Socialized Medicine, as demonstrated by Socialized Mail Delivery.

[MikeK]

That's really odd, my local post office always has at least two ladies, been there for ages, and there's a third guy who comes in when help is needed. I've seriously never stood in line for more than 30minutes, during xmas... My town has like 70k people in it.

The situation seems to vary depending on location. Where I lived before there rarely was a line. The situation in my present location is similar to the OP complaint.

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

Again, Where_r_my_Keys, isn't the fact that people will wait in line for postal services proof that they offer a valuable service?

The service they're waiting on is Parcel Shipments... . The value of which, is demonstrated by the explosive growth of companies that specialize in such.

The point which you're trying to conflate is letter service. The vast majority of which is now electronic, instant and comes at no additional cost beyond that common to one's ISP and/or cell/data rates.

No one is waiting in that line to send a letter... except of course, for the occasional obama constituent.

 

[ogibillm]

Again, Where_r_my_Keys, isn't the fact that people will wait in line for postal services proof that they offer a valuable service?

The service they're waiting on is Parcel Shipments... . The value of which, is demonstrated by the explosive growth of companies that specialize in such.

The point which you're trying to conflate is letter service. The vast majority of which is now electronic, instant and comes at no additional cost beyond that common to one's ISP and/or cell/data rates.

No one is waiting in that line to send a letter... except of course, for the occasional obama constituent.

So those aren't people waiting in line?

 

[Flopper]

I had to run to the post office today and when I got there I found this line. You're only looking at the few people closest to the counter, there were 30+ people behind the camera.

So I post this to social media... and the comment you see above, was offered by a Post Office 30 year man, who is incapable of seeing the problem, for what it is.

The fact is the postal service is a a dying business. 1st class mail is rapidly being replaced with email. Electronic bill pay, is eliminating monthly bill paying. 1st class mail is down almost a third in 20 years. An increasingly large part of the parcel service is run in conjunction with UPS and FedX. Bulk mail which most customers hate is keeping the post office alive. It may well take 50 years, but the postal service is going to go the route of the pony express and the telegram. As a stamp collector of many years, I hate to see it go but it will go because we have better and cheaper ways to communicate.

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

Again, Where_r_my_Keys, isn't the fact that people will wait in line for postal services proof that they offer a valuable service?

The service they're waiting on is Parcel Shipments... . The value of which, is demonstrated by the explosive growth of companies that specialize in such.

The point which you're trying to conflate is letter service. The vast majority of which is now electronic, instant and comes at no additional cost beyond that common to one's ISP and/or cell/data rates.

No one is waiting in that line to send a letter... except of course, for the occasional obama constituent.

So those aren't people waiting in line?

Yes those are people standing in line... because they came to do business. Those are NOT people standing in the point of sale stations, therefore the potential for those people to do business is starkly limited.

And THAT is inexcusable.

They have the manpower, they have the facility, the material; everything is in place to DO business... INCLUDING THOSE PEOPLE STANDING IN LINE: OKA: THE MARKET... and THAT picture shows that they're failing, where virtually NO Private business organization would fail.

Now you can try to obscure that point. You can deflect from that point and you can try to hide from that point.

But the point will remain standing.

 

[ogibillm]

Again, Where_r_my_Keys, isn't the fact that people will wait in line for postal services proof that they offer a valuable service?

The service they're waiting on is Parcel Shipments... . The value of which, is demonstrated by the explosive growth of companies that specialize in such.

The point which you're trying to conflate is letter service. The vast majority of which is now electronic, instant and comes at no additional cost beyond that common to one's ISP and/or cell/data rates.

No one is waiting in that line to send a letter... except of course, for the occasional obama constituent.

So those aren't people waiting in line?

Yes those are people standing in line... because they came to do business. Those are NOT people standing in the point of sale stations, therefore the potential for those people to do business is starkly limited.

And THAT is inexcusable.

They have the manpower, they have the facility, the material; everything is in place to DO business... INCLUDING THOSE PEOPLE STANDING IN LINE: OKA: THE MARKET... and THAT picture shows that they're failing, where virtually NO Private business organization would fail.

Now you can try to obscure that point. You can deflect from that point and you can try to hide from that point.

