Forget eMail; send a note instead..

Was just reading a couple of things in the news, and it's true that the apocolypse is close at hand.

Prince (aka: The Artist Formerly Known As Talented) has, through exhaustive studies and sheer Holiness, determined that the Internet is going the way of MTV.. Once hip, but irrelevant now. Seems he can't sell albums anymore, and is tired of folks downloading his racket on their computers for free. (I always enjoyed Prince; that Will Smith is one funny guy!)

Also in the news: The USPS is raising the price of stamps again, which comes as little suprise anymore. Sending a letter will now cost 46 cents, plus they're doing away with Saturday delivery. This is known in the private sector as "pricing yourself out of business", or, "more money for less service", but since they hold a monopoly on letters, the mob boss.. er, I mean.. uh, Uncle Sam will stand behind them and bail them through for however many months till they go up again.

Discuss (or just cuss).

Saturday delivery is the main reason that do most of my shipping with Priority Mail. Take that away and they lose their big advantage in my eyes.

In my neck of the woods, once a week or so they also don't do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday delivery, based on an arbitrary schedule our mail carrier seems to be studying very intently as she sits in her van at the other end of my block, instead of putting my mail in the box.

The gubmint wants to get into the "internet for all" business so they can see into our living rooms easily. I propose the USPS becomes the USCS (United States Communication Service) All mail service and wireless services are their responsibilities.

Also while they are at it I think they should be responsible for off shore drilling oversight.

I think I should have stopped at the third beer tonight ;)

They should just do away with the mail entirely. Our postman only brings me bills anyway. OH! AND GRM! Don't stop the mail!

my guy runs a lighter load on Saturday and usually gives me one or two pieces of junk. Saturday is a waste for the standard mail.

I still have some weird old school mentality where my family announces that the mail just came and I run right out to see what we got in the mail box.

strange......what's up with that?

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays would be enough junk mail days for me. I dont get mail everyday anyways.

Just as a thought, all of my bills are either paid online, automatically, or in-person. I have never had a checkbook, and paper statements are just occasional reminders that I should get a shredder.

I don't remember Saturday delivery growing up, but that was in Canada, in a rural region. Maybe they had it in the city. Never bothered me, though I did think that it was cool to get mail another day. Then, I came to realize that it was the same amount of mail, only some was delayed an extra day to get to me.

I want to know why all stamps that are sold at the current going rate for a first class letter aren't "forever stamps". I mean, I like getting a set of superhero stamps, but since i don't mail a lot of letters, I end up having to go and buy penny stamps to make up the difference. This is a huge pain. Especially now that the local post offices no longer seem to have the vending machines that they uesd to, where I could buy as many, or as few $0.01 stamps as I pleased. Sure, I can go to the new postage machine and buy a little coded sticker that represents a penny stamp, or whatever I choose it to be valued at, but it's bigger than the stamp that is already on the package. If that's what you want, just get rid of the old style stamp completely. OK, back to my DNA/RNA homework. Ugh.

I grew up in a fairly major Canadian city and we never had Saturday mail either. It was a big surprise when I moved overseas and stuff would end up in my mailbox on a Saturday.

...Actually now that I think about it, it shouldn't have been that big of a surprise that other countries' postal systems would be cheaper and work more efficiently than Canada Post, but I digress.

I only ever get bills, bank statements, and GRM anyway. All my Fleabay junk goes to a PO box. I have a big 'no flyers' sticker on my mailbox, which, shockingly, is actually respected, so I don't get those either.

Jay wrote: I have a big 'no flyers' sticker on my mailbox, which, shockingly, is actually respected, so I don't get those either.

I wouldn't think you would have a big problem with people putting Philadelphia hockey teams in your box in Germany but I see why you wouldn't want one in there.

The constitution does allow for a postal service to be commissioned by the federal government. That's not to say that they don't suck at it, but it is within their power to do so. If it was like any other business, you could stop using that service and they would eventually disappear. This time, however, if you don't buy stamps, you'll pay taxes for them indirectly. I have no useful solutions.

tuna55 wrote: If it was like any other business, you could stop using that service and they would eventually disappear. This time, however, if you don't buy stamps, you'll pay taxes for them indirectly.

