Socialized Medicine, as demonstrated by Socialized Mail Delivery.

[Harry Dresden]

The computers can read pre-printed flat envelopes, but handwritten stuff and bulky packages need a human eye.

The scanning equipment is not the problem.....It is the manner in which the system works which is inefficient.

cant argue there,but like i think i said earlier,when scanning technology started in the early 90's UPS and Fed-X started right off,the post office had to get permission from congress to begin this,by the time they got permission the other guys were already on the 3rd generation scanners....

Now... over the half hour I was in there... there was easily 50 people in line when I got there and when I left it was probably close to 100... with people waiting in line OUT THE DOOR... standing in the sun. How many saw that line and drove on by is anyone's guess.

Seven people ahead of me... Two people working the counter... the guy on the Left was still serving the same guy that was there when I got there, when I left.

My bill was $17.00 to ship a package to NY.

So... easy math indicates that TODAY, that post office had the opportunity, the equipment, facility and personnel to produce an easy $3400/hour.

Which, due to pure incompetence, it instead earned $272/hour.

And THAT folks is the net result of socialized: ANYTHING.

maybe they need a scale that prints out weight as a bar code.

Maybe they need to put some of those postoffice employees into those Point of Sale Stations.

The Post Office is operated as a social program and not a business... and as a consequence, it's an albatross that is being subsidized to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars a year, by the US Taxpayers. It should be shut down or the Union should be shut out, so that it can be managed as a business.

The Post Office is perhaps the MOST "audited for efficiency agencies" in existence.
All one has to do is go and observe the Supervisors watching the clerks like a hawk.
In so far as an entity increasing our taxes, any entity that pays it's employees minimum wage and trains them how to apply for Food Stamps, Welfare and Medicaid is just as much a cause.

Oh please. The Walmart argument?
Yes, the USPS may be audited. But the audits apparently have no teeth, All that matters is the results. And the USPS has a performance problem...
A couple years ago a study was preformed on the USPS . It was discovered that the Charlotte,NC region had the nation's slowest mail delivery system of all large metro areas in the US.
When interviewed a spokesperson said that the Charlotte area had a 97% success rate. The reporter then queried on the other three percent of the mail which was delivered late or not at all. The spokesperson dodged the question.
So using that rate of FAILURE.....Let's say the Charlotte bulk station processes 10 million pieces of mail per day. At a 3% rate of failure that means 300,000 pieces of mail are either late or not delivered.
That is UNACCEPTABLE....Any other business which fails to serve 3 % of it's customers would be OUT of business. And very quickly. Unfortunately, the USPS is protected by the federal government The workers protected by their unions.
Any modern country requires a system where paper and package must be moved from point A to point B with as little extraneous cost and at peak efficiency.
The USPS is NOT getting it done.

you are forgetting one thing here Spoon....why were those 300,000 pieces of mail not deliverable?...do you even realize how much mail comes in that is undeliverable for a variety of reasons?.....i can give you a bunch of reasons why i seen it every day....i had a package come in from QVC for a woman who hadnt lived on my route for at least 3 years,stuff like that happens more than what you would think.....it had to be sent back....that is considered undeliverable as addressed....i have had MANY people who move and dont put a change of address in,any mail coming in for them gets returned,that undeliverable as addressed....some mail have bad addresses with no return address on them,they go to the dead letter office where they are opened to see if there is something on the inside giving someplace to send it.....and there are many reasons why mail is undeliverable,if its deliverable it gets delivered.....and yes there are some shitty carriers out there who mis-deliver stuff....
Any modern country requires a system where paper and package must be moved from point A to point B with as little extraneous cost and at peak efficiency.
The USPS is NOT getting it done
and yet about 10-15 years ago the USPS was visited by Japan Post and the German and English PO's to see how our postal system moves so much mail compared to them.....the Japanese ordered a couple of our new Flat Sorter Machines from Grauman.....and the new high-speed optical character readers were in demand too....no post office on the planet moves as much mail as our PO does........

 

[Harry Dresden]

The republican Congress forced the USPS to, over 10 years, fully fund its retirement program for the next 75 years. That's not "spend 75 years putting money in the bank," it's "have 75 years' worth of money in the bank within 10 years."

It's drained the USPS' operating funds to the point where it can barely function. The good news is that the timeframe will be up in a few more years and the USPS will be able to go back to normal.

Why did Congress do this? To force privatization of mail delivery. Somebody stood to make a shitload of cash from that.

