Apparently there is some possibility the Postal Service may have to cut back to 5-day delivery. I’ve been wondering ever since I carried the mail during summers when I was in graduate school why they didn’t eliminate Saturday delivery.
Anyone care if they have to wait until Monday for the Bed, Bath & Beyond coupon?
Hell, on my street, it isn’t unusual for us to have a delivery day skipped now. On other days, neighbors frequently exchange mail delivered to the wrong address. One day, I asked our semi-regular carrier why he had so much trouble getting the right mail into the correct mailbox. His reply – what do you want from me, nobody’s perfect.
The day they want to eliminate is Tuesday, not Saturday.
I’m curious as to the source of their financial difficulties. Fuel is down; vehicle prices are down; wages are stagnent; health care keeps on increasing, but cutting a day of service wouldn’t help that.
All I can come up with is that, with the recession, there is a major decline in junk mail. i.e. less demand for their services.
Talk about a silver lining.
Huge drop in First Class Mail because of electronic bill paying and email.
The financial difficulties simply come from the economic slump that we are currently in. Pair that with increasing competition and you will start to see where the 2.8 billion dollar deficit comes from.
Lower gas prices are only a recent miracle, and don’t show up immediately in the bottom line. Rural carriers are paid using a formula that includes the number of boxes to deliver, distance, milage, and even how far they walk when not in their car….among other things. This formula is only reviewed once a year, and includes the price of gas, so you could imagine that lower fuel costs will take a while to show up. Nothing is immediate. I’m still buying wine for my shop that was shipped with last years dollar, even though our dollar has increased in value.
Dropping Saturday delivery isn’t a good idea, because one of their strong selling points is that they, unlike their competitors, don’t charge extra for Saturday delivery. Instead, they should only deliver parcels and first class mail on Saturday, and use their part time employees to do so. This would nearly eliminate unnecessary overtime and shorten routes.
I’ve never quite understood the hostility that so many people have towards the USPS. I deal every day with privately owned companies who never get an order right. I couldn’t imagine them trying to do anything on that kind of scale!
Man, so many thoughtful comments. I was going to make a crack about doing my Bed Bath & Beyond shopping on the weekends
—I do need my coupon on Saturday!The savings is actually lower than one might expect. Removing one day of service does not reduce delivery costs by 16%.
Personally, I’d prefer to see a wider move to neighborhood mail delivery boxes in older neighborhoods, like the ones they put in new subdivisions, before we lose a day of service.
Tuesday is being considered, as are other days, including Saturday. However, I think Tuesday would be a bad choice. As it is, when Monday is a government holiday, Tuesdays always become heavy mail days. Tuesdays off would also create three day periods of no mail every time there was a Monday holiday. That would be a nightmare for everyone. Also, most grocery stores change their prices on Wednesdays, so many of them mail out their weekly sales fliers on Tuesdays. I suppose they could switch, but for now, Tuesdays can be heavy mail days, and they would probably make a bad choice.
My only real concern is that this whole thing is going to screw up the rhythm in my Netflix
I think the Mail is a great deal, well worth 50cent write now. The $3B deficit should be shouldered by the stimili.