Posted on 03/04/2010 7:45:24 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Have you ever heard of STAMPS.COM ? essentially you can get stamps online now instead of goign to the Post Office. I wonder if the advent of companies like these affects the USPS revenue...
And some folks want these same clowns running health care.....
You are wrong. I was recently informed by Freeper "muawiyah" that long waits at USPS counters are the fault of the customers. /s
About 3 years ago management of the USPS decided to pull all of the clocks out of the lobbies so that we wouldn’t know the waits were long. LOL!
ROFLOL!!
How about just break-even?
I hate stamps, period. The local (often closed) POS post office no longer has a vending machine for single first class stamps in the increasingly rare case when I need to post something. The one I was able to find one charged me a dollar something for two “first class forever” (yeah, right) stamps. Online bill payments are great, pity it takes away work from the hard-working post office. Pity.
Like that’s ever going to happen. Sure it would be nice, but let’s face it with that many billions of things and billions of dollars running around a budget it’s not going to happen. As it is USPS will be shipping over 190 billion items this year, and lose under 4 billion dollar, or about 1.6 cents an item. It’s only the sheer volume of what they’re doing that that makes the loss so big. If they had FedEx’s volume and maintained their 1.6 cents an item loss it would take them 4 or 5 years to lose enough to buy an F16. But they don’t have FedEx’s volume, they have hundred of times FedEx’s volume.
Not at all like an auto parts store eh!
Ah, government efficiency on display for all to see. Time to hand over another 6th of the economy to these folks.
Don't forget this reason why the Postal Service will fail:
NEWMAN: "Do not bend"? (Laughs evilly) Just crease, crumple, cram.. you'll do fine.
This happens a lot in the post offices I use. Customers come poorly prepared to conduct their business. I always come with everything I know I will need, what service I want, and money to pay for it all in a convenient manner. Then it's like bang-bang and you're out of there. The only time I've been angry is when the clerks just leave the counter and go in the back seemingly for no reason. They aren't getting anything for a customer, they aren't bringing supplies to the counter. It's just like, they go away. And no, I don't think it's for potty breaks, unless there is an epidemic of weak bladders in the USPS.
The only mail I receive that I have no alternate method of communication, is the mail from my local government. Water bills, tax statements, etc.
Come to the Lynnwood, WA (ZIP 98046) postal office sometime. You’ll see that 20+ minute line, and an APC that will only sell 3 stamps at a time, minimum (unless you want to purchase priority mail stamps, or certified delivery, in which case you’re looking at $3.20+ minimum).
I use the downtown Edmonds branch - 4 miles away - which never has the line, but still has the APC limitation of 3 stamps minimum.
You now swipe your badge at various check points so they can track you.
Then there’s the once a month “special trip” people, they’ve got a bunch of stuff to go out, a bunch of slips for stuff to pickup, and they want to review all the new stamps before buying 2 sheets. There’s a whole slew of unprepared people out there. I see them at the drive-up ATMs too, they don’t seem to be doing anything out of the norm for an ATM, but somehow it takes them 5 minutes.
Yeah the disappearing clerk thing can be annoying, but I’ve worked retail enough to guess it’s probably related to a supervisor that said “you’ll go on break at 3:15” and has a history of complete freakouts if they check the clock records and find out the person went on break at 3:16. Makes no sense on our side of the counter, but when you’ve got to deal with a manager that thinks the most important thing is whether or not you did exactly what they said you learn to stop caring about the customer just to keep the peace.
Pretty much, though my water bill is paid automatically, so I just glance at the monthly bill to make sure I haven't sprung a leak somewhere. I don't think it would be too hard for them to set up user accounts online.
Funny though that my annual registration fees reminder for my LLC's are sent by email, and I pay them online. I pay my car tags online, as well.
Obviously, the need for the Post Office, in it's traditional configuration, has been mitigated significantly by technology.
Ours is a 5 stamp max, which was kind of entertaining when we had nearly a full roll of old 1 cent too little stamps. 5 1 cent stamps, 5 1 cent stamps, 5 1 cent stamps...... They really need a “do it again” button.
If I were the Postmaster General, the first thing I would do is eliminate all flyers and coupons.
The funny thing is that I pay those manually mailed statements with my on line checking account. I wish they would figure out how to post the statements on line. Then I could remove my mail box!
;-)
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