We get a lot of fan mail around here, but we also appreciate visits from, ahem, non-supporters, like this comment:
wow in this time of economic crisis you people can still think of ways to take jobs away from those that are still lucky enough to have jobs. Now with the do not mail campaign this will cut mail volume of the post office by up to 50% from an already failing business. Looks like usps, who is the second largest employer in the nation, will have to start laying off employees for the first time in history. Thanks for not helping the economy and putting more fellow americans on the streets. I’m sure there are a lot of people that think the post office will not resort to lay offs but I’m telling everyone now that it will happen and all thanks to the do not mail campaign.
It’s true: the U.S. Postal Service is already a failing business.
If a restaurant serves food that people don’t like, and has been in debt for years because they keep cooking more and more food that their customers don’t want, is the implementation of some basic health regulations (which the public wants) really the biggest threat to the long-term survival of the restaurant?
The U.S. Postal Service insists that their junk mail-intensive business plan is the only plan that will work for them, but the fact is, their junk mail-intensive business plan isn’t working at all. They have been hemorrhaging cash for years.
And that will cost postal jobs long before a Do Not Mail Registry ever does.
There is currently no Do Not Mail Registry in the United States. Anywhere. Yet the Postal Service is in serious, serious financial trouble. They’ve been in serious, serious trouble since before the economic downturn. Regardless of Do Not Mail, postal jobs are not sustainable given the USPS’ current business model.
First class mail has declined due to E-mail, FedEx, and UPS. However, few people argue that these things should be restricted in order to increase postal circulation and protect postal jobs. Why? Because these are things that consumers want. They’re common sense tools for modern life.
The U.S. Postal Service must adapt to meet their customers needs and the needs of the world we’re living in. And they must do this not only for their customers, and for the environment, but they must do it to protect their workforce.
Because Americans want Do Not Mail. Frankly, a lot of people who are not all that concerned about the environment want Do Not Mail. They simply believe that they deserve the choice to opt-out.
And with majorities as large as 89%, they will get what they want. It is critical that the U.S. Postal Service prepare. And stop working so hard to protect a system that isn’t working, isn’t making its employees more secure, and that its customers by and large resent.
Will, check out this recent article that goes into even more detail on how the USPS has in effect subsidized Big Mail, paid workers twice as much as non-monopoly competitors, and other things it has done to get itself into the pickle it’s in, the pickle we taxpayers will ultimately pay to extricate it from. There are also solutions to their business model problems that can be found in other countries that have acted in a more enlightened and responsible fashion. http://www.the-american-interest.com/ai2/article.cfm?Id=567&MId=24
one of the few things that makes sense in this crazy world is the united states postal service. i don’t know what life would be like without that daily trip to my mailbox and what has been left for me inside of it. sure, some of the stuff in there goes into the trash, but i find it fascinating to be able to take those ten minutes every day to look at what arrived in that box. also, i get a lot of catalogs that i want and some that i did not know were coming. it is amazing how many great things are available in those catalogs. sale items from local stores are one of my favorite topics and if i didn’t get them in the mail, i would never even know about those sales. e mail is trash in comparison to the mail in my mailbox because it is so plentiful, i have to delete most of it due to scammers trying to trick me.
another thing, i still bank by the regular mail. never a problem and the mail at least is secure and protected by the postal inspection service. no hackers either to steal my financial information online. i have had friends who bank online who have had their credit card info stolen online and are petrified about their banking information being stolen by online hackers from russia or china. why just this week their was another scare about an april fools attack on our computers. who needs speed when the mail is a hundred times safer to protect your life savings. as for me, the us mail is still the best way to do business. slow but sure, just as the tortoise beat the hare, but reliable and safe. gregg morrisville pa
Gregg, you’re perfectly welcome to NOT register with the Do Not Mail registry if we ever get one. So that resolves your first issue.
As for the second, it’s true there are online scams, some of which are pretty sophisticated, as well as other security threats. However, unless your mailbox is locked (and I know some are, but some are not), mail can be stolen, including mail such as credit card bills. Also, payments via mail can be lost and there is generally no record of it. This is less likely to happen with electronic payments. The point is, there are potential dangers either way you go. It has no bearing on whether or not there should be Do Not Mail registry.
