The Insanity of the United States Postal Service

Quote: petroglyph

Oh no, you take me wrong. I like the USPS, have friends that retired from there. I think it works pretty efficiently for what it has to do.

I see the USPS get screwed by admin after admin. From years in Ak. there are many stories of people mailing all the building materials in village where shipping would make small houses cost enormous sums. The rules that the postal service are hampered with are written my the owners of Fed Ex and Brown, and by their campaign contributions. Heck, I've mailed 16 inch truck tires though the postal service from Anchorage to Kodiak Island, it was cheap. There are some funny things that get mailed. I'm sure the postal people hate some of us for the things they have to handle. My biggest complaint with them is they are top heavy with management. The only way to get rid of someone on the crew that won't produce is to upgrade them to management, where they never leave.

I also lived in one town similar to what you mentioned, it was "Wagon Tire" Ore., population 3 at the time. Don't know what's become of the place, but it was pretty small. Enjoyed the jackrabbit elimination project, by .22 rimfire. Good ole days.

The only organization in the entire world that has to fund their retirement 50 years into the future. What a crock.

Thank-You, I don't think that most people in this thread understand how unprecedented and absurd that is.....


But, to be fair to their management that is one organization you have to work your way up. You generally can't get hired as a local post-master, you have to work your way up as a postal employee (the board of Govenors is a different matter, presidential appointments), so it is an organization that believes on promoting from within, they don’t just make some random former CEO with a MBA a local postmaster when they need to fill the position, that is why many are down to earth compred to other management....

All of that being said all of their employees and management are limited by stiffling regulation and requirements that would make any buisness struggle to survive let alone turn a profit....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpdrCXROHRo&t=40s


This is a great quick documentary from Business Insider this May on the history and the changes in profits from the 2006 bill.
(The prefunding and price controls for stamps are the main source of the issues).


Apparently packages seem to be the one potential savior:
"First, regular mail—that is, the ordinary letters sent by individuals and businesses on a daily basis—is a declining business; volume-per-end-point (the mailbox) declined by 3.4% this year. Overall, regular mail is down 35% over the past 10 years. The problem is that the cost to deliver doesn’t decline with lower volume: the USPS still has to send a delivery person to each mailbox no matter how many pieces are delivered. And the number of delivery points increases by about 1 million each year. And the USPS can’t increase costs to fix its problem because the government has limited how it can increase price to the rate of inflation, currently 0.9%. This all means that USPS non-package revenue declined by 2% since last year while costs increased."

"For the first three months of 2018, revenue from shipping and packages (the competitive side of the market that delivers packages for companies like Amazon) was up 9.5%. That growth rate is above that of related current expenses like current employees and transportation. So even though Trump says that Amazon is the enemy of the post office, it seems that Amazon may be the only bright spot in the USPS’s financial squeeze—which is induced by the government of which Trump is now the chief executive."


https://qz.com/1276332/usps-loses-a-lot-of-money-because-of-the-us-government/


But, even so there needs to be reform. There either needs to be the ability to control the price of stamps more, or more freedom in operation (and no more prefunding).

Quote: Face

Likewise! =)



Of course not! =)



Nah, I was an asocial recluse before it was an executive order. The loss of hockey, though, will probably be my undoing.

Whatever. "It is what it is".



Same great Face, less feelings.

Face. It's great to see you still kicking. I've read this thread of your posts entirely, skipping over all the 'members' who for some reason or another feel they need to hijack your thread to talk about themselves and etc etc. So many of the same people so off topic.

Anyways, you are such a talented writer, whether you believe it or not. Perhaps you should seriously consider writing short stories, or submit articles to boating mags, racing mags or even sports. Things you know and are comfortable with. You don't need to stay indoors to write. I know a blog may be too much trouble, but people are making money with their blogs which are absolute wastes of electricity with click bait headlines. I doubt you have to resort to that shit.

I feel you about hockey, it doesn't look good here even for drop in. Going to suck.

And could you consider visiting your 'fishing with face' thread and post a quick comment. There are some ignorant comments made in your absence that perhaps you may think of rectifying. Or not.

Please keep what ever faith you have that supports the strength, I don't mean religion either.
I care that you stay safe.

I logged in just to post this for this thread as most other stuff on this site isn't very intellectually challenging.

""The only organization in the entire world that has to fund their retirement 50 years into the future. What a crock.""

That's because they use that money every day to operate. It's a bank account. Does anyone really believe they lock it up?

And I forgot to mention that because of your post about what pisses off rc's, I went out and looked at my mailbox. It's steel, well secured, but not close enough to the road and I will rectify that in short order. However, I noticed that the front plastic handle was broken off and I never gave it much thought.

So, I found a nice large metal handle, installed it on the front door where the other one was, and then cleaned up the inside as I found some possible sharp edges that could scrape or cut a person and fixed those as well. I always wave to our mail person and today coming home I happen to pull up to the front of my house to wait for him to deliver my mail and leave so I could turn around and back in.
As he was passing by, we waved then he smiled and looked back at the box and then gave me a thumbs up and a nod. That felt good, and it was because of your writing what you did. A simple fix that I wasn't really thinking outside of myself about. Thanks for that.

You have value in many ways to many people. Don't stop believing in yourself.

Take care and be safe.

Quote: rupertJ

""The only organization in the entire world that has to fund their retirement 50 years into the future. What a crock.""

That's because they use that money every day to operate. It's a bank account. Does anyone really believe they lock it up?

There's not a business in the world* that doesn't use all money they take in to operate, you are absolutely correct no doubt.

* OK surely somebody can find some outfit somewhere that does it different but I bet it ain't the post office

I'm Still Standing, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah [it's an old guy chant for me]

Quote: ams288

Wish Face was around to give his thoughts on Donny’s sabotage of the post office.

Will this do?



Commissioned last week, delivered 3 weeks earlier than promised. They must've been inspired =)

Rare to wear new threads at that dirty job, but someone's gotta do it. I go ahead and set the O/U on customer complaints at 0.Idontgiveaf#$%

Quote: rupertJ

Face. It's great to see you still kicking.

And you as well. Apologies for my failure to respond; this is attempt #13 I've made to do so, but I just haven't been able to get it out. Keep going way off topic and they've all been far too venomous.

...and now that I've just erased #13, I'll just end it here. Ain't fixin' catch a 1st degree charge over some bullshit.

Be well, my friend.

Thank you Face. Even the attempt is very appreciated.

Stay safe yourself.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3076

So they are trying to fix part of the retirement situation, that I havd been warning about. If this passes and USPS becomes profitable again (even with being forced to keep money losing routes), the right will have nothing that they can say.

Personally, I mailed something overnight through USPS on Tuesday, by Wednsdsy afternoon it arrived in Philadephia and they even emailed the signature receipt from the agency. Its pretty impressive (especially because they warned be that it was not going to be delivered for two days, for it was a day early). I have never had a bad experience with USPS, if anything, I am usually impressed.