and no one stays more than a couple months. They say the reason is that they are all contract employees, due to the deal with Amazon. The jobs don’t pay any benefits. The whole reason that people want to work at the post office is because of benefits. The Post Office is so under staffed that mail is only delivered three times a week.
I have a relative who uses ‘Informed Delivery’ and finds it useful. I haven’t felt the need for it, but I’ll keep it in mind.
Contract employees.
Yep. See my post 29 for my experiences with contract employees.
Maintaining post offices and post roads is one of the Constitutional functions of Congress. However, the US Post Office Department was dissolved in 1970 and replaced by an "independent agency" called the US Postal Service, in order to permit unionization and remove supervision from the Executive Branch.
In my first year as a letter carrier, I wore the pony on my shoulder:
After 1970, it was THIS:
We buys stamps at the grocery store or Costco.
Sears used to be the worst. Funny that they are gone now. Entirely due to incompetence.
Another corrupt trick that banks do is to run all the debits each morning and then run the credits. This way they can charge more late fees. Bank of Utah used to do this. Got me twice. Since I changed to a credit union, no probs.
Yes. And, to be honest, the postal service actually delivers something of value, and it is by far not the worst of what the government has to offer.
Sadly, most government services are a lot worse!
The actual price or the “shrinkflation” price?
A first class stamp used to get a letter from NYC to LA. Now it only gets to Albuquerque.
We recently had the occasion involving notaries to send some paperwork back and forth via USPS. Between two cities only 1,000 miles apart, first class USPS took 10 days. Priority Mail took....9 days! Absolutely abysmal service.
Overnight service on UPS was $90 for those wondering.
A lot of grocery stores also
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