USPS going to 5 days?

S

SST55

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Well, I know this might affect Buck but isn't it about time? I write 2 checks a month for bills. After having a mortgage payment "lost in the mail" I now take it to the bank, 2 miles down the road. I almost live in Lowes and also make my payment there in person. 2 miles in the other direction.

All my other bills, utilities, car payment & insurance,etc are all done on-line thru my credit union. I use the bill pay feature, it's free, and pay before the due date and the amount I want, usually a bit more than what's due. I do not authorize them to access my account as I learned my lesson there. Geico kept taking payments out after I dropped them, a royal pain to get them to reinburse me.

I think 99% of our mail is junk anyway, sales flyers, offers for gutter guards, septic cleaning and the like. I don't miss writing a ton of checks either.

Anyone else do the same?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/USPS-to-propose-5day-mail-cnnm-4552368.html?x=0
 
We get two things in the snail-mail: junk and bills. We had nearly all of our bill payments for one month "lost in the mail". I can't tell you how bad that screwed us up. Now we do all the bills online.

The USPS can stick it up their parcel.
 
I like this idea. I mean, if you cut out all the junk mail, but still realize that the carriers still have to make a living too, 5 days is still a good compromise. Yea, they lose a day of pay, but they might be able to make that back up by reassigning jobs back in the PO or something
 
Okay guys, here's the facts. First off, I am in favor of five day delivery. It's my union the is opposed to it. I'll get to the why in a moment but just let me say that I will not lose a day's pay. My work week is 40 hours like most other people. My days off rotate each week and because of that, I have what is called a floater. A floater is a carrier who takes the place of the regular carrier on his day off and has five routes in his swing. Believe it or not we still deliver plenty of first class mail besides bills. I have several elderly folks on my route who couldn't tell you what a url is, let alone knowing what WWW.COM is. I just wonder how many ecards are sent to widows and widowers who have just lost their spouse? I can go on and on about what I do deliver, but we all know that with the advent of the internet, those things have slowed and slowed considerably. So what can they do to make changes? The five day delivery has been tossed around for many years, but there has always been opposition to it by the union. Five day delivery would save considerably more than most people think. First off, about 15% of the work force would not be needed. The USPS has not hired any regular employees for nearly three years now and those that have been hired are temps. The USPS have in their contract with the carriers the ability to layoff personnel with less than five years of service, but with the hiring practice they have today and the fact that people retire regularly, the number of temps have risen to the amount that even losing 15% of the regular work force probably wouldn't require them to lay off any regular employees. Think of how many of those white USPS vehicles you see out there and think how much money would be saved if only those vehicles set idle for just one day a week. How about two?

As for my paycheck, what this would affect is my ability to work an extra day a week. Does that bother me? No, but there are those who have relied on this extra pay for some time. However, with the hiring of more and more temps, working one's day off has almost come to a total stop.

For neigh on 28 years, I've worked five out of six Saturdays and hated it. My wife has always wished that we could have the weekend off together and there have been many things that I have missed because I work on Saturday. I have been saying for a long time that they won't get five day delivery until I retire and I'm still not sure it will happen until then, but it seems to be getting closer. I've seen polls taken that say that 75% of the public still want Saturday delivery, but I'm not sure that poll is correct.

What ever comes, it will be a change for millions of people both inside and out of the postal system. As for me, give me Saturdays off.

Feel free to ask any questions and I'll try to answer them.
 
I am in favor of 5 day delivery. I am not in favor of doing away with the Postal Service. There are too many people that, as buckaroo says, have no idea how to use the internet and are not capable of using it. However, they know how to put a stamp on a letter and how to mail bills. geez, I remember many years ago when my dad used to drive to wherever he had to go to pay bills. Those that were too far away he would have a moneyorder made and mailed.
 
I don't use the postal service too often, cards and such, mostly at christmas time. I don't have checks, haven't had a checkbook in 7 years, i pay all my bills through bill pay including my mortgage. It is much easier, convenient and I can sit in front of my puter and figure out the entire schedule. I'm sure there are always going to be those people that don't trust the computer bill pay method, but those will be dwindling down as more more people turn to it. So i guess i'm in favor of a 5 day work week.
 
It's Obama's fault!!!!!!!!!!
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Sorry Buck, but I say shut down the USPS altogether and let UPS and Fedex fight over delivering parcels. USPS cannot turn a profit, they need to shut down, and stop taking subsidies from Uncle Sam.
 
GREAT AMERICAN RACE FAN said:
Sorry Buck, but I say shut down the USPS altogether and let UPS and Fedex fight over delivering parcels. USPS cannot turn a profit, they need to shut down, and stop taking subsidies from Uncle Sam.
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The USPS does not take any subsidies from Uncle Sam. You, as a customer, don't have to pay a red cent for the service. You can sit at home and check your mail box daily and anything that comes your way didn't cost you anything. The person mailing it pays the freight. There are many in the USPS that would like for Uncle Sam to contribute and many people, such as yourself already believe it. Sounds to me like you have a grudge with the PO. Talk to your postmaster and see if he can work it out with you.
 