But the point will remain standing.

Why inexcusable? Minimizing labor costs without harming business seems smart

 

[thereisnospoon]

I had to run to the post office today and when I got there I found this line. You're only looking at the few people closest to the counter, there were 30+ people behind the camera.

So I post this to social media... and the comment you see above, was offered by a Post Office 30 year man, who is incapable of seeing the problem, for what it is.

And has ZERO command of the English language.....Postal workers have some of the most high paying jobs in proportion to the difficulty of the work and the level of education required to become employed by the USPS.....
In the pic, I see guess what? ONE clerk. I guess the others were on their union mandated coffee break.....
I despise the USPS.
Our PO here works the same way. Those bastards don't give a shit about the customers. If the clock says "take your break" they just leave their station......That would be fine if a person replaced them while the original person went on their break. But no....They just have this attitude of the customers don't matter.
I was in there one day. The line was long. There were two clerks. Suddenly one just vanishes. Some of the customers began to grumble. One guy finally had enough. He asked out loud where the other clerk was. I said. "probably on his stupid union coffee break..With that other customers began to get angry and stated getting loud. Finally the Postmaster( the most grossly overpaid and useless position in a post office) comes out of her cloistered office to see what the commotion was about. She was bombarded with complaints. She just said, "there's nothing I can do to help you. Please be patient."..And she went back to her office.
The post master is not "the boss". She has no authority over the rank and file workers.
The USPS is a clusterfuck of angry discourteous and downright indifferent workers who are "putting in their time" until they retire.
Now of course there will be the responses from those who will say that their local PO has the best and nicest workers. So be it. Our post office SUCKS. The clerks are slow and if anyone complains, they work slower.
In fairness....I must say though, the post office in my home town was a pleasant place to go. The clerks knew everyone. We knew them. My letter carrier ( Tony) was a great guy. My parents always took care of him around the holidays. Either with a card with a few dollars in the envelope or his favorite bottle of wine or spirit.

 

[thereisnospoon]

The republican Congress forced the USPS to, over 10 years, fully fund its retirement program for the next 75 years. That's not "spend 75 years putting money in the bank," it's "have 75 years' worth of money in the bank within 10 years."

It's drained the USPS' operating funds to the point where it can barely function. The good news is that the timeframe will be up in a few more years and the USPS will be able to go back to normal.

Why did Congress do this? To force privatization of mail delivery. Somebody stood to make a shitload of cash from that.

Simple. Because Postal workers get to retire at a relatively young age. My friend's uncle retired at 55 with a full pension. He also "banked" three years of unused sick time and almost a year's worth of vacation time. Which he elected to take in regular installments rather than a lump sum.....BTW, he started with the PO when he was 20...
That pension, and hundreds of thousands of retired PO workers MUST be paid...so the Congress had to make sure the pensioners were taken care of. And of course with people living much longer, even more funding would be required to keep the pensions checks flowing.
IMO the USPS SHOULD be privatized.
Heck the USPS has lost half of its business to private enterprise as well as the internet.
Did you know that the Postmaster General wanted Congress to tax the internet because people were no longer writing letters and using the PO? Would you be surprised that there is an obscure law that requires us to use the Postal Service for certain kinds of packages. Mainly one ounce envelopes?
The USPS even got the phone carriers in on it. The long distance wireline carriers wanted to be able to charge every internet connection a long distance charge saying that the internet users were using the "common carrier" network.
They wanted to tax email.
The USPS is in the condition it is in not because of pensions or anything like that. The USPS is mismanaged and is inefficient.
The workers are over paid for the level of skill required to become a postal worker.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Our postmaster told me that the computerized system slowed the whole process down.

Yes. The Postmaster is correct. Lines are longer.
The thing is the technology is supposed to eliminate the need for the number of workers in a typical post office or mail facility. But the unions will not allow any positions to be eliminated. The workers know that eventually\ the machines will replace them.

 

[thereisnospoon]

The computers can read pre-printed flat envelopes, but handwritten stuff and bulky packages need a human eye.

The scanning equipment is not the problem.....It is the manner in which the system works which is inefficient.

