Losing Saturday mail would be awful – but we already have awfuller
Written by Ray McAllister
Monday, 08 March 2010 14:21
Is the loss of Saturday mail delivery the worst thing that can happen to consumers?
Hardly.
Something worse has already happened. It’s evident to anyone who’s walked into a post office recently.
More on that in a minute.
First, let’s talk headlines. The U.S. Postal Service head proposed last week that Saturday delivery be cut to help with billions of dollars in losses every year.
The problem is competing carriers like UPS and Federal Express, as well as – roll of drums, please – e-mail. As recently as 2006, the postal service delivered 213 billion pieces of mail a year. Now it’s 177 billion.
Postage increases and employee cuts have made up for some lost revenue. Next apparently is cutting Saturday delivery.
You would have thought the proposal was to line up civilians and shoot them on Saturdays.
Outrage abounds. Bloggers lament that if a kid doesn’t get his birthday card from Grandma on Friday, he won’t have it in time for his Saturday party. He won’t get the card until Monday.
Gee, do you think he’ll survive?
But forget the Saturday issue. The bigger problem for us consumers is inside the post offices themselves. The drop-off in service over the past, say, 10 years has been astonishing.
Once you could expect to be in and out within a few minutes. Now it might be 20. Lines extend five, 10, 15 people long – while just one clerk works the counter.
And that clerk, beyond being merely methodical, seems almost comatose half the time.
It’s an overgeneralization, I know. Many of the employees do bust a gut. And much of this is from reduced staffing.
But there seems to be a postal attitude coming down from on high these days: Less service, more cost.
Is it any wonder that people are leaving the postal service whenever possible?
While you’re standing in that long line, stamps, trinkets and “collectibles” beckon you, along with Express Mail and Priority Mail boxes. Have you caught the latest trick with the priority boxes? More and more say “Flat Rate.” They look like the old boxes, but use one and you’ll find you’re not paying the $5.35 or $6.55 you might expect. You’re paying $10.70.
When you finally do reach the counter, you get hit with a required sales assault. Would you like insurance with that, sir, to protect against loss or damage? Would you like delivery confirmation? Do you want a signature upon delivery? Do you need any stamps or mailing supplies?
On and on it goes. You say “No” and they continue asking the question, anyway. By the end, and I’m not making this up (as you well know), the clerk is sometimes asking: Would you like to rent a postal box?
Hmm, if I had come to rent a postal box, don’t you think I would have remembered to ask.
