The US Postal Service is once again pleading with legislators to allow it to make its service less efficient and more expensive. Postmaster General John E. Potter told an assortment of lawmakers that the Internet and organizations like FedEx are but a few of the ills plaguing this country's mail system, and that his agency will probably lose some $238 billion over the next 10 years if he can't make some cuts.
The Postal Service is finally admitting that mail volume and revenue will probably never return to "pre-recession" levels, although wouldn't "pre-GMail levels" be a bit more accurate? Either way. Among the threatened changes:
•Â No Saturday delivery.
•Â Slower service.
•Â "Increases in postage-stamp prices that exceed the rate of inflation."
• Layoffs.
•Â The further decline of the handwritten thank-you note.
OK, so I'm theorizing about that one. But in the age of the Evite, it's probably not an incorrect assumption to make! And don't think that the Postal Service hasn't thought about the Internet, too:
The agency also plans to explore offering "hybrid mail products" that deliver some mail to customers via e-mail, Potter said.
Yeah, that's an innovation that could never ever go horribly awry, right?
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Because snail mail never arrives at the wrong address.
Let's not forget, it was stamps that lead to the (first) American Revolution, and this Obama guy just doesn't seem to get that the best way to treat real America is benign neglect. OMG IT'S ALL HAPPENING AGAIN!
Don't forget the war on Christmas cards.
I feel like Owl City had something to do with this.
a+++
If things are getting really bad, instead of becoming quaint "Going postal" might over the next ten years become so horrifying that we will never use it lightly again. These guys don't handle stress well, remember.
This really makes me sad. I'm one of the few folks out there who still has rubber stamps and ink pads at home that I non-ironically use to send packages. It's a remnant of my first job; working in shipping departments. The folks at the post office like the stamps as well!
And what stinks is the post office CAN make money of they somehow concentrate on package delivery services. I really like using them. Cheaper and more reliable than UPS or FedEX.
Letters and postcards, yes. I see those dying and never coming back. But they had better make sure they can make a go with package delivery.
"Hi, I'm the Post Master General...I don't understand why we're losing all this business to FedEx and UPS! What's that? You need a stamp? That'll be $3.55! Also, we're only delivering the mail on Wednesdays now, so it'll get there in three weeks."
I mean, slower service?! Really?! I already get one bundle every month or so, usually containing several months worth of bills (most old, all of them already paid online), Christmas cards (still getting these in March!), and invitations for events long past. If, god forbid, someone sends me something larger than my mailbox I get the "sorry we missed you" card even if I've been sitting in my apartment all day, and they make me come out to the fucking post office to get it where I'm subjected to the miserable belligerent attitudes of the unhelpful staff. The only thing that comes with any degree of reliability is junk mail, and the postman seems to think it's okay to just dump all junk mail for the building in one mailbox.
I am the type of person who loves sending and receiving letters, and I still have penpals who I write to longhand. Except now I just Fedex everything. It's an extra $10, but it saves me far more than that in time and irritation.
My vote is a boycott of the USPS until they stop sucking. If they don't, fuck them. I will put an ad on Craigslist and get someone traveling to wherever I'm sending my mail to hand deliver it. It would probably get there faster.