The stunning thought process of the USPS

[Kevy Baby]

This is from a (printed) industry newsletter, so I cannot provide a link, but...

We understand that the USPS, in a planned "retail standardization program," intends to remove the clocks from public portions of all 37,000 post offices. An official admitted that the objective was to have customers become less conscious of the time spent waiting in line.Now that took some real brain power to figure out!

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Alex]

What's so stunning about that? It's the same reason casinos don't have them. And a lot of banks. Or my dentist's waiting room. It is reasonably common in retail environments to not have visible clocks where people will be required to wait.

It may be stupid but it is an idea that bled from the commercial world into the USPS.

[wendybeth]

I could be wrong, but I think KB was being sarcastic. As in: Duh.

[alphabassettgrrl]

I hate it when there's no clock on the wall.

[innerSpaceman]

But while we're on the subject, I think it was brilliant of the USPS to combat the trend of less people using mail by raising rates.

(The hike to 41 cents per envelope resulted in me switching all my bill-paying to the internet)

[Capt Jack]

yeah, I think I converted all mine at .37

[wendybeth]

I'm doing the vast majority of bill paying online- I hate the USPS.

[Alex]

Of course he is being sarcastic. But I think he is also holding it up as an example of how uniquely stupid the USPS (and government agencies are).

Or at least the was the common tone back in March when this came out in the press. I'm just saying that if it is particularly stupid then the post office isn't alone in it.

[wendybeth]

Well, given the association between the USPS and bad tempered behavior, one would have thought some bright bulb would have thought of this, say...thirty years ago?

[Kevy Baby]

I send out about 45 million pieces of mail per year (well, not me personally, but the company I work for on behalf of our clients - and I typically have my hand in most every job). I deal with the USPS on a regular basis. I regularly deal with massive incompetence. Yes, there are a few bright spots in the organization, but the complete lack of caring is astounding. It is not uncommon to call 10 different post offices and get 11 different answers to the same question.

Yes, this was a sarcastic post. This is a typical USPS way to fix things: since we cannot fix the problem (of slow lines), we'll just mask it (by taking away one way that the the client knows how incompetent they are). I know that other retail locations also don't have clocks, the painful truth is that the USPS was just (at least in part) trying to cover up a problem rather than fix it.

A while back (unfortunately on another board that crashed), I posted some other interesting details about the USPS. I do not have the time to research the facts again, but one thing that always stuck with me was the extremely high workers comp claim rates of the USPS - they were four or five times as high as the national average, and MUCH higher than any company.

[DreadPirateRoberts]

I typically have my hand in most every job

I like taking things out of context too.

[Alex]

I don't think I've ever really had a bad experience at the post office other than slow lines but that generally is more the fault of the people who apparently don't understand that more work is involved on their part than showing up with a present in a milk crate and having a vague hopeful notion that it will go to some other part of the world.

But again, I wasn't trying to say that the USPS isn't stupid or incompetent. Just that if this is stupid and incompetent it is a broadly accepted stupid incompetency.

[CoasterMatt]

The USPS put my sister and I through college (well, indirectly) - my dad was a postal clerk for 35 years.

[Alex]

How did it feel being raised by an incompetent idiot?

[Morrigoon]

Ouch, Alex.

I actually know a guy who works for USPS repairing the trucks. He's in Mensa. Of course, part of it is that he knows in order to hold any higher-up job in the organization, (postmaster of a city, all the way up to Postmaster General), you have to have worked a year in the lower ranks. Also, he knows most of the people he works with are idiots so he figures the competition for those higher-up jobs isn't too stiff.

[Alex]

Sorry, that was meant as a joke based on the issue of the thread.

I have no bad thoughts about postal workers.

[FEJ]

I have no bad thoughts about postal workers.


Even if I did, I wouldn't air them. I hear they carry weapons and are not afraid to use them :P

[Alex]

There's a mailbox place in a nearby strip mall called Goin' Postal. I just find that too tasteless to consider patronizing them. Really, I needed a notary and they were closest but I went to Kinko's instead just because of the name.