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

... I must say though, the post office in my home town was a pleasant place to go. The clerks knew everyone. We knew them. My letter carrier ( Tony) was a great guy. My parents always took care of him around the holidays. Either with a card with a few dollars in the envelope or his favorite bottle of wine or spirit.

That quote, is from one of my oldest friends. I've known him for approaching 50 years; back in school, we were inseparable. He's been with the USPS since he left the Military... over 30 years ago. He followed another of our friends into the USPS who has been with the USPS for over 35 years. I love them both... .

They're both good guys... . But they've never had a job outside of the US Government.

 

[Harry Dresden]

Again, Where_r_my_Keys, isn't the fact that people will wait in line for postal services proof that they offer a valuable service?

The service they're waiting on is Parcel Shipments... . The value of which, is demonstrated by the explosive growth of companies that specialize in such.

The point which you're trying to conflate is letter service. The vast majority of which is now electronic, instant and comes at no additional cost beyond that common to one's ISP and/or cell/data rates.

No one is waiting in that line to send a letter... except of course, for the occasional obama constituent.

thats because you dont have to wait in line to mail a letter unless you are sending it certified or registered.....

 

[Harry Dresden]

Again, Where_r_my_Keys, isn't the fact that people will wait in line for postal services proof that they offer a valuable service?

The service they're waiting on is Parcel Shipments... . The value of which, is demonstrated by the explosive growth of companies that specialize in such.

The point which you're trying to conflate is letter service. The vast majority of which is now electronic, instant and comes at no additional cost beyond that common to one's ISP and/or cell/data rates.

No one is waiting in that line to send a letter... except of course, for the occasional obama constituent.

So those aren't people waiting in line?

Yes those are people standing in line... because they came to do business. Those are NOT people standing in the point of sale stations, therefore the potential for those people to do business is starkly limited.

And THAT is inexcusable.

They have the manpower, they have the facility, the material; everything is in place to DO business... INCLUDING THOSE PEOPLE STANDING IN LINE: OKA: THE MARKET... and THAT picture shows that they're failing, where virtually NO Private business organization would fail.

Now you can try to obscure that point. You can deflect from that point and you can try to hide from that point.

But the point will remain standing.

you cant run like a business when congress ties their hands and steps on their toes......

 

[Harry Dresden]

Again, Where_r_my_Keys, isn't the fact that people will wait in line for postal services proof that they offer a valuable service?

The service they're waiting on is Parcel Shipments... . The value of which, is demonstrated by the explosive growth of companies that specialize in such.

The point which you're trying to conflate is letter service. The vast majority of which is now electronic, instant and comes at no additional cost beyond that common to one's ISP and/or cell/data rates.

No one is waiting in that line to send a letter... except of course, for the occasional obama constituent.

So those aren't people waiting in line?

Yes those are people standing in line... because they came to do business. Those are NOT people standing in the point of sale stations, therefore the potential for those people to do business is starkly limited.

And THAT is inexcusable.

They have the manpower, they have the facility, the material; everything is in place to DO business... INCLUDING THOSE PEOPLE STANDING IN LINE: OKA: THE MARKET... and THAT picture shows that they're failing, where virtually NO Private business organization would fail.

Now you can try to obscure that point. You can deflect from that point and you can try to hide from that point.

But the point will remain standing.

Why inexcusable? Minimizing labor costs without harming business seems smart

when they allow the window service to run like that it does harm the business.....the upper management does not care about customer service in spite what they tell you.....

 

[Harry Dresden]

The republican Congress forced the USPS to, over 10 years, fully fund its retirement program for the next 75 years. That's not "spend 75 years putting money in the bank," it's "have 75 years' worth of money in the bank within 10 years."

It's drained the USPS' operating funds to the point where it can barely function. The good news is that the timeframe will be up in a few more years and the USPS will be able to go back to normal.

Why did Congress do this? To force privatization of mail delivery. Somebody stood to make a shitload of cash from that.

