The United States Postal Service has put a question before Congress. They are asking Congress to decide if they should continue their traditional universal postal service. Apparently, that means mail delivery from any place to any other place, no matter how large or how small, all at a flat rate, which also means using the same speed and regularity in remote or money losing areas.
I am a little confused here, if that has supposedly been the tradition all along, what has the Post Office been doing with my mail for twice the amount of time it takes me to send something from my remote spot, and also, why have my packages doubled in price to ship in the last year. I have started sending money, which I have never liked to do, for birthdays and holidays instead of wasting $20 or more just to mail packages to my children and grandchildren in California. I live in a remote area in Illinois and have had many misfortunes with the Post Office.
Two years ago I sent a box of Birthday and Christmas gifts to my grandchild. It cost me about $12.00. For the first time in my life because of the contents I decided to pay to have it traced. I paid the extra, which I really don’t see as a great deal. You already pay to have your package sent and delivered to the correct address. But now the Post Office wants you to pay even more in case they lose it. Well, they lost it anyway, a lot of good it did me. The package never arrived. I took my handy, dandy little tracer number the Post Office gave me, and all that the Internet site would say was that it’s last known location was the Post Office where I mailed it. The local Post Office had no information, and the Post Office it was sent to, had no information. Two months later, this package miraculously ended up sitting on my front porch. No apologies or explanations from the Post Offices, no refunding of my postage or even the extra I paid to have it traced. I had to reship it to my grandchild, same address that was on the package originally, but I used UPS this time. Miraculously, it got there with no problem. I learned then that there really isn’t a reason to pay extra just to make sure your package will get there. It doesn’t do any good except to tell you where it once was. Just this last Mother’s Day I had another experience with the good old Post Office. I mailed a yellow cushioned envelope to my daughter with a $25.00 gift in it. I decided to go small and lightweight so I wouldn’t have to pay exorbitant rates. Well it has been over 6 weeks and she still has not received it. When I went to the local Post Office where I mailed it, they asked me for my tracing number, Ha, well I explained exactly how well that worked last time. I am still in hopes this package will show up on my door step in time to send it back to her for Christmas, again by UPS. Why didn’t I learn that lesson the first time. Of course, living in a remote area, it takes me just about as long to get to a UPS office as driving it there myself.
I went to California to visit my family last November, my sister and I took the slow route and drove. The day we were leaving California to drive back to Illinois, we bought Post Cards and sent them to our families and friends here. I sent one to my husband to our address. We drove for 4 days, and when I pulled up to my drive, I opened the mailbox at the end of the lane, and low and behold, what was sitting in there, my postcard to him. It took it 4 days to get here too. Should have saved the postage and ran around putting all the post cards in my family and friends mail boxes when I got here. Ooops, you can’t do that, not supposed to put anything in a mailbox. I remember that from somewhere, maybe the Post Office should also ask Congress, to change that law. Because really, I think I could personally deliver my own letters a lot faster.
The Postal Service in 2006 delivered 216 billion pieces of mail, in 2009 that dropped to 177 billion. The Postal Service feels that is because of the electronic mail systems now on the internet. I believe that probably accounts for a lot of it, but the fact that the Postal Service has done nothing to better their service, and continually raises their rates for faulty services also factor in.
Apparently, by law, the Postal Service is supposed to be self-supporting. It can borrow up to $15 billion a year from the U.S. Treasury, but it also receives an annual appropriation of $100 million in tax dollars. Doesn’t sound like self-supporting to me. Postal employees are some of the best paid in the country and receive one of the best benefit and retirement packages. I just have never understood how the biggest companies, like the Postal Service and utility companies don’t have to try and run their companies like all of us. You do the job, the very best you can, then out of the profit, you decide what you can pay your employees, CEOs, whoever. But, that is not how it is done for anyone other than the average little guy trying to survive. They pay all extras first, and then sit back and say, well we need more money to pay for the services we were supposed to provide in the first place.
Well, I gotta go, I need to send some emails, never had one of those get lost, and it doesn’t take 4 days to get there. Sure wish the electronic companies could invent a computer with a mail slot so I could just drop my packages into it.
11. March 2010
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