The public wants their mail everyday no matter where they live. try driving every road everyday. Try driving the long way to work everyday…watch the $$$$$ costs you. the usps does have some in house issues. try closing the local Post office in your town…good luck…mail a letter across the state..now try that at fedex/ups…. .42 not… $8.00.
When any company sends an offer with a SASE [self addressed stamped envelope] I fold the entire item up – catalog, insurance forms, AND THE ENVELOPE THEY SENT TO ME. I attach a note or write on their form in red or green marker GO GREEN! STOP JUNK MAIL! HONOR OUR NATURAL RESOURCES -GAS, POSTAGE, TREES.
does it help?
yes,
Discovery and Mutual of Omaha have stopped sending me junk mail. Also, it helps me express myself and gives me a kind of ‘up yours’ experience [eventhough I am a peacenik at heart.]
A lot of people think that when they tape a brick or a phonebook to a pre-paid mailing envelope that the company will have to pay the entire increased postage. This is not true. There is a mailman somewhere that peels the pre-paid envelope off of the stuff because the business reply postage is only good for the price that was agreed on, per envelope or postcard. The USPS is still getting paid, though, when you send back the envelope with the Stop Junk Mail note.
Shinan Barclay if it was really “junk mail” than it was not returned to sender it was trashed like junk mail. So as far as the sender knows it was delivered. By the way folks really believe that only postal jobs will be at stake here.
People are crazy if you don’t want junk mail take your mailbox down, and you won’t receive any. Are they ready to pay $2 to send a regular classic letter? i don’t think so.
The same people watch TV I bet, why don’t go and ask the broadcasters to stop the commercials because it does interrupt their shows. I suggest anybody want to go green to leave this country, go some where bio won’t cost a lot, you won’t receive no mail at all, and you don’t have to drive either, go ride a camel and call it going green.
Personally, yes, I’m willing to pay more for a personal letter to be delivered. $1, $2, $5, whatever it takes for the USPS to be both efficient and competitive with other delivery services while not relying on the current volume of unsolicited mail they currently deliver.
I purchase the tv programs I want to watch from Apple’s iTunes store and watch them on my television using AppleTV, and am perfectly happy paying, on average, $2 per show, which contain zero commercials.
I think alot of those tv ads are rather ridiculous. I can’t understand why people have like a $75/ month cable bill just to watch tv? And it still isn’t commercial free. I am all for the $12 / month basic cable – I watch less tv and I get out more often. The crap that is delivered isn’t worth more than $12 / month anyways. Oh gotta have HD – yep the local broadcasters are still in HD anyways and like I care if crappy commercials are in more detail. Somehow people and tv is like drug addiction.
Privatize the mail system. There’s no point in paying tax dollars to fund a dying business model that most people attempt to circumvent for parcels of importance. Besides packages, who the fuck uses snail mail anymore. I avoid USPS at all costs for my ebay transactions (the only mail I receive). I pay all my bills online or by phone because of the incompetence of USPS. If you are smart enough to post on this forum you are smart enough to eliminate all mail, period. 90% of my bills are all emailed to me the others are just receipts. These wacky computer things can be used for more than just forums.
Dear tyrone20000, Shinan Barclay clearly stated that one could use the postage paid return envelope and send it back to the sender. This works. They will get that envelope back and have to pay for it. For years somehow, scientology got me on their mailing list. When I started returning their mailings in their own postage paid return envelope they stopped asking me to give them money for their services.
[...] The folks at DO NOT MAIL say… that USPS is saying “Our complete failure of a business plan must be protected at all costs.” What do you think? Also this site says “Digital age, economic woes: can the post office survive?” [...]
Since this is an open forum, i’ll share my two cents. Ever stop to think about why “junk mail” as you refer to it exists? Or maybe why small and large businesses continue to dump thousands of dollars into advertising mail?