Simple. Because Postal workers get to retire at a relatively young age. My friend's uncle retired at 55 with a full pension. He also "banked" three years of unused sick time and almost a year's worth of vacation time. Which he elected to take in regular installments rather than a lump sum.....BTW, he started with the PO when he was 20...
That pension, and hundreds of thousands of retired PO workers MUST be paid...so the Congress had to make sure the pensioners were taken care of. And of course with people living much longer, even more funding would be required to keep the pensions checks flowing.
IMO the USPS SHOULD be privatized.
Heck the USPS has lost half of its business to private enterprise as well as the internet.
Did you know that the Postmaster General wanted Congress to tax the internet because people were no longer writing letters and using the PO? Would you be surprised that there is an obscure law that requires us to use the Postal Service for certain kinds of packages. Mainly one ounce envelopes?
The USPS even got the phone carriers in on it. The long distance wireline carriers wanted to be able to charge every internet connection a long distance charge saying that the internet users were using the "common carrier" network.
They wanted to tax email.
The USPS is in the condition it is in not because of pensions or anything like that. The USPS is mismanaged and is inefficient.
The workers are over paid for the level of skill required to become a postal worker.

The workers are over paid for the level of skill required to become a postal worker.
thats true of the clerks but not the carriers.....i dont know how many people i have seen come in and work a week and quit and the ones who stick around admit that they thought the job would be easy until they have to put up a route, pull it down, load the too small truck and then get out there and deliver the route in 8 hours.....and when its pouring rain?....then you really see who wants to work or not...most letter carriers who have worked at least 25 years have had knee surgery or just bad knees bad backs and shoulders,attacked by dogs,some have been bitten, some bad enough to require hospitalization.....a clerk gets the same pay and works inside and when 8 hours is up goes home,if he/she wasnt done with what they were doing,no biggie the person on the next shift takes over....not that way with a carrier,its dark and you cant see what your doing and you still have an hour to go?...tough....a letter carrier is the hardest working person in the PO and deserves the pay they get.....

 

[thereisnospoon]

Now... over the half hour I was in there... there was easily 50 people in line when I got there and when I left it was probably close to 100... with people waiting in line OUT THE DOOR... standing in the sun. How many saw that line and drove on by is anyone's guess.

Seven people ahead of me... Two people working the counter... the guy on the Left was still serving the same guy that was there when I got there, when I left.

My bill was $17.00 to ship a package to NY.

So... easy math indicates that TODAY, that post office had the opportunity, the equipment, facility and personnel to produce an easy $3400/hour.

Which, due to pure incompetence, it instead earned $272/hour.

And THAT folks is the net result of socialized: ANYTHING.

maybe they need a scale that prints out weight as a bar code.

Maybe they need to put some of those postoffice employees into those Point of Sale Stations.

The Post Office is operated as a social program and not a business... and as a consequence, it's an albatross that is being subsidized to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars a year, by the US Taxpayers. It should be shut down or the Union should be shut out, so that it can be managed as a business.

The Post Office is perhaps the MOST "audited for efficiency agencies" in existence.
All one has to do is go and observe the Supervisors watching the clerks like a hawk.
In so far as an entity increasing our taxes, any entity that pays it's employees minimum wage and trains them how to apply for Food Stamps, Welfare and Medicaid is just as much a cause.

Oh please. The Walmart argument?
Yes, the USPS may be audited. But the audits apparently have no teeth, All that matters is the results. And the USPS has a performance problem...
A couple years ago a study was preformed on the USPS . It was discovered that the Charlotte,NC region had the nation's slowest mail delivery system of all large metro areas in the US.
When interviewed a spokesperson said that the Charlotte area had a 97% success rate. The reporter then queried on the other three percent of the mail which was delivered late or not at all. The spokesperson dodged the question.
So using that rate of FAILURE.....Let's say the Charlotte bulk station processes 10 million pieces of mail per day. At a 3% rate of failure that means 300,000 pieces of mail are either late or not delivered.
That is UNACCEPTABLE....Any other business which fails to serve 3 % of it's customers would be OUT of business. And very quickly. Unfortunately, the USPS is protected by the federal government The workers protected by their unions.
Any modern country requires a system where paper and package must be moved from point A to point B with as little extraneous cost and at peak efficiency.
The USPS is NOT getting it done.

 

[Harry Dresden]

Our postmaster told me that the computerized system slowed the whole process down.

