if it was any slower, it wouldn't arrive at all...
Posted on 12/16/2011 3:34:58 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
The U.S. Postal Service announced plans this month to phase out overnight delivery of first-class mail. Postal officials are portraying the decision as a painful but necessary budget-induced departure from a long history of exemplary service. In reality, the Postal Service has been intentionally slowing down first-class mail for almost 50 years. It's time to end the post office's monopoly on letter delivery. [snip]
The Postal Service has gotten away with scorning its customers because it is effectively a federal crime to provide better mail service than the government. The Postal Service has a monopoly over letter delivery (with a limited exemption for urgent, courier-delivered letters costing more than $3). The monopoly, which dates back to the 1840s, has become more indefensible with each passing decade.
When people bought "forever" stamps, they didn't realize that the name referred to the delivery time, not stamp prices. The American people can no longer afford a monopoly more interested in storing letters than in delivering them.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Ok, slower. So the mail we should have gotten on Friday but don’t get till Saturday will now arrive on Tuesday?
Well, management didn't listen. Now the LA Times shows them the back of its hand.
BTW, the LA Times receives SUBSIDIZED preferential periodical rates to send its stuff to libraries all over the world. I think they should pay the full price!
I’m wondering why the anger and the posting of this article. Seems rather mean and vindictive. Also, factually false in many respects.
Don’t use it if you don’t like it.
Monopoly? Really? Where is the law that says that?
Intentionally slowing down delivery for 50 years? wow.
Ought to lay-off half of the USPS (evenly represented at every level of the “corporate” structure), and shift to every-other-day delivery.
Monday-Wednesday-Friday for half, Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday for the other half.
Any business that wants every-day delivery can pay for it, unless they get enough mail that the post office would have to send more than one vehicle to deliver every-other-day.
BUMP! I like your ideas. A ahme they represent too much common sense.
Our mail is great. Often it’s just as fast to send regular mail, rather than two-day with the extra charges.
I would MUCH prefer that if Congress/government has the uncontrollable urge to throw money around, they would throw it the way of the Post Office rather than the likes of a fake business like Solyndra.
if it was any slower, it wouldn't arrive at all...
----
Send treats to the troops...
Great because you did it.
www.AnySoldier.com
(An entirely free service)
I’ve always had a great experience with mail delivery, coming and going. Letter carriers are unsung heroes in my view. CBS did an expose last night of how they are mal-treated by management. No surprise there. My letter carrier told me some hair-raising anecdotes too. God bless them. I always give the mailman or mail-lady a tip at Christmas.
Yes, its a monopoly, declared by the Constitution. When you put a mailbox on your home, it becomes the property of the US. Vandalizing a mailbox is a federal crime. Local, cheapo newspapers and other circulars may not be inserted in it against federal law.
No anger, no ill will intended to postal workers. I note however the irony of the LA Times editorial board toward government monopolies.
The only way the post office can get any better is if they had competition. Unfortunately they do not.
Today I was mailing some packages for a relative. The post office had five windows. Two of them were open. The line was going out the door.
At the end of the line was a woman who only wanted to buy some stamps. She asked a postal employee (who appeared to be trying to leave unnoticed through a side door) if she could help. The employee said, “ I’d like to help you but I’m union and I can’t do that.”
Ordered a ski mask via Amazon on 12-6, shipped USPS from AZ, and got it today in Tx 10 days later. Knowing their ways as I do I very rarely choose this method but could afford to wait just short of a two weeks. As it is, I cut it pretty close. So they have systemic inability to provide timely deliveries, which is a bit a conundrum when it’s their only business. Fail.
Even before the Christmas rush, we were getting mail as late as 7:30 in the evening.
But I haven’t really had a problem with packages taking a long time to arrive.
We ship 5,000 packages a year 1st class and priority and the Post Office does an outstanding job. International too. Are there flaws? Yes. But it’s usually human error and we have plenty of that in my small business.
FedEx and UPS F-up any international shipment we give them. Not because of the paperwork as I use to be a Int specialist at one of those companies. Most of the people they call specialist got their job for other reasons and reject perfect paperwork because they can.
Funny...I have this article in one browser window, and in another I’m dealing with an online merchant who is trying to help me find a package of Christmas gifts the USPS seems to have lost.
It arrived at a branch ten miles from me almost four days ago...and abra kadabra, it vanished...
You can't open them up with just any employee, and I'll assure you not everybody wants to be a window clerk.
Used to be a good job and then this guy Muawiyah and his buddies put in some amazing labor saving systems and devices and suddenly it's just like being strapped to a Millholland machine and cutting boreholes in heads, rods and caps all day long.
So, no, a postal worker wouldn't say that because it's irrelevant, and the system doesn't work that way.
BTW, I worked with the guys that came up with the Jiffy Line (that's the single line that snakes around all over the place feeding the available windows).
You line cutters probably feel really POd about that but it's provably more efficient and saves hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
What kind of stamp do you have to buy in order for them to deliver a baby? (Rimshot)
The USPS had the beginning of something a few decades ago with its Mailgram. The logical modern extension of this would be a Faxmail. Anything that wasn’t indecent could be faxed to a post office and paid for through Paypal to appear in the mailbox of any local customer the next day. However, there would be a limit on the amount of toner you could use for a piece of Faxmail — and violation of this limit would be deemed the crime of blackmail (Rimshot) (Rimshot)
The USPS’ primary purpose is to move letter mail. Parcels are a side item. Always have been. Always will.
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