Here is the answer:
because it generates return on their investment in the form of profit, which provides job security and perpetuates economic growth. I applaud you all for taking a stand on an environmental issue, but also consider the catostrophic ramifications you will see in the economy if you elimate one of the most effective marketing mediums for businesses.
If you don’t believe me, pick up the phone and call (for example) a lawn care franchisee. Ask them what would happen if they were no longer able to send direct mail in the spring.
I think this is the only cogent argument I’ve seen so far. However, no one is advocating making junk mail illegal, just allowing those of us who do not wish to receive it to opt out. That’s actually a good thing for direct mail advertisers because then they know they won’t be wasting money by sending mail to a large segment of the population who either resent it or ignore it. Might they lose some potential customers who are on the edge? Sure, but the savings in reduced mailings would likely offset whatever loss that might be. Also, there’s no reason those businesses couldn’t re-target their advertising dollars into other mediums, such as online advertising, local radio, newspapers, etc. Yes, it’s more expensive, but it can also be more targeted if done intelligently.
This is a good point. The inherent problem with junk mail is that alot of people end up on mailing lists that they are not remotely interested in the companies product or service. Often you must contact the company on your own time to stop the repeated mailers. As a good compromise to outright outlawing junk mail is to have every mailer have a special phone number with an automated system that you enter a 10 digit code found on the mailer and be done with it.
Rob – great for you that you can afford to pay $5 to mail a letter and buy $2 shows on iTunes. How about the millions and millions of Americans who can’t. Maybe we can all try and remember that not everyone has a shiny laptop in their home for online bill paying, either. Sorry to be the first to tell you that your argument makes you sound like an elitist jerk.
I was responding to S.D.’s question and comments from a personal perspective. I fully understand that a significant portion of the population don’t have the same options that I do, or do but don’t want to exercise those options if they don’t have to. I’m also perfectly willing to pay additional taxes to subsidize the USPS if that’s what it takes to provide an efficient postal system for the country. That’s just another way of me paying $2, $3, or $5 to send a letter or pay a bill by mail.
But this is only tangentially related to providing a centralized way for people to opt out of receiving unsolicited and unwanted junk mail. If the USPS requires the revenue generated from sending millions of tons of junk mail to people who don’t want it, then it’s obvious that the USPS is too big for what the public needs it for. Even if it could be proven that 100% of all the junk mail sent was recycled, it still doesn’t justify the environmental impact given that paper fibers can only be recycled approximately 7 times (as I recall), and that’s assuming they don’t get wet or get mixed in with other items that can’t be recycled or otherwise decrease the number of times they can be recycled. Not to mention the extra energy consumed by both producing and transporting all that junk mail that most people ignore and throw away or recycle (which also takes energy).
Maybe the USPS could do something radical and rebrand itself as America’s low-cost internet service provider. Not necessarily providing the actual service, but in return for signing up for the USPS branded discount internet connection, you agree to accept delivery of junk mail. I don’t know, just a thought. The point is, the USPS needs to either be reduced in size, or figure out a different business model, because electronic information exchange is only going to get more pervasive, not less.
Oh, and as for the tv shows, I can’t get cable or broadcast where I live. My only option was satellite, which was spotty due to large trees being in the way of the signal (and forget it during bad weather). So I cancelled that altogether, which saves me enough money to buy just the tv programs I want to watch from iTunes. It is a little bit more expensive, but not that much, and I have the added benefit of no commercials. So, it’s mostly a wash in my case.
The U.S. Postal Service is not a business. It is a member of the Executive Branch of Government that has been allowed to operate (for the most part) separate from the government as a Non-Profit organization in order to maximize it’s ability to compete in the private sector while at the same time minimizing the cost to Government (and the taxpayer) for it’s services. As such it has until the recent economic downturn been able to cover all of it’s operating costs entirely through the sale of the services it provides.
Unlike private sector employees, U.S. Postal employees are also covered by the “Hatch Act for Federal Employees,” which bars them from seeking or holding public political office.
It is inaccurate and inappropriate to compare the U.S. Postal Service to a private sector “For Profit” company.