Yes. The Postmaster is correct. Lines are longer.
The thing is the technology is supposed to eliminate the need for the number of workers in a typical post office or mail facility. But the unions will not allow any positions to be eliminated. The workers know that eventually\ the machines will replace them.

thats bullshit......many clerk positions have be eliminated because of automation and many routes have been eliminated and absorbed by the other carriers for the same reason.....i had 750 deliveries on my route after 3 routes were eliminated in the office i had 1030.....and their mindset was because mail was now being automated it should not take any longer to do the route maybe 5-10 minutes yea right........Wayne the UPS driver on my route said UPS was doing the same thing his route grew by 150 deliveries,and same thing,it should not take that much longer....

 

[thereisnospoon]

The republican Congress forced the USPS to, over 10 years, fully fund its retirement program for the next 75 years. That's not "spend 75 years putting money in the bank," it's "have 75 years' worth of money in the bank within 10 years."

It's drained the USPS' operating funds to the point where it can barely function. The good news is that the timeframe will be up in a few more years and the USPS will be able to go back to normal.

Why did Congress do this? To force privatization of mail delivery. Somebody stood to make a shitload of cash from that.

Simple. Because Postal workers get to retire at a relatively young age. My friend's uncle retired at 55 with a full pension. He also "banked" three years of unused sick time and almost a year's worth of vacation time. Which he elected to take in regular installments rather than a lump sum.....BTW, he started with the PO when he was 20...
That pension, and hundreds of thousands of retired PO workers MUST be paid...so the Congress had to make sure the pensioners were taken care of. And of course with people living much longer, even more funding would be required to keep the pensions checks flowing.
IMO the USPS SHOULD be privatized.
Heck the USPS has lost half of its business to private enterprise as well as the internet.
Did you know that the Postmaster General wanted Congress to tax the internet because people were no longer writing letters and using the PO? Would you be surprised that there is an obscure law that requires us to use the Postal Service for certain kinds of packages. Mainly one ounce envelopes?
The USPS even got the phone carriers in on it. The long distance wireline carriers wanted to be able to charge every internet connection a long distance charge saying that the internet users were using the "common carrier" network.
They wanted to tax email.
The USPS is in the condition it is in not because of pensions or anything like that. The USPS is mismanaged and is inefficient.
The workers are over paid for the level of skill required to become a postal worker.

The workers are over paid for the level of skill required to become a postal worker.
thats true of the clerks but not the carriers.....i dont know how many people i have seen come in and work a week and quit and the ones who stick around admit that they thought the job would be easy until they have to put up a route, pull it down, load the too small truck and then get out there and deliver the route in 8 hours.....and when its pouring rain?....then you really see who wants to work or not...most letter carriers who have worked at least 25 years have had knee surgery or just bad knees bad backs and shoulders,attacked by dogs,some have been bitten, some bad enough to require hospitalization.....a clerk gets the same pay and works inside and when 8 hours is up goes home,if he/she wasnt done with what they were doing,no biggie the person on the next shift takes over....not that way with a carrier,its dark and you cant see what your doing and you still have an hour to go?...tough....a letter carrier is the hardest working person in the PO and deserves the pay they get.....

I'm not really referring to the carriers per se. They are the warriors. They can only perform as well as the ones who handle the mail before them.
With that in mind there is one thing you probably already know, but I will inject this anyway. Most US mail is delivered not by USPS employees but contract carriers.
In fact the only municipality in this entire metro area that uses USPS employees to carry and deliver mail is Charlotte. And only the inner ring most urban areas are employee carriers.
IMO it is the people in the bulk centers and the actual post offices which are the issue. It seems to me that the clerks especially are concerned only with the time they get to go on their next break. Their attitude is the customers are there for them rather then they being there for the customers.

 

[Indeependent]

Now... over the half hour I was in there... there was easily 50 people in line when I got there and when I left it was probably close to 100... with people waiting in line OUT THE DOOR... standing in the sun. How many saw that line and drove on by is anyone's guess.

Seven people ahead of me... Two people working the counter... the guy on the Left was still serving the same guy that was there when I got there, when I left.

My bill was $17.00 to ship a package to NY.

So... easy math indicates that TODAY, that post office had the opportunity, the equipment, facility and personnel to produce an easy $3400/hour.

Which, due to pure incompetence, it instead earned $272/hour.

