Another Postal Service rip-off.

[yellowperil]

Unlike a private corporation, USPS can't close a store just because it's in an unprofitable area. I read somewhere that the majority of post offices in America are losing money, but mail service has to be extended everywhere, not only urban areas.

Also as noted the cost of sterilizing mail and the inevitable transition to electronic postage adds to the cost.

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: AmusedOne
.34 to .37 is an 8.8% increase.

When did the rate go to .34? I think it was 1999? Has inflation gone up 8.8% since 1999. Probably not. I believe it's been at 1-1.5% a year since then. Which begs the question, why is the increase higher than the rate of inflation?

I will offer at the very least that the rate was .25 for many years, and they only raised it when they absolutely had to. If they raised it slightly each year in keeping with inflation, you'd proably be paying like 60 cents...

 

[XZeroII]

To all the geniuses that know the answer to Postal woes, please go take the test and join where you can have a real effect. I'm sure a 25% handicap for the retarded minorities will pose no real obstacle.

Welcome to the real world. According to your beloved Darwin, Survival of the Fittest. There are no handicaps in nature. If you are retarded and can't make it on your own, you will not survive.

 

[Moonbeam]

XZero11, I'm not sure what your point is, but as you can clearly see, many get as far a posting.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: PsychoAndy
IMHO, the USPS has several things wrong with it


#5 Delivery. I could live with regular mail coming 3 times a week, Monday Wednesday and Friday. It would save me numerous trips to the mailbox. That could save them a fortune.

3 Day a week delivery would be quite acceptable. It also makes no sense to deliver mail to each house. At the very least mail should only be delivered to the subdivision. IF you want your mail delivered to you doorstep, that would need to be fee for service.

 

[Evadman]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: PsychoAndy
IMHO, the USPS has several things wrong with it


#5 Delivery. I could live with regular mail coming 3 times a week, Monday Wednesday and Friday. It would save me numerous trips to the mailbox. That could save them a fortune.

3 Day a week delivery would be quite acceptable. It also makes no sense to deliver mail to each house. At the very least mail should only be delivered to the subdivision. IF you want your mail delivered to you doorstep, that would need to be fee for service.

I have no problem with that. it is an awesome idea.

 

[Bluefront]

I'm going to ignore anything moony says...I think he went off the deep end. Here's another few ideas:

Right now first class mail is paying for cheap third class mail. I suggest we eliminate third class....make companies pay the same rate as private citizens. After all they're getting virtually the same service without paying the price. This would also go a long way to eliminating junk mail.

I also suggest we eliminate free mail for congress and senate. I personally get junk mail at least four times a year from stupid Dick Gephardt. Unfortunately I'm in his district. I hate to think what this costs the tax payer, made up for no doubt by increased postal rates.

I think saving money, having a lean efficient USPS, keeping rates low, is right at the bottom of their things to do list. It should be at the top.

 

[Entity]

The USPS is now being faced with declining mail volume. The more they raise stamps, the more electronic billing paying will be used. Would suck to be in charge of the USPS right now.

Wrong.

http://www.postalfacts.com/losingmoney.htm

Volume has been, and is continuing to, increase over the last several years.

Rob

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Entity

The USPS is now being faced with declining mail volume. The more they raise stamps, the more electronic billing paying will be used. Would suck to be in charge of the USPS right now.

Wrong.

http://www.postalfacts.com/losingmoney.htm

Volume has been, and is continuing to, increase over the last several years.

Rob

So that's why I have so much more junk mail in my mailbox, huh?

Today I send 60% less snail mail than I did just 4 years ago. Yet I recieve at least 300% more junk mail. Is the USPS staying alive by increasing bulk mail while private letters are declining?

 

[Cyberian]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: PsychoAndy
IMHO, the USPS has several things wrong with it


#5 Delivery. I could live with regular mail coming 3 times a week, Monday Wednesday and Friday. It would save me numerous trips to the mailbox. That could save them a fortune.

3 Day a week delivery would be quite acceptable. It also makes no sense to deliver mail to each house. At the very least mail should only be delivered to the subdivision. IF you want your mail delivered to you doorstep, that would need to be fee for service.

It would be fine with me too, but I think most businesses would object.

Right now first class mail is paying for cheap third class mail. I suggest we eliminate third class....make companies pay the same rate as private citizens. After all they're getting virtually the same service without paying the price. This would also go a long way to eliminating junk mail.

I think that the USPS actually makes as much on junk mail as they do on 1st class. Much/most of it is pre-sorted which cuts down quite a bit on handling.

 

[Entity]

So that's why I have so much more junk mail in my mailbox, huh?

Today I send 60% less snail mail than I did just 4 years ago. Yet I recieve at least 300% more junk mail. Is the USPS staying alive by increasing bulk mail while private letters are declining?