[...] Related BlogsRelated Blogs on Plan with Investment (Postal Service)USPS: Our complete failure of a business plan must be protected at … [...]
Calm down everyone. Who doesn’t like to open their personal mailbox and find tsomething in there everyday? In some ways, it helps you feel like you are still part of the living world. For some people, their mail is their only contact with the outside world — even if it is just a catalog or the Publisher’s Clearing House. A few Sundays ago, I sat down and wrote nine short letters to my some of my nieces and nephews, friends, and out-of-town relatives. I just told them a few things about our lives and asked them about theirs. I told them I missed them and cared about them. Every single one of them called me to tell me that tthey loved opening their mailbox and finding an honest-to-goodness letter in there. That letter was like a present. It made them feel good just to hold it in their hands and it was a private moment between me and them. They could read it again and again and put it away to read later if they wanted to. The children loved getting mail. A personal letter is one of the last vestiges left of a discreet, tangible, tactile form of communication that belongs solely to the the sender and receiver. It creates good will, fosters more good will, and the cost? My total cost to do all that was $3.78. It was better than a movie, shorter than a good book, and contained more human effort and intent than any email that we waste our times reading and passing on to everyone in the nation. It’s personal, it conveys regard and care, and it cost me less than $5.00. The greatest price I paid was giving the time to communicate to the people I care about and taking the time to choose the right words. Did it hurt anyone? No. Did it make each of their days better? Yes. So sit down and write a few letters. Your mailman just might surprise you one of these days. And, you’ll be grateful for it. And, you just might surprise yourself to see what words come out when you set out to put them to paper.
I am a mailman…there are times our days are hard, some days are easy. Lately the mail has been very light. We are very concerned, like a lot of people. When the economy is in the tank so goes the mail..everyone cuts back.
The Post Office is in the US Constitution…regulated by Congress. It relies on only the postage we sell for all our expenses, including payroll.
When comparing our service to others throughout the world, our service is very inexpensive. It is the only service where deliverly is brought to every home in the United States. It is the only consistant communication some have with the outside world.
If thr Post Office was disolved you might see our economy collapse. There is no other source which has the ability at the price to deliver everywhere.
Without our service, most businesses would be out of a job in a month. Every business would HAVE to have a computer hooked up to the internet, for a price,which for most businesses is expensive…most homes may have cheap internet, but businesses normally pay a lot more for it.
Our country has needed Postal service for the mondane reason, that it is reliable.
What happens when the electricity failes? No computer, no sales, no banking, etc.
We still deliver even when everyone else is shut down.
Please support the Post Office, there may come a time when the National Guard may deliver it because they can’t afford to hire capable people to deliver it.
There are certain parts of our country which is going to the local “Day Job” site and getting people to deliver the mail because they want to “save money. Ask Grandma if she would trust someone to deliver her Social Security check by someone who might steal it, or maybe that birthday card your child received with tha 5 dollar bill which grandma sent..but was never received because a day laborer decided he wanted it instead..(no FBI checks for them, like it is for us)
I think the issue is that, by and large, the US Postal Service is ineffective. I had to move quite unexpectedly last month, and put a change of address form in as soon as I possibly could. I also went online and changed my address with all the mail-order services that I had, and I had the bills transferred to my new address as well. Now while USPS delivered my bills to me the first week after I moved to my new home, they suddenly stopped delivering my mail altogether for no good reason the following week, and in fact have returned everything to sender, with the vague, unquantifiable “Undeliverable” descriptor on it in spite of the fact that they’ve delivered our mail here before. This is something I wouldn’t have known about had I not checked Netflix to see why my movies were taking so long to arrive. Now I can’t figure out why this is, besides the possibility that my local delivery person is a complete douche-bag. And yet you want us to believe that you folks are worth supporting? Get real Dennis. You clowns collect fat paychecks to act like a bunch of self-entitled jerks.
How many times have folks heard stories about their mail suddenly ceasing to be delivered after a run-in with their mail-person? Is this the sort of behavior that we ought to support Dennis? We should, out of fear of an economic collapse, reward you folks when you treat us all like utter crap? Is that what I’m hearing, Dennis? The USPS offers an unreliable service, but we should all buckle down and support you guys because a failure to do so might plunge us into an unrecoverable economic downturn? You’re out of your f’ing mind, sir.