My point exactly.

Since the intraw3bs are now irrelevant and going the way of the DoDo bird, nature will take it's course, and we will be obliged to go back to buying stamps and writing letters by hand. So everything will work itself out..

Seriously guys... You can pay less than $.50 to have someone pick up an envelope at your house and take it to almost any other house in the US.

That still seems like a bargain to me... And if you think of all of the people involved and logistics involved it seems to be quite efficient.

Read the book "Post Office" by Charles Bukowski. It is a very insightful piece of work. If it is 50% true the Postal service is doomed.

Hocrest wrote: Seriously guys... You can pay less than $.50 to have someone pick up an envelope at your house and take it to almost any other house in the US. That still seems like a bargain to me... And if you think of all of the people involved and logistics involved it seems to be quite efficient.

That's a very good point, and at that level the efficiency seems very high. If you had 3 people doing one person's job, you would be efficient, too (as long as you don't count labor cost). But...

I read a study awhile back showing that once you factor in the stationary, printer ink, labor for dictating, typing and stuffing the letter, postage and various office logistics needed to get a letter from concept to the mailbox, can cost some businesses up to $14 per letter, whereas an eMail costs less than half of that for the same communication, counting labor and other factors.

It's a good thing Prince has allerted us to this soon enough to fix it..

Postage rate increases will affect the magazine industry directly. They're talking an 8% increase on delivery; this is likely to affect independent publishers significantly.

So what you're saying is, go ahead and buy that 10 year subscription?

Hocrest, it is a bargain, but obviously unustainable. The USPS is looking at an $8 billion dollar deficit in funding next year alone, after already making big cuts.

I say privatize it.

We all hate junk mail but that helps keep the stamps from costing $3.oo

iceracer wrote: We all hate junk mail but that helps keep the stamps from costing $3.oo

That's pretty much what my postman told me. I asked him if he could just consider my junk mail undeliverable, and throw it away. To which he replied, "Are you kidding? These things are the only reason I have a job!"

Carson wrote: They should just do away with the mail entirely. Our postman only brings me bills anyway. OH! AND GRM! Don't stop the mail!

An electronic GRM would be nice...

GameboyRMH wrote:

Carson wrote: They should just do away with the mail entirely. Our postman only brings me bills anyway. OH! AND GRM! Don't stop the mail!

An electronic GRM would be nice...

The last thing I need to do is drop a Kindle in the can while dropping a deuce.

John Brown wrote:

GameboyRMH wrote:

Carson wrote: They should just do away with the mail entirely. Our postman only brings me bills anyway. OH! AND GRM! Don't stop the mail!

An electronic GRM would be nice...

The last thing I need to do is drop a Kindle in the can while dropping a deuce.

Well not a DRM'd electronic GRM. If it's DRM-free, you can safety drop your Kindle in the toilet and then keep reading on on another device

I was actually considering this a few years back. If I were in charge in the federal government (Vote for Tuna!) I would have an open bidding process for the mail service. USPS, UPS, Fedex, DHL whomever else would be competing on a per letter basis for the mail. This is what stamps would pay for for a five year (or something) contract with the federal government. Those same companies already do packages, so let them handle that stuff and the postal service contract would just be for letters.

pilotbraden wrote: Read the book "Post Office" by Charles Bukowski. It is a very insightful piece of work. If it is 50% true the Postal service is doomed.

I have worked for the USPS for the last two years and have read the book. It is a bit dated but 100% correct. Everything that Bukowski writes has pretty much happened to me. The truth is, the place sucks. It's totally top heavy and filled with managers with high school educations and zero real world (private industry) experience which creates very unprofessional and inefficient operations . The various craft unions also waste so much money by doing the best they can to do as little as they can. Morale is horrible and just getting worse by the day. I could go on and on but you get the picture.

Oh, the fact is that the USPS gets ZERO tax dollar support. All funding for operations is generated by stamp revenue. The monster deficits that make the news all the time are actually created by an accounting function that requires the USPS to put too much money away for pension obligations. If this was corrected, the USPS would be making money every year.

Bottom line, as soon as I finish my MBA I am getting out.