[FEJ]

one of my old FedEx customers was a place called "Go Postal" and I thought the same thing. But I had to go there

[Snowflake]

Well the Post Office has changed a whole lot. Like CM, my Dad was a mail carrier for nearly 30 years and it was a different place to work back then. I know at my Dad's postal station a good number of the carriers are postal clerks were ex-Navy, God knows it felt like half of the guys that served on the same aircraft carrier my Dad served on worked in the same Post Office.

I remember standing in lines just as long back when a first class mail stamp was 8 cents, the difference then, the postal workers behind the counters knew their business. Now my experience is the same in that there are long lines if I have to go in and different because the answer to a question I am looking for is different or totally wrong depending on which clerk I speak with. It's amazing how many clerks do not know the services the USPS is supposed to offer.

This is why I do a goodly amount of my USPS business online, so I can just go and drop my mail and not have to deal with the person I'm assuming is an idiot behind the counter. I know it's not an easy job, and I am sure dealing with the public is no picnic either in many cases. But that's not an excuse not to know your job.

Of course, in our neighborhood, we're the training route for the carriers and I consider it a good day to actually find my own mail in the box.

[Moonliner]

Putting this important clock issue aside for a moment...

Does anyone else think the post office is slitting it's own throat?

Computers are cutting into the post offices business big time. Between email, online bill paying and efaxing I know in the last 15 years I've gone from purchasing a book of stamps every week or so down to buying one every few months at best. So how does the post office deal with this competition? They keep raising the price of stamps and this time around complicated the sending of mail with rules like it's now cheaper send a letter folded in half than to send it flat. Doh! All this will just encourage more and more people to use more and more email. Which will lead to the USPS raising prices, which will.... You get the idea. How long before the old email hoax (http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/bill602p.asp)becomes real as a post office fighting for it's life starts pushing for a tax on all electronic communication?

[Ghoulish Delight]

First, as Alex mentioned elsewhere, postage continues to lag behind inflation, so I'm not too concerned about them taking my .02. Second, they still do a brisk business in priority and parcel post. Third they offer some pretty good options for dealing with postage online. And fourth, they're still the only service that comes to your door on a regular daily basis without having to schedule an appointment. The USPS still has a lot going for it. It may still struggle, but it's not as simple an equation as, "The internet is hurting the USPS."

[Alex]

Letter delivery is declining for the post office but package and business delivery continues to rise (that is why some rates targetting those actually went down).

And over the last decade while I no longer ever send mail I have directly increased the amount of mail caused to be send over what would have been sent otherwise (so on top of the junk mail I'd say that the Netflix, Amazon, etc. deliveries far outpace the loss of several outgoing bills per month).

Most of the pressure for price increases has little to do with total demand but with increased cost of doing business (how much do you think a 40% increase in the price of gas affects them with all their delivery vehicles, for example). And the size thing is related to automation. If mail comes through in predefined sizes and addressing formats it can be handled with near zero human intervention. If it doesn't more expensive handling is required.

The post office will deliver an unwrapped bowling ball if you attach stamps and an address but it'll cost them a lot more to do it.

[Snowflake]

The post office will deliver an unwrapped bowling ball if you attach stamps and an address but it'll cost them a lot more to do it.

Has anyone actually put this to the test? :)

[Cadaverous Pallor]

If you deal with any large organization long enough, you will be angry at the incompetence you encounter.

[Alex]

Has anyone actually put this to the test? :)

Yes, though I don't know if since 9/11 when certain things were tightened. If the correct money is paid the post office will go to great lengths to successfully make the delivery. Of course, as with anything that requires extra work a lot will come down to the individual people who end up involved.

I believe it was the Journal of Irreproducible Results than ran an about 10+ years ago where they mailed various things in various ways and tracked to see if they were delivered. Most were if I recall correctly.

[Alex]

Ah, found the old article. It was the Annals of Improbable Research, not JIR. Here is a link (http://www.directcreative.com/aaexperiments.html) to a copy.