Now you can play the sympathy card Dennis, and while I”m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt being that I don’t know you from Adam, I think that you’re barking up the wrong tree. Your employers have done nothing to earn itself consumer confidence over the years. I can’t count how many times I’ve spoken to folks who say that they’ve stopped receiving mail after a run-in with a self-important mail person, Dennis. Is that the sort of behavior that we should support? Dennis, I think you have a strangely idealized viewpoint of the US Postal Service’s effectiveness. You seem incredibly out of touch with the shoddy level of service that USPS constantly provides its customers.
For example, you folks will occasionally lose mail. Now while that’s understandable from time to time, you folks will take no responsibility for it when it happens. I’ve sent more than one package via USPS, only to have it mysteriously go missing after being taken into your possession. When I try to follow up with you folks to find out what happened, I’m told that it’s not your responsibility even though all logic dictates that it very well ought to be. The attitude I get from you folks seems to be that I shouldn’t have made the mistake of doing business with you in the first place if I wasn’t prepared for the possibility that you folks would utterly fail to do the job I paid you to do, and I find that attitude utterly mystifying.
Also, mail theft is not an uncommon occurrence amongst you folks at the good old US Postal Service. Remember the Netflix theft debacle? Remember how it wasn’t an isolated incident? I would honestly feel no more or less wary of letting a day labor gent handle my mail than I would if I were to leave it in USPS hands, because by all accounts I would run the same risk that my stuff would go missing under those circumstances that I would if I were to leave it in your hands. I’ve actually received birthday cards from you folks that were clearly opened in transit. Granted the last one was just from my dentist, and so didn’t have anything in it worth stealing, but you folks clearly checked just to be sure! So yeah, leaving it up to you folks is just as big a crap-shoot Dennis. Nice try though.
Now with that having been said, that claim doesn’t ring true to me. I think it’d be pretty big news if USPS were to start using migrant workers to deliver folks’ mail, given the security issues that doing so would raise. Given that the USPS is struggling as-is, I don’t see why they’d take such a suicidal risk. USPS might be staffed by some of the most ignorant, ass-backwards folks on the entire planet, but even so I have to call BS on that one, Dennis. It sound like another scare-tactic to me. Oh lord, USPS has to employ migrant workers in order to save money, so we better give ‘em a fat cash infusion as soon as possible or some bloke might steal our mail! As if you clowns don’t already make off with our mail.
I’ve also read stories written by folks who say that they had no other choice but to have their mail delivered at a PO box because you folks can’t be bothered to send it to their home for reasons that go unexplained, only to encounter problems receiving their mail at the PO box as well. Folks will jump through your many hoops only to encounter problem after problem that you folks ultimately don’t seem all too willing to resolve. Yeah, the USPS is sounding more and more like something I want to support, Dennis!
By the way Dennis, you folks don’t actually deliver mail to every home in the US. A co-worker of mine lives in a sparsely populated town, and they don’t have anyone out there that delivers mail. They’ve got a small post office where folks have to come and pick up their mail. Now that’s not USPS fault, but it does poke a hole in your claim that USPS delivers to every home in the US. You clearly don’t.
My buddy sent me a package last Tuesday via Express mail, and I have yet to receive it. Now the delivery confirmation that he paid extra for shows that the package is still in transit, Dennis. To my mind, that puts the fee for Express delivery squarely within the realm of fraud, as it generally takes about this long for stuff to arrive from his location to mine via regular mail. Sometimes it even arrives sooner! Whatever the cause may be for the delay, the result is that services he paid extra for were not rendered, and he’s unlikely to get the money for it refunded because you folks take the stance that sometimes unexpected delays occur, and it’s really out of your hands. Well when folks are paying extra for something, it sure as hell shouldn’t be. Why offer a service that you’re incapable of reliably delivering on, Dennis?