GREAT AMERICAN RACE FAN said:
Sorry Buck, but I say shut down the USPS altogether and let UPS and Fedex fight over delivering parcels. USPS cannot turn a profit, they need to shut down, and stop taking subsidies from Uncle Sam.
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It sounds like you may be just a bit misinformed. Where do you get your information.
 
muggle not said:
It sounds like you may be just a bit misinformed. Where do you get your information.
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+1

A lot of people don't know this, but the USPS gets no tax payer money. It's entirely funded by what it charges customers.

I really don't care about 5 or 6 day mail delivery. I just think the USPS needs to fix it's reliability issues. I can't tell you how many times stuff has gotten lost in the mail for us. There needs to be a better way to control how mail is sent and tracked.
 
foehammer111 said:
+1

A lot of people don't know this, but the USPS gets no tax payer money. It's entirely funded by what it charges customers.

I really don't care about 5 or 6 day mail delivery. I just think the USPS needs to fix it's reliability issues. I can't tell you how many times stuff has gotten lost in the mail for us. There needs to be a better way to control how mail is sent and tracked.
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Yeah, that seems to be a big beef with many people. However, when the complaints are investigated, it usually finds to be one case that is exaggerated many times over. I won't say that you haven't had mail lost or delayed, but I have found in my own cases that there has been a legitimate reason, and it's usually not the USPS fault. Many times people are expecting something and are told that it was mailed on a certain date, only to find out that the postmark is later than what was told. There are as many reasons for mail to be late as their are people who handle the mail daily. But there is a definite underlying feeling that the postal service is bad. I deal with those problems daily and there's just not much I can do to solve them. I am only one of hundreds of people who might handle the mail I deliver. If you can come up with an answer to your question, you will make lots of money. All it takes of for one person in the system to make a small mistake and that small mistake can become a total screwup. AND, it isn't just the human end of it. You must know that these days there are machines that sort and send mail to the cities and towns that are the destination of a letter. Try to explain this to a customer...I have gotten in my machinable mail, a piece of mail that was sent from a city on the west coast to a destination of that same city. When I get such mistakes and they don't happen often, but all it takes is one time for those customers to remember it for ever, I have to put it in separate area to be handled separately. Bar codes have to be crossed out or it will just come right back. All that adds another day to what is already delayed and then it goes back out the NEXT day because I get back into the office late in the afternoon.

I have as many gripes about my own organization as you do, perhaps even more. It's a bureaucracy and it's pretty much like the military. The low man on the totem pole gets the shaft, but can't do anything about it. I'd like to think that privatization would solve most problems, but what problems that would solve would only be the beginning of many more, which I think the public would hate even more.
 
5 or 6 days doesn't really matter to me much either. it's not like we check the mail daily. for important mail that we want delivered reasonably on time we drive 6 miles to a larger town that has a better reliability record. the postmaster there also knows what's going on with damn near everybody in the county and will happily tell you the latest whether you care to hear it or not. he even asks how our kids in mass are doing and if they got the packages we occasionally send them.
 
SlowNeasy said:
5 or 6 days doesn't really matter to me much either. it's not like we check the mail daily. for important mail that we want delivered reasonably on time we drive 6 miles to a larger town that has a better reliability record. the postmaster there also knows what's going on with damn near everybody in the county and will happily tell you the latest whether you care to hear it or not. he even asks how our kids in mass are doing and if they got the packages we occasionally send them.
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Sounds as though you live in a very rural area. One of the things you'll notice with UPS or FedEx is that the rate you pay depends on where you are sending the piece. That's one of the better things that the USPS does and that is a flat rate no matter where it's going. That could be one of the things that change in the future and it definitely would be a change of the PO goes private.
 
Since I really don't get much personal mail the only thing I get is bills and junk.

Anything important is usually received by UPS or Fed X and sometimes priority mail.

Since there is usually a few days delay in paying a bill after receiving it, as far as I am concerned they could give me mail service two or three times a week and that would be fine with me.
 
foehammer111 said:
+1

A lot of people don't know this, but the USPS gets no tax payer money. It's entirely funded by what it charges customers.
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I found this old article from '99.
http://directmag.com/news/marketing_appropriations_bill_cuts/

The U.S. Postal Service, which is expected to post a $200 million profit in September when its fiscal year ends, stands to lose $6.7 million in federal funding.


Last week the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a $29.7 billion Treasury, Postal and General Government appropriations bill (S-1282), that reduces last year's USPS $100.1 million allocation to $93.4 million. The rest of the money goes to the U.S. Treasury Department, which includes the Internal Revenue Service and the White House
 
Guido said:
Since I really don't get much personal mail the only thing I get is bills and junk.

Anything important is usually received by UPS or Fed X and sometimes priority mail.

Since there is usually a few days delay in paying a bill after receiving it, as far as I am concerned they could give me mail service two or three times a week and that would be fine with me.
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Same here. All we get is junk mail. UPS/FedEx come by 4 times a week for dad's work, so we have everything sent by them if possible.
 
Bucky Badger said:
I found this old article from '99.
http://directmag.com/news/marketing_appropriations_bill_cuts/

The U.S. Postal Service, which is expected to post a $200 million profit in September when its fiscal year ends, stands to lose $6.7 million in federal funding.


Last week the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a $29.7 billion Treasury, Postal and General Government appropriations bill (S-1282), that reduces last year's USPS $100.1 million allocation to $93.4 million. The rest of the money goes to the U.S. Treasury Department, which includes the Internal Revenue Service and the White House
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REAAAALLLY, no Govt. money huh?
 
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