And THAT folks is the net result of socialized: ANYTHING.

maybe they need a scale that prints out weight as a bar code.

Maybe they need to put some of those postoffice employees into those Point of Sale Stations.

The Post Office is operated as a social program and not a business... and as a consequence, it's an albatross that is being subsidized to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars a year, by the US Taxpayers. It should be shut down or the Union should be shut out, so that it can be managed as a business.

The Post Office is perhaps the MOST "audited for efficiency agencies" in existence.
All one has to do is go and observe the Supervisors watching the clerks like a hawk.
In so far as an entity increasing our taxes, any entity that pays it's employees minimum wage and trains them how to apply for Food Stamps, Welfare and Medicaid is just as much a cause.

Oh please. The Walmart argument?
Yes, the USPS may be audited. But the audits apparently have no teeth, All that matters is the results. And the USPS has a performance problem...
A couple years ago a study was preformed on the USPS . It was discovered that the Charlotte,NC region had the nation's slowest mail delivery system of all large metro areas in the US.
When interviewed a spokesperson said that the Charlotte area had a 97% success rate. The reporter then queried on the other three percent of the mail which was delivered late or not at all. The spokesperson dodged the question.
So using that rate of FAILURE.....Let's say the Charlotte bulk station processes 10 million pieces of mail per day. At a 3% rate of failure that means 300,000 pieces of mail are either late or not delivered.
That is UNACCEPTABLE....Any other business which fails to serve 3 % of it's customers would be OUT of business. And very quickly. Unfortunately, the USPS is protected by the federal government The workers protected by their unions.
Any modern country requires a system where paper and package must be moved from point A to point B with as little extraneous cost and at peak efficiency.
The USPS is NOT getting it done.

Neither UPS nor FedEx have an infrastructure that comes anywhere near the USPS.
The question is what are the factors that lead to this problem and what it takes to achieve as close to 100% as possible.
If the Audits had no teeth, they wouldn't be published for Republicans such as yourself to critique.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Our postmaster told me that the computerized system slowed the whole process down.

Yes. The Postmaster is correct. Lines are longer.
The thing is the technology is supposed to eliminate the need for the number of workers in a typical post office or mail facility. But the unions will not allow any positions to be eliminated. The workers know that eventually\ the machines will replace them.

thats bullshit......many clerk positions have be eliminated because of automation and many routes have been eliminated and absorbed by the other carriers for the same reason.....i had 750 deliveries on my route after 3 routes were eliminated in the office i had 1030.....and their mindset was because mail was now being automated it should not take any longer to do the route maybe 5-10 minutes yea right........Wayne the UPS driver on my route said UPS was doing the same thing his route grew by 150 deliveries,and same thing,it should not take that much longer....

What's bullshit? THe fact that some of the workers are being phased out by technology?
As for UPS. The have been doing that since the early 80's when I worked for them as a casual package car driver.
Basically, UPS would look at the routes and how they were performed. If a particular PC Driver was logging in right around 8 hours or less, the company would simply add stops to the route to make sure it was an 8 hour route.
Now it has been 30 years since I worked there but I can tell you this. When I got to work, my truck was so full, the loaders had to put the hand truck in the cab....When i came back to the Center, the truck was again stuffed to the gills with stuff from all my pickup stops.
I have a friend in Upstate NY who has been driving a package car since he was in his early 20's. He is now 55. He is not going to retire just yet because he just doesn't feel the need...But while he likes what he does, he really busts his ass...
One thing. Today, as opposed to paper sheets, all deliveries are logged electronically. No longer do drivers have to fill out these sheets opn which we had to list a shipper label number, write out the complete address, the date and time of delivery and next to that the signature area...Today the driver just punches in a few things and drops off the package. If the package requires a signature, the driver can simply forgo the signature and make the delivery or he can leave a tag on the door for the customer to sign if they are willing to allow the package to be left by the driver.
Bottom line is all the writing is gone and if one does the math, if each package took 30 seconds to deliver and writer down all the info. if a guy delivers say to 300 stops, at 30 second per stop that is 9000 seconds or an extra 150 minutes or 2.5 hours.
This is why drivers have more stops because the technology allows them to visit more stops.