AmusedOne,

You know good and well that I was refuting the claim that postal volumes are declining. That's it. One person's usage, as you also well know, doesn't make a pattern.

Rob

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Entity

So that's why I have so much more junk mail in my mailbox, huh?

Today I send 60% less snail mail than I did just 4 years ago. Yet I recieve at least 300% more junk mail. Is the USPS staying alive by increasing bulk mail while private letters are declining?

AmusedOne,

You know good and well that I was refuting the claim that postal volumes are declining. That's it. One person's usage, as you also well know, doesn't make a pattern.

Rob

No, I never claimed it did. I asked a question, I did not make a statement of fact, did I?

However, until I see the exact break down of the types of mail being sent then and now, I will be inclined to believe that personal mail has declined while bulkmail has increased.

 

[charrison]

Where are the mail volume numbers for 2001 and 2002 YTD? Hmm maybe they did not want to publish them? It is a recent occurance that mail volume has started to decrease.

 

[charrison]

This link shows mail volume flat from 2000. This of course is blamed on 9/11. But I am not sure how that is possible. Were people to scared to send letters?


2002 3.4% down on volume

 

[Moonbeam]

This is truly halarious. It reminds me of the elephant in the dark. This long muscular thingi with air going in and out needs to be redesinged to service eight mailboxes. Two of these large pillar like things need to be removed. They are redundant and not cost effective. This letter sorting machine needs to be brought into the twenith century. It's running on hay. This glue from the machine for the application of adhesives to envelopes needs to be considerably thickened. It's way too runny and tastes like piss. We need to stop standing under and pulling our ideas out of this large cavity under the employee whip. We're getting covered with Sh1t and our ideas smell correspondingly.

Gentlemen, and ladies, but I don't see any of those here. The Postal Service is a huge organization. It's profoundly complex. Thousands of informed man hours are going into managing and improving its operation. Go referee a baseball game. There at least the rules are sufficiently simple that you will have a chance to grasp them with some modicum of effort. Also, you will have a group of enthusiasts to comment and provide feedback on your performance. Right now you are just whistling out your asses

I know the truth hurts, and I just hate it when people come by and say something like "you're a moron" so, because the topic is quite boring, and I don't want to waste my time refuting every point, I'll take just one. Three day delivery. Look at the Mississippi. How inefficient that it flows along in it's banks 24 seven. How about we have it run 3 days a week. And so on. Pick a subject you know something about.

 

[Cyberian]

I think Moonbeam just went postal!

 

[Bluefront]

Going Postal....Don't say it. If you say those words in the downtown post office, you are immediately fired. Sure proves everything is just fine at the USPS. Nothing we can say or do will make any difference...right.

Here's another unbelievable thing, one of the really bizarre rules followed at the downtown USPS facility. In the lunch-room, on your lunch hour or break, you are not allowed to read anything....books, newspapers, magazines, all banned. Why you say? Well some people complained about it. They said people reading made them uncomfortable, probably since they couldn't read themselves. This is political-correctness to the extreme. Pure stupidity by the USPS, guaranteed to keep "going postal" alive and well. I'm sure many people are working on the problems at the USPS, doesn't seem to have made any difference, however.

 

[Moonbeam]

___________________________________________

Bluefront: Nothing we can say or do will make any difference...right.

_____________________________________________________

I know that somebody put a burr under your saddle and you're bucking around uncomprehnndingly trying to shake it out. I know you mean well. I even know the USPS has its problems. And I'm not saying nothing any of you can say or do will make any difference. What I'm saying is that you have stubbed your toe on the sidewalk and are trying to preparing a manuel for interstellar space flight to avoid that again. And you are doing so based on a formula for cement taken for a fantasy novel. If the PO is a real issue with you spend the lifetime it will take to understand and change it. Or rant away; that's cool. Just don't be too surprised, in that case, if somebody says you're talking nonsense.

 

[qfg]

Tell us some more stories, i'm interested to hear what goes on!

Originally posted by: Bluefront
We're being ripped-off by the USPS again with another rate increase. I know they can prove their expenses are way up..sure. But you'll never get the real truth here. Now I've got some inside information about the downtown St louis post office. I don't know if these things are the same at every post office, but they probably are at most urban locations. (My best friend works there. He/she tells me how things really are).

They do not hire the best people to work there. This is some type of affirmative action/welfare thing. If you are a minority person, you automatically get at least a 20 percent advantage on any tests you take for different positions. The real amount seems to be a secret...it may be more than 20 percent. If you have a disability you also get this advantage. That's how my friend got hired...he/she claimed to be deaf. If you happen to be a normal white male without a disability, you don't stand a rat's chance in hell of getting on. So what does this lead to? For one thing, it leads to postal workers who cannot read. Hard to believe but true. Imagine someone who cannot read sorting mail..happening as we speak.