Google this stuff Dennis. You can see all of this first-hand. It may awaken you to why folks probably aren’t going to be inclined to support you clowns no matter what sort of scare-tactics you employ. We’re tired of being jerked around Dennis. Something needs to change on a pretty large scale for the US Postal Service to be worth supporting. If all you folks can do is to try to frighten us into supporting you, then it’s arguable that you’re fighting a lost cause, and that USPS is a sinking ship that doesn’t deserve salvaging. Besides Dennis, supporting you guys unconditionally means that nothing will change. If I’m going to throw my support behind an institution that doesn’t seem to give half a squirt of piss about the folks whose good will they really ought to be begging for on their hands and knees at this point, then I want to be sure that all this lackadaisical bullshit will change for the better, and that’s not something I have any confidence would happen. Why would you have to, when you can essentially appeal to our fear of a collapsing economy to get the help you need? Seems to me like it would be a better idea for USPS to look into some large-scale restructuring Dennis, because clearly things aren’t working out for them the way they’re going now, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be bullied into supporting you jokers.
Hear, hear!
Besides all the things you mentioned, there is also the fact that USPS workers (or should I say loafers) are some of the meanest people I’ve ever encountered. I will put off going to the PO because it puts me in a bad mood. Well, it happened again today, only today I “fought” back a little. I turned, on my way out the door, and said in a loud voice:
“no wonder you’re going out of business!” I could see by the smiles and outright giggles of the folks in line that I was not alone in that sentiment.
I intend to never walk into a PO again. I will alert my friends & family that if they do use this moron-infested entity to send me a package, then the package will be returned to them because I will no longer be treated like dogdirt at the “US” PS (none of the workers at my local office speak English fluently, so it’s not really “US” anything, but Mexican and Chinese).
Your situation is probably due to the recent changes which WE AS CARRIERS have no control. The powers to be currently are trying ti mess up the service to “save money”.
We are at a loss to get cooperation from our management. The union is fighting management but also Congress and the Postal big wigs in D.C.
We are experiencing route adjustments which from time to time cause problems in delivery. Many who have retired having been replaced with part-time-workers …who are given a weeks training and sent out to cover routes they never knew existed. These are your neighbors who want work…they are not trained and are only wanting full-time work, not a career. They work a week and quit finding the work very stressful, and actually back-breaking work. Some are not all there if you catch my meaning…, there are a few who ARE dishonest, as you find in ALL segments of our society.
We do not make THAT much money…no tax money is paid for our incomes…all it is derived from the stamps and postage we generate.
WE WERE ON FOOD STAMPS UP UNTIL THE 1970’s.
We are the lowest paid Federal employees in the government
As for your mail being sent back to sender.. You probably had a sub on and they were on a route they only did deliverly. There might have been a manager who refused to allow the carrier to do the “soup”( the mail not deliverable). They probably sent it to CFS…central forwarding and the stupid computers were not able to forward it… happens all the time. As in all businesses, when someone as totally stupid they make them management.
It is your choice to not support us, go ahead, when it becomes like it is in India, where you HAVE to send EVERYTHING by registered mail to safeguard it, you will remember when the mail was carried by dedicated employees who cared but were put out and replaced by people who have no desire to treat the public with respect and with pride. Your problem is with the management not the carriers which we still try to serve you to the best of our ability.
Darrell, you need to cut back on the caffeine.
Abolish USPS. They truly deserve to become a thing of the past. They are stupid enough to qualify as mentally retarded (but most MR folks are nice, unlike postal workers). They do not deserve to make a penny more than minimum wage for the “work” they do; rather, they earn more than most skilled workers do.
The only thing USPS doesn’t lose is JUNK MAIL because they earn so revenue harassing citizens in this manner. These jerkoffs lost 3 of the 4 holiday packages I sent. I will always use UPS in the future. In fact, since I pay all my bills online, I think I’ll take down my mailbox!
[...] reason? In addition to frustrating the very customers that the USPS is supposed to be serving, the USPS’ junk mail-centric business model isn’t very profitable. At all. They lost nearly $300 million in the last three months of 2009 [...]