I misremembered and many of the unwrapped items were blocked by a counter clerk noting that deliveries must be wrapped.

But a $20 bill in a clear envelope was delivered in 4 days.
An unwrapped snow ski with postage and mailing label attached was delivered in 11 days. (Though recipient was warned that packaged must be wrapped)

Closest to a bowling ball: a fresh coconut. Received from Hawaii in 10 days.

An unwrapped street sign - 9 days.

An unwrapped deer tibia - 9 days.

[Ponine]

Has anyone actually put this to the test? :)
before and since 9/11
I have shipped/mailed with postage on them directly, an inflatble ball, inflated; and a stuffed Mickey Mouse.

And used paint cans, milk cartons, and plastic fish as outside packaging.

:rolleyes: I'm wierd, I know.

[Snowflake]

before and since 9/11
I have shipped/mailed with postage on them directly, an inflatble ball, inflated; and a stuffed Mickey Mouse.

And used paint cans, milk cartons, and plastic fish as outside packaging.

:rolleyes: I'm wierd, I know.

:D Ay photos to back this up, inquiring minds want to see!

:snap: to you Ponine!

[Kevy Baby]

...junk mail...Hey buddy, that's a four letter word where I come from. It Direct Mail Marketing.

Most of the pressure for price increases has little to do with total demand but with increased cost of doing business (how much do you think a 40% increase in the price of gas affects them with all their delivery vehicles, for example).Interesting that you bring up fuel costs and usage. Even with as large of a fleet of vehicles that the USPS has, they do not do any consumption/usage tracking and are unable to forecast needs. In this current fuel market, strategic planning is a tremendous money saver on this significant cost factor. Southwest Airlines for example uses this to their benefit.

before and since 9/11
I have shipped/mailed with postage on them directly, an inflatable ball, inflated; and a stuffed Mickey Mouse.

And used paint cans, milk cartons, and plastic fish as outside packaging.

:rolleyes: I'm weird, I know.That is just randomly odd. So naturally, I love it!

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Wired magazine (along with other mags, I believe) has a contest each month for odd things sent to them in the mail. They always have a picture of the oddest thing they received in the letters section. It continues to surprise me. This month's - a piano key. Not just the visible key, but the entire piece going all the way into the piano (probably a foot and a half long). The sender wrote on it - "at this rate, it'll take a long time for me to send you the whole piano."

[Ponine]

:D Ay photos to back this up, inquiring minds want to see!

:snap: to you Ponine!
I'll ask the recipient. Last I heard she still had them.

[Alex]

Hey buddy, that's a four letter word where I come from. It Direct Mail Marketing.

Let's compromise. I'll grant that what you send out is Direct Mail Marketing if you'll grant that what I receive is junk mail.

We'll just start thinking of the postal service as a magical alchemical process that turns gold into ****.

[Moonliner]

Humm perhaps we should launch a drive to create a "National do not mail list" to match the do not call one....

[Ghoulish Delight]

Humm perhaps we should launch a drive to create a "National do not mail list" to match the do not call one....
There is one. Kevy posted it somewhere here recently.

[Kevy Baby]

There is one. Kevy posted it somewhere here recently.

For anyone who wants to add their name to a national "Do Not Mail" list, there is one available. It is managed by the Direct Marketers Association (DMA), a national trade organization for Direct Marketers. It is easy to join their Do Not Mail registry. Just go to their web site http://www.the-dma.org/ and click the "Remove my name from mailing lists.

The DMA will add your name and address to a list that responsible direct mail marketers will use to run their mailing lists against. In the direct mail business, we call it the Pander list and use it on most all of our mailings (we don't use it in cases where the organization, most commonly a non-profit, supplies us a list of past contributors/participants or other such "house" lists).

Of course, this is not a guarantee that you will be removed from all mail lists - it is a voluntary procedure. And anyone who is doing a saturation mailing (where it goes to every Postal address) will not do a suppression, but it should help keep you off some of the lists..