It's hard to get a firm estimate on what this practice costs the USPS. I suspect they could get by with at least 25 percent fewer employees, if they hired the best people who applied. They could probably lower the cost of a first class stamp if they did this. Instead we get a raise in rates every few years. The amount of waste in the USPS is monumental...and not likely to change either. I've learned a whole lot of different things about the downtown Post Office from my friend..but you probably wouldn't believe most of the crazy stuff that goes on....

 

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by: Bluefront
For one thing, it leads to postal workers who cannot read. Hard to believe but true. Imagine someone who cannot read sorting mail..happening as we speak.

There was a sign posted at the main Kansas City post office last winter regarding employment opportunities.

It had several misspelled words

 

[Bluefront]

Heh...How to get a day's pay at the downtown St Louis post office without actually being there: Simple, it's so big no one knows what's going on, who's supposed to be working where, what everyone's hours are, etc.

Do this...walk in the entrance where your time-card is located, clock in. Immediately walk to another exit and just leave. At the end of your so-called work day, walk in through an entrance other than the one where your time card is. If anyone says anything, you just had to run to your car for a minute. Then go to the entrance/exit where your time card is, clock out and leave. You get your eight hour's pay.

This simple trick is pulled off all the time. The USPS seems to be unable to catch on, or they just don't care about such small thievery. They just hire more people to cover the work that never seems to get done. You/me pay for this crap with every stamp we buy.

Let's see. I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm making cement with the wrong formula..right.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Here's another unbelievable thing, one of the really bizarre rules followed at the downtown USPS facility. In the lunch-room, on your lunch hour or break, you are not allowed to read anything....books, newspapers, magazines, all banned. Why you say? Well some people complained about it. They said people reading made them uncomfortable, probably since they couldn't read themselves.

I simply do not believe this rule is implemented in any post office or USPS headquarters in the United States, and I would love to see documentation of this.

As far as I can see, postal mail is one of the biggest bargains we have access to as Americans, and until and unless UPS or FedEx is willing to deliver anything anywhere for less than a dollar I don't feel there is much of a basis for complaint.

 

[Bluefront]

I did say it would be hard to believe, didn't I? There's no documentation on this, just little signs posted here and there at the downtown facility. And I don't work there, or maybe I could get you a picture. Trust me....how could anyone make up anything as dumb as this.

You're finding it difficult to believe that political correctness and stupidity exists at the USPS? And that it's costing us money? Now that's hard to believe.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Don_Vito

Here's another unbelievable thing, one of the really bizarre rules followed at the downtown USPS facility. In the lunch-room, on your lunch hour or break, you are not allowed to read anything....books, newspapers, magazines, all banned. Why you say? Well some people complained about it. They said people reading made them uncomfortable, probably since they couldn't read themselves.

I simply do not believe this rule is implemented in any post office or USPS headquarters in the United States, and I would love to see documentation of this.

As far as I can see, postal mail is one of the biggest bargains we have access to as Americans, and until and unless UPS or FedEx is willing to deliver anything anywhere for less than a dollar I don't feel there is much of a basis for complaint.

USPS is govt protected monopolyl. UPS/Fedex cant deliver mail. As long as fedex/ups cant delivery mail to every house, every day you will not see them doing any delivery for under at dollar.

 

[GrumpyMan]

"Right now first class mail is paying for cheap third class mail. I suggest we eliminate third class....make companies pay the same rate as private citizens. After all they're getting virtually the same service without paying the price. This would also go a long way to eliminating junk mail."


Since what I do for a living is bulk mail let me tell you how it works:
Bulk mail which is now called presorted standard mail, is indeed 3rd. class. If anything has to be bumped during a heavy holiday mail delivery day like mothers day, it is 3rd class.
The reason we bulk mailers get the discounts we get is because we CASS certify the address lists, which means we compare and fix all addresses that a customer list has against the postal main list. That makes sure that the address is real and deliverable.Then the mailing is presorted, barcoded or carrier routed, stamped with presorted stamps if required, in the exact sequence that the carrier will deliver the mailing. It doesn't have to go through any sorting machinery that the post office has. It goes straight to the destination post office and given to the carrier for the final sort on his route.
Just the software necessary to do this is licensed at $5000.00 to $90,000.00 a year (for the corporate version) for the right to use it (Firstlogic Inc.).
And they have 10 million rules that we have to follow such as the font size, location of address, etc.......
First class mail does not pay for bulk mail, it is the other way around. If it weren't for bulk mail then 1st class would be twice as expensive. Kind of like how ads pay for most of the internet sites.