how to save the post office
Don’t laugh, it may come to that.
gonna cost me more than that–my beverage just sprayed all over the keyboard…
Just think what a tank of gas will cost when stamps reach that point???
Casey, thats why I don’t bring a beverage near the computer. The computer is only 3 years old, the beverage is usually 12! 
For that I expect delivery on Saturday.
Start with removing the restrictions and let UPS & FedEx compete for letter delivery and raising junk mail rates.
I can understand the problem USPS is having. As for myself, I purchased a book of the "foreve"r stamps last October (?) and haven’t used a ONE yet. I do all my correspondence via e-mail or telephone and pay all my bills via my bank e-bills, e-pay. Prior to getting “smart” i was paying over $50 per month on postage . BUT, I know it’s coming, a tax on e-correspondence. AND, how can you fix an instutution that allows sick days to accumulate for years. A postal worker can retire earlier using his/her accumulated sick days to discount their retirement date. GREAT deal if you can get it. Whatever happened to common sense ?
Mark
PS: And that being said, in addition to my “signature” I best get my a$$ to work. Short day today, like yesterday, 16 hours.Gotta finish the job before the per diem non completion penalty kicks in.
The Other Side of the Coin
How about rolling over vacation days? If I don’t use my vacation this year, is it wrong to expect that benefit in the future? I have PTO. All time off comes from one pool regardless of whether it is called vacation or sick time. If I get close to retirement, am I not allowed to take time off. If I have enough accrued days to take off and still to get paid until my retirement date, should I not be allowed that benefit. If I work without the rewards at the time, am I to be denied the reward in the future? The harder you work, the less you get. There’s an incentive for you.
One last thought about that. If I don’t take sick days and they don’t have to bring in a replacement worker to cover for me, then they have fewer days with a (in theory) less efficient worker. That means that the general day-to-day productivity should be higher.
How can we fix organizations like that?
I think the best way to fix the post office is to let it DIE. Open up competition as someone else mentioned. The USPS is dying because it is an institution that enjoyed a monopoly for so long that when technology made them mostly irrelevant they couldn’t even adapt themselves to the changing world around them in time to avert disaster. Not all “institutions” should be saved. Slavery is a good example. Feudalism, the monarchy, …oh heck…I can think of a bunch of them! LOL
We use about 2-3 stamps per month when averaged out over the course of a year. Most of that is for greeting cards for birthdays, holidays, etc. Everything else we “mail” we ship UPS or FedEx because we already can’t count on USPS to get the job done right, or because UPS/FedEx can do it cheaper. Personally, I’m a fan of the UPS Store business model. I walk in with a bunch of items and a list of addresses. I tell them where I want them sent and by what method from their “menu.” They help me fill out the forms. They package everything if I want them to. If they do it, the contents are insured against damage during transit. If I do it, I have to pay extra for insurance. I swipe my credit/debit card, write a check, or pay cash and get a receipt with tracking #'s. Oh, need a money order? I can get one of those, too. I can also buy cards, stamps, wrapping paper, stationery, packing materials, and a host of other things while I’m there and make some photocopies. When traveling for extended periods, I can go rent a mailbox there at the same location. I list their street address as my “ship to” address and such so that nobody hits me with that “can’t be a PO box” stuff. I can leave instructions to contact me if certain types of things arrive for me and they actually DO it. I can call in from the road and have them go through my mail with me on the phone, then tell them whether or not to forward stuff to me and give them the address I want it sent to this time. I can have faxes sent there/send faxes from there. I can keep track of and manage a lot of this stuff from my laptop and even mobile phone. And as a small business, I can even have all of my billing done on a 30-day credit account. They’ll pick stuff up where I want them to and deliver it where I want them to. Or I can go pick it up at their nearest location. And I can ship anything from a postcard to an automobile. They even do APO/FPO…which FedEx does not. Special delivery instructions like “if I’m not home, leave it with the lady next door in the pink house?” Not at any price with the USPS!
EdD,
I’m a small business employer. In my business model I decided to provide 5 paid sick days per year ( additional non paid- per my discretion). They are just THAT, SICK DAYS to be used fro the obvious. Vacation days vary with time of employment by me. First full year, 1 week. Second and subsequent years, 2 weeks. Paid in both instances. I REQUIRE the employee to take that vacation for two major reasons. One, it improves morale and TWO, I schedule my projects around the absence of that employee in my plans for any project etc. I may ask an employee to take early or delay a scheduled vacation but try to adhere to my original plan. In my model, it’s “use it or lose it”. My business model would collapse if I had an employee who accumulated both sick days and vacation days and presented me with a one ore two month absent request. I can live through the absence of an employee for a day, a week or two weeks, but a month would be a problem. Granted, that scenario would be as a result of an agreement between me and that employee but I could not possibly sustain the policy for long.
As I said before " Great if you can get it". I don’t begrudge the employee bargaining for such a good deal. I DO however question the business model that agrees to that deal. Another GREAT example is the retirement health care provided through UAW bargaining with GM.
The USPS is still a government entity in disguise and as such is insulated from using common sense or logic.
THis is NOT a subject for debate between you and me. You deserve everything you and your employer agreed to. I, on the other hand deserve the right to make rules that fit my situation.
Having said all that, while writing this , my bobber went under and I missed the fish. DRAT!
Mark:
PS: flyguy, you have a lady in a “PINK” house NEXT DOOR ???
