Comments on: USPS: Our complete failure of a business plan must be protected at all costs.

By: Postal Service to cut Saturday service? « Return to Offender: The Do Not Mail Blog

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:43:29 +0000

[...] 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 [...]

By: Den

Den — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:43:41 +0000

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).

By: Den

Den — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:34:43 +0000

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!

By: blas

blas — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:00:16 +0000

Darrell, you need to cut back on the caffeine.

By: evil ron

evil ron — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:56:14 +0000

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.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:56:11 +0000

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.

By: Darrell Hinkle

Darrell Hinkle — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:52:37 +0000

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.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:11:10 +0000

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)

By: blas

blas — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 04:03:16 +0000

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.

By: jm

jm — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:40:02 +0000

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.