[Ghoulish Delight]

Wait, it costs me a dollar to do that? :mad:

[Moonliner]

Wait, it costs me a dollar to do that? :mad:


Not quite the same thing as a federally mandated "Do not mail list" I guess.

[Kevy Baby]

Wait, it costs me a dollar to do that? :mad:Seriously? I did not know that.

[Kevy Baby]

Not quite the same thing as a federally mandated "Do not mail list" I guess.No, but is the closest that I know of. The DMA has successfully lobbied against a governmentally mandated list for mailing. One of the key parts of the argument is that a phone call is more invasive since the recipient cannot control when the phone call is received, but they can control when they get their mail (which is non-invasive).

The DMA (smartly) created the Pander list in an additional effort to ward off a governmentally mandated list.

[Moonliner]

No, but is the closest that I know of. The DMA has successfully lobbied against a governmentally mandated list for mailing. One of the key parts of the argument is that a phone call is more invasive since the recipient cannot control when the phone call is received, but they can control when they get their mail (which is non-invasive).

The DMA (smartly) created the Pander list in an additional effort to ward off a governmentally mandated list.

Yup, and I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the United States Postal Service makes billions of dollars a year bringing us these non invasive gems.

[Betty]

I'm the kid of 2 mail carriers one of which has been a Union officer for the longest time and is retiring in about 3 months.

The post office, as I was told, was and is the only (one of the few?) government programs that does not run at a loss. Having said that, the managers had a knack for making employees miserable playing office politics and the like. Some caused by them - some by other employees where they turned their head. I'm sure that's the case in many jobs - but I heard about a lot of it when working part time at the office. Route too long? Walk faster. Not good enough. Try running part of it. That not working for you? I'll just f with you then...

A lot of good people too though. As a job, if you've got a good route and decent supervisor, I imagine it's not bad at all. At least when your not getting bitten by a dog, sunburned or rained on. ;)

I think the .41 is not such a big deal. I don't send much mail so what's 2 cents. Then I think of the mail I do send from work - some of that "not junk" mail - and then it does make a difference.

More then that though is the weird size rules about it being less then this big or more then that big this way and that. If you're sending anything other then a regular letter, you have to go online and go through their guided postage figurer-outer. And if it's not normal, the rates went up substantially more then 2 cents.

[Kevy Baby]

The post office, as I was told, was and is the only (one of the few?) government programs that does not run at a loss. Having said that, the managers had a knack for making employees miserable playing office politics and the like. Some caused by them - some by other employees where they turned their head. I'm sure that's the case in many jobs - but I heard about a lot of it when working part time at the office. Route too long? Walk faster. Not good enough. Try running part of it. That not working for you? I'll just f with you then...

A lot of good people too though. As a job, if you've got a good route and decent supervisor, I imagine it's not bad at all.I should clarify (lest anyone think otherwise): there are some good people who work for the USPS. I am blessed with someone in a key position that I know I can rely on to provide me quick answers and very efficient help - often in areas that are not within his realm of responsibility. He understands that I am his customer and that he needs to treat me as such. I have actually written to his supervisors and the District manager praising him for his assistance.

Unfortunately, for every one like him, there are 10 who are just the opposite. They make it seem like they are doing me a favor to answer my questions and it is a major ordeal for them to do their jobs.

Granted, I am dealing with Postal people on a different level than your average citizen on the street. But as a regular consumer, I have experienced similar treatment and attitudes as well.

I think the .41 is not such a big deal.When you think about it, that is not such a bad deal for having a uniformed government employee come to your house, pick up you envelope and deliver it across the country within a couple of days.

[CoasterMatt]

Hey Alex, my dad also taught me about small arms fire and body disposal techniques ;)

(I figured you were joking)...

[Kevy Baby]

Probably more information than most (all) want to know, but there has been Do Not Mail legislation put forth in many states. Here is an article in a printing trade magazine (http://www.piworld.com/story/story.bsp?sid=54459&var=story&publication=Printing%20Impressions&publicationDate=5/1/07&slug=PI0507_Do+Not+Mail&category=Print%20Production&section=Unknown&) (which is obviously biased) that I just read today.