What amazes me is how some people try to use the USPS for something that it is not designed for like large parcel/bulk parcel/ heavy or oversize freight and then complain about it. Think about it people. Even in the days of the pony express if you wanted something large/heavy or etc sent long distances you sent it via rail not via USPS.
You have one of the cheapest, most efficient small parcel[COLOR=Black] delivery systems in the world and still the complaints roll on.
Everyone also needs to think about how vital that “another government agency” like the USPS is to our military. Just try sending a parcel via FEDEX/UPS/DHL[/COLOR]/MENLO to anyplace in the gulf for the same rate and as quickly as the USPS does. As long as you aren’t shipping contraband, have the customs form filled out correctly, the USPS will get that parcel to any military personnel around the globe as quickly as possible, cheaper and provide free mail to service members in the gulf. When the Big 4 step up to the plate and offer free mail service to military personnel then I will cut them a little more slack.
I use the Big 4 and the USPS. All of them are important and vital to our nation. All of them have things that they do better and things that they do worse than the other agencies/companies. That is life. If you really want to see those delivery rates skyrocket then go ahead and eliminate the USPS. I suggest you all read this article:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/06/28/upsusps_deal/
Now who do you want to blame for the shortcomings and rate hikes? Plenty of blame to go around for all of them!
marco,
we ALL have ladies in pink houses next door. haven’t you ever listened to john mellencamp?
rodney,
i just said bust the monopoly. deregulate. if the usps survives that, then i’d be really happy. but i wouldn’t bet on them surviving. they make very poor decisions. and the reason the usps is in a death spiral is because of that “cheap, efficient small parcel delivery” model you seem so impressed with. it isn’t viable anymore. hasn’t been for over a decade. one only has to look at the deficits they rack up year after year to realize that. something that broken isn’t something you praise as a good thing and tell folks they should be thankful for. it’s a fairy tale.
There is no monopoly here. No one in the USPS is stopping the big 4 from delivering an type of parcel to any address. There is no price regulation by the federal government on what any delivery system charges you so please stop blaming the USPS for the rates of the big 4. No one is holding a gun to your head nor conspiring to force you to use only the USPS. It is your choice which service you use. However, consider that if not for the USPS that you despise so badly you quite probably would not have the nation you have today or at least it would be very different and not in a good way. There are those of us in the know on some stuff. Your beloved big 4 stick it to the military and that means you too every chance they get. That is corporate America for you. They are every bit as dirty and perhaps dirtier than our government.
100 years from now if our nation still exists the USPS, in some form, will still be here. You and I won’t. My dad is pushing 80 and he will tell you that several times every decade there is always someone singing the doom and gloom of the USPS.
You don’t get mail on Saturday? We don’t get it on Sunday but it still comes to Wis on Sat.
Too many folks want to take the Post Office and look at it as a separate entity.
It really isn’t.
It’s part of the government, whatever they may claim. WE all subsidize it with our taxes. The ‘rates’ they charge don’t cover their expenses. It’s not a ‘business’, it’s a government service that we pay for.
But I’m perfectly okay with that. Lots of parts of our government don’t make a profit. Well, actually, no part of our government makes a profit. At least the Post office brings in something…
Think about it. The Federal Government gives money away to hundreds of thousands of people, businesses, and institutions without any expectation of recompense. Since, ‘we’ are the government, we are the ones doing all of this. Of all the things we throw money at, getting the benefits of inexpensive efficient postal services is one that I can support.
It’s all connected. If you want the post office to ‘compete’, then how about Social Security, AFDC, Farm Subsidies, Federal Retirement Systems, etc? We could privatize the Federal Highway System and OSHA too. FEMA? Customs? Border Patrol? Congress, (please?)
Buddy
Clay…we get it but is being strongly considered to save some bucks
Marco,
I understand what you are saying and I have no problem with it. One of the reasons for rolling over PTO is the fact that more than once I have had vacation bumped by my employer. I have even had scheduled holidays cancelled. Given that, we argued long and hard to get 1 year of PTO rolled over.
I certainly understand that different business models work for different organizations. I also strongly support your right to institute one that works for your business. But I can certainly see rolling-over sick days to protect workers from longer periods of disablility, such as recovering from surgery.
In some cases, organizations will pay a set fee for cashed-in sick days. I think that this is a good idea too. In the cases that I am familiar with the rate of conversion is usually less than the cost of a temp replacement. In this situation an incentive is provided to keep the more skilled employee working with an incentive which ends up being cheaper to the employer. For example, if an employee is paid $200 a day and a skilled replacement costs $150/day, then an employee taking a sick day costs $350/day instead of $200. (Obviously I’m not bringing in taxes, etc…) If the employer offers a bonus of $100 for each sick day not used before retirement, then that employer is to the good $50/day in straight costs as well as the added efficiency of having the usual worker doing the usual job. It also is an incentive for employees to remain with their employer.
I think that we both are expressing different ideas but in a friendly manner.
My lunch break is ending. I hope your strike indicator is moving erratically.
Ed
Buddy,
We don’t provide much subsidy. I used to work for the USPS. Up until the time that I left, it had never failed to pay a PROFIT back into the US government of AT LEAST a billion $ a year. Since then there have been leaner times, but I think that, overall, it has been a friend to the taxpayer and not a drain.
Ed
What other business entity, when faced with high maintainance employees, and a rapidly declining bottom line, decides, “I know. I’ll just raise the prices, and cut customer service! That’ll bring them flocking in.”