posted on May 11, 2001 03:48:08 PM new
Dan Burton [R-IN], stated that 8000 to 15,000 post offices should be shut down. Burton said HE was not proposing closing post offices, but it is clear that the issue will be placed on the table for consideration by the House Govt Reform Committee. Title 39 US Code which prevents post offices from being closed solely due to unprofitability will also be considered for revision.
posted on May 11, 2001 08:53:55 PM new
We have three Post Offices in a fifteen mile radius. One only stays open four hours a day. It's brand new, and has all the latest technologies. The town it is in hasn't grown hardly any in the last fifteen years. So it's not to cover population expansion, or even proposed population. Such offices are a waste of money. Of course, it's our money, and drains the funds they do have.
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posted on May 11, 2001 09:24:57 PM new
It's not your money--it's not taxpayer money at all. The U.S. Postal Service is an operating business venture within the U.S. Gov't. that pays it's own way through revenue generated by sales of service. The ONLY tax subsidy received by the postal service is to continue to provide for the free mailings of tax exempt organizations such as church organizations, and congree provides subsidy for the franking privileges it enjoys in mailing political news to their constituents.
It's also an agency that is all about service. It serves the citizens of this country without qualification wherever they may chose to reside. Wherever you are, you will get mail. The small seemingly profit poor offices are supported by the larger revenue generators.
This proposal, like unnumerable proposals before it, is shortsighted and would deprive granny the cherished delivery of the letter from the grandson she's seen but once in her life.
Privatize the mails? Sure, several entities would love to have a piece of that pie, but in all cases they have wanted to chose only those portions in which they could derive profits; i.e. urban delivery and business first class mailings. They don't want to provide for granny because there's no money in it for them.
If you are anywhere in rural America, or in any area listed on these sorts of proposals as being wasteful, you had better hope that such things as this stupid idea never comes to pass or you will not receive mail or if you do you will pay a hell of a lot more than the current cost of a stamp to get it.
Go on down to that seemingly useless little post office of yours and give the postmaster a warm thank you.
posted on May 11, 2001 09:29:45 PM newThe U.S. Postal Service is an operating business venture within the U.S. Gov't. that pays it's own way through revenue generated by sales of service.
posted on May 11, 2001 09:35:56 PM new
Nope, not anymore than oil exploration is paid for by 'our money'. Pay and get--at the pump you get gas, at the PO you get delivery.
Complain about insurance payments. You pay and get nothing...unless.
posted on May 11, 2001 09:46:29 PM new
Name one of the above that can continue to operate without the public paying them for a product, or service? They all depend on payment of our money to survive.
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[ edited by mint4you on May 11, 2001 09:48 PM ]
posted on May 11, 2001 10:18:40 PM new"The ONLY tax subsidy received by the postal service is..."
It is all 'our' money.
If they don't need 'our' money, why do the rates continue to climb? Boring, yes. My comments stand as being fact, not fiction. Money is not free, it comes out of 'our' pockets, one way or the other, for them to waste, and then want more.
posted on May 11, 2001 10:57:06 PM new
With this logic all the money I have received form my eBay customers is actually "their" money, and when I get a high price for an item, I am actually wasting "their" money.
posted on May 12, 2001 02:36:28 AM new
I guess I will believe they are a privite company when I see them pay out the same money I do for license plates.
Are they paying tax for the land and building now to local government?
Let's see - They also have their own police force the postal inspectors and they have different rules for hiring than private business such as accepting veterans first.
You don't see the usual people there for entry positions as you do elsewhere. It makes a huge difference in their costs.
There is a way to go for them to be fully privitized.
posted on May 12, 2001 04:07:04 AM new
Gee, this got me to thinking, how many post offices do we have within 15 miles? I come up with 9 and more than half of them have rebuilt new bigger brick ones in the last 8 years. Ridiculous!
And I may have missed one or two! If you compare this to population size then Orlando should have about 500.
posted on May 12, 2001 05:28:39 AM new
What's the 'population' of manufacturing, banking, service oriented businesses in Orlando are the questions you might ask to determine the appropriateness of the postal installations there. Not much money in grannymail.
Sounds like more of the perpetual sour grapes. Couldn't get a job there? The last time the postal service gave a test for clerk/carriers in this area, anticipating a future need for a register of eligible applicants sufficient to fill 400 positions, over 8000 people from the streets took the test. Veterans get a 5 point advantage on the entry test score, ten points for disabled and purple heart veterans, but that shouldn't be difficult for someone with a vast intellect and analytic capabilities to overcome....they do require a physical, however. No one said here that the U.S. Postal Service is a "privite" business. If that's in reference to what I said, it was "The U.S. Postal Service is an operating business venture within the U.S. Gov't.".
posted on May 12, 2001 05:35:07 AM newWith this logic all the money I have received form my eBay customers is actually "their" money, and when I get a high price for an item, I am actually wasting "their" money.
Your auctions are not a monopoly. Persons do not have to buy from you. They do not have to pay your price, if they do not want to. If you provide poor service, and then raise your prices, you will cease to make any money. They have other options, they will go elsewhere.
posted on May 12, 2001 05:44:21 AM new
krs, if you're referring to my post then I think you read it wrong. I am out in the boonies where everybody drives and the vast percentage of mail IS "grannymail" and ads so why 9 post offices within 12 miles?
