Biden's America: A visit to the Post Office

Vanity | March 6, 2024 | Anonymous

[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?

[brookwood]

I received an incomprehensible bill from Medicare, which insures about 50 million people and for which I have paid more than $100,000 in taxes easily to participate in. Here is a (redacted) image of the bill:
The bill has 4 columns and says the "Total" is the sum of all 4 columns. So far so good.

But the actual arithmetic is this:

In the first row, the "Total" is Column 2 MINUS column 3, PLUS column 4.

In the second row the "Total" is column 3 MINUS Column 2.

I called the help line and was told to ignore the bill, actually I owe nothing "according to their system". Brothers and Sisters, we are doomed, we have idiots spending and stealing and wasting trillions of dollars.

[mass55th]

"So the postal clerks sat at the counter all day and did virtually no work while on the clock."

Bet they had plenty of greeting cards available for you to purchase for those stamps you couldn't get.

The last time I purchased stamps, I got them from the automated machine in the front lobby. I don't collect stamps, so it doesn't matter which stamps I use for postage. My local post office is the only one available in this area, so there are always long lines, and if I don't have to stand in line, I'm happy.

[DallasBiff]

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

Well I remember when my grandmother got mad when the stamp went up to 8 cents, she blamed Nixon.

[discostu]

Selling stamps is a pretty rare thing at the post office. Sending packages is the big one. And giving packages to people with slips. I can’t remember if the one next to me has the machine for buying stamps.

[mass55th]

"Had a package take 36 hours to wander seventy miles down the road in rural Georgia yesterday..."

A while back, an envelope I mailed from Rome, NY (center of the State), took 10 days to get to my son who lives 1 hour and 45 minutes east of me in Troy, NY. When you mail anything at the Rome Post Office, it goes to Rochester, NY first, which is almost 3 hours west, before it ends up heading back east to its final destination.

[Roadrunner383]

So it’s your impression that postal clerks afix regular postage stamps to outgoing mail, so no stamps for sale, nothing for the clerks to do?

Up here in God’s MAGA country, NW GA, our local post office is pretty efficient. Mail gets delivered on time, they’re always open during posted hours, multiple clerks available when things get busy.

Sorry to interrupt things, go back to the usual b*tching and moaning.

[kawhill]

I live in very rural Kansas and I kid you not if I mail a letter or card to one of my neighbors, maybe only a mile down the road it has to go to Wichita, be processed, and then come back to the Windom post office. It seems to me there is a major malfunction in that whole process.

[surrey]

I had a heck sent to me by certified mail and it took nearly 2 weeks to be delivered. It made it from CA. to NY in 3 days and then bounced from town to town.

[rfreedom4u]

To be a bit fair; they don’t just sell stamps. They also take packages for shipment, do passports and a few other things.

But overall I think it is an inefficient system.

[Eva]

We use a PO Box. Our mail boxes are out on street, about a mile away. We did try delivery for a while, but the driver kept hitting our mail box and knocking the door off. My husband got mad and just took down the box. We didn’t really use it anyway, except for junk mail.

[TangoLimaSierra]

Had a package take 36 hours to wander seventy miles down the road in rural Georgia yesterday...

I've tracked a package coming to me go past my town to 100 miles south, then slowly work it's way back making more detours. Took over a week to make a 2 day delivery.

[wardaddy]

All used up on mail in ballots

[Uncle Lonny]

Good enuf fer government work.

[CIB-173RDABN]

Thanks for the update -

[EinNYC]

I also have a super nice mail lady, but my former local P.O. was “Surly Incompetence Central”. I would go to another P.O., farther away, but which was much nicer and staffed by friendly competent people.

[powerset]

I doubt that is the real reason. I think that the real reason is that it is too expensive to produce new stamps every time the rate goes up, not to mention that people would find it very confusing and/or infuriating to use the correct stamps needed to mail a letter *now*, especially if, for example, they had to use two 63-cent stamps on the day the rate went to 68 cents.

[Jamestown1630]

I’ve always had good experiences with USPS. Again, I’m sure it’s different in different areas.