Perhaps the difference is that most of our area does not have delivery so they are making out like bandits on the postal boxes.
In reference to Orlando, I was comparing our low population to their high population. Of course they have home delivery and very large postal facilities which in my opinion are more economically feasible than like here where we have a PO every 4 miles.
posted on May 12, 2001 05:46:43 AM new
If I have to drive to get to the nearest P.O, then I use more gas. More gas usage = more $$ for the oil companies.
posted on May 12, 2001 05:54:31 AM new
Yes krs that would be a good way to compare it. See how mant bank branches are supported for example.
If you are talking about me no - I have never applied to the post office. Even when I work for other people, which always pays less than working for myself, I have made at least half again as much as the Post Office rates. Also the post office in my area does not appeal to work for. The Main post office for the area is the Royal Oak post office where twice they have had major shootings, and once a bombing that did not get much publicity because only one person recieved minor injuries. The local post office near my house is such a bad place to work I have seen the employees out in the summer heat picketing their own office in the summer heat. The newspaper here did a story last summer about the way they treat their workers. Basically they are verbally abusive with no respect and no courtesy. A woman when her little girl became suddenally ill asked for help and a postal worker rushed them to the toilet. The supervisor gave them the bum's rush while berating them although the kid was still barfing and disciplined the worker for helping them. That also rated a news article.
They have some terrible workers there that at any real for profit business would be long gone. I try not to go to the one near my house. They have an Indian lady there who is amazing to watch. She goes through every question like a robot no matter what you say to her. The effect is she does one customer for every two or three the others do. If you give her 5 items and SAY no insurance on any of them she still asks if you want insurance for each as it is put on the scale. If you tell her she is mentally defective if she can't remember there is no insurance on any of them she just ignores you and asks again next package. It is so infuriating I can't understand why no one has climbed over the counter and hurt her. She refused to take my free material for the blind. Now if I have to go there I refuse to go to her counter and will wait for another clerk. The basic problem here is that the postmaster is an ass and that is enough to scre up the whole opperation.
posted on May 12, 2001 06:18:31 AM new
Good ol' 'someone hasn't heard of UPS, Fedex, or any of the other commercial entities willing and able to deliver mail, for a price.
[i]"I am out in the boonies where everybody drives and the vast percentage of mail IS
"grannymail" and ads so why 9 post offices within 12 miles?"[/i]
This goes to what I said concerning service. Each little community will have a PO. Whether it has city delivery depends on volume of mail. Rural delivery is used in cases where it is fiscally advantegeous to do so, or box stations are provided where it is not. In any case there will be a way for granny to get mail close to home. Or maybe granny would prefer to drive into the closest urban center to obtain that mail?
Where is the company that has employees who make all customers happy all of the time? Any ebay seller should know the impossibility of that.
In the described situation, the complainant is probably unaware that postal guidelines now require that window clerks ask, for each mailed article, whether additional services are desired. It generates revenue in the first place, and offers the protection against claims for loss or damage in which the claimant charges that he or she was unaware that such things as insurance or delivery confirmation were available. It is true that some employees use those sorts of guidelines as a weapon when disgruntled over working conditions so that they may have the feeling that they are getting back by using more time per mailed item because of their strict application of published requirements. It's very difficult to discharge an employee for doing as he or she is told.
posted on May 12, 2001 10:25:57 AM new
That is the Rochester MI post office. The one up in Rochester Hills is much nicer.
You are right krs about using the rules as a weapon - can't remember where I read the term but it is called a white mutiny - that is probably a racist term but the only actual name I have heard for it and I don't know the origin. It is doing exactly what you were told to do with no variation or addition. I have never done that but I still had my boss one time come out and say "Oh no! You did exactly what I told you to do!!"
I would quit anywhere that made me that unhappy. It is not worth the unhappiness to stay. Surely they could find something else to do. The unemployment rate around here is under 2% and they pay closers at McDonald's
$8.50 an hour.
posted on May 12, 2001 01:07:21 PM new
Call it clerk mutiny to be more kosher, and they pay postal clerks around $16. an hour if they've been in long enough to work windows. That's not a general rule, and there will now commence a symphony of objection relating case by case how this one is $14. or this one is $17. and all that dumb stuff, but they make more than your McDonald's closers.
posted on May 12, 2001 01:32:23 PM new
Yeah you would have to have some kind of skill to get that elsewhere. That is the range here you could get for a specialized secretary such as legal or medical or a manual machinist who did not specialize in something like tools/molds/dies. That's about what a non-union carpender is getting here.The auto
people make more but there are not near as many of those jobs as there used to be.
That's about $3.00 an hour more than I thought they made - I'm out of date.
I just meant the McDonalds to show how tight the market is here. There are signs outside just about everywhere saying they need people. Our favorite little Lapunas Coney near us was offering $12.00 an hour to do food service and they get great tips. The tip can in that place must run several hundred bucks a day for 4 guys to split. They yell and toss stuff and ring a bell when you dump money in the tip can and just generally have a good time kidding each other. Nice to see someone enjoying what they do like that. People like it well enough that there is a line down the sidewalk most days to get in the place.
[ edited by gravid on May 12, 2001 01:36 PM ]