Simple. Because Postal workers get to retire at a relatively young age. My friend's uncle retired at 55 with a full pension. He also "banked" three years of unused sick time and almost a year's worth of vacation time. Which he elected to take in regular installments rather than a lump sum.....BTW, he started with the PO when he was 20...
That pension, and hundreds of thousands of retired PO workers MUST be paid...so the Congress had to make sure the pensioners were taken care of. And of course with people living much longer, even more funding would be required to keep the pensions checks flowing.
IMO the USPS SHOULD be privatized.
Heck the USPS has lost half of its business to private enterprise as well as the internet.
Did you know that the Postmaster General wanted Congress to tax the internet because people were no longer writing letters and using the PO? Would you be surprised that there is an obscure law that requires us to use the Postal Service for certain kinds of packages. Mainly one ounce envelopes?
The USPS even got the phone carriers in on it. The long distance wireline carriers wanted to be able to charge every internet connection a long distance charge saying that the internet users were using the "common carrier" network.
They wanted to tax email.
The USPS is in the condition it is in not because of pensions or anything like that. The USPS is mismanaged and is inefficient.
The workers are over paid for the level of skill required to become a postal worker.

The workers are over paid for the level of skill required to become a postal worker.
thats true of the clerks but not the carriers.....i dont know how many people i have seen come in and work a week and quit and the ones who stick around admit that they thought the job would be easy until they have to put up a route, pull it down, load the too small truck and then get out there and deliver the route in 8 hours.....and when its pouring rain?....then you really see who wants to work or not...most letter carriers who have worked at least 25 years have had knee surgery or just bad knees bad backs and shoulders,attacked by dogs,some have been bitten, some bad enough to require hospitalization.....a clerk gets the same pay and works inside and when 8 hours is up goes home,if he/she wasnt done with what they were doing,no biggie the person on the next shift takes over....not that way with a carrier,its dark and you cant see what your doing and you still have an hour to go?...tough....a letter carrier is the hardest working person in the PO and deserves the pay they get.....

I'm not really referring to the carriers per se. They are the warriors. They can only perform as well as the ones who handle the mail before them.
With that in mind there is one thing you probably already know, but I will inject this anyway. Most US mail is delivered not by USPS employees but contract carriers.
In fact the only municipality in this entire metro area that uses USPS employees to carry and deliver mail is Charlotte. And only the inner ring most urban areas are employee carriers.
IMO it is the people in the bulk centers and the actual post offices which are the issue. It seems to me that the clerks especially are concerned only with the time they get to go on their next break. Their attitude is the customers are there for them rather then they being there for the customers.

Most US mail is delivered not by USPS employees but contract carriers.
if you mean Rural Carriers you are wrong....there is way more City Carriers and Cities get way more mail than Rural areas....if thats what you are referring to....

 

[Harry Dresden]

Our postmaster told me that the computerized system slowed the whole process down.

Yes. The Postmaster is correct. Lines are longer.
The thing is the technology is supposed to eliminate the need for the number of workers in a typical post office or mail facility. But the unions will not allow any positions to be eliminated. The workers know that eventually\ the machines will replace them.

thats bullshit......many clerk positions have be eliminated because of automation and many routes have been eliminated and absorbed by the other carriers for the same reason.....i had 750 deliveries on my route after 3 routes were eliminated in the office i had 1030.....and their mindset was because mail was now being automated it should not take any longer to do the route maybe 5-10 minutes yea right........Wayne the UPS driver on my route said UPS was doing the same thing his route grew by 150 deliveries,and same thing,it should not take that much longer....

What's bullshit? THe fact that some of the workers are being phased out by technology?
As for UPS. The have been doing that since the early 80's when I worked for them as a casual package car driver.
Basically, UPS would look at the routes and how they were performed. If a particular PC Driver was logging in right around 8 hours or less, the company would simply add stops to the route to make sure it was an 8 hour route.
Now it has been 30 years since I worked there but I can tell you this. When I got to work, my truck was so full, the loaders had to put the hand truck in the cab....When i came back to the Center, the truck was again stuffed to the gills with stuff from all my pickup stops.
I have a friend in Upstate NY who has been driving a package car since he was in his early 20's. He is now 55. He is not going to retire just yet because he just doesn't feel the need...But while he likes what he does, he really busts his ass...
One thing. Today, as opposed to paper sheets, all deliveries are logged electronically. No longer do drivers have to fill out these sheets opn which we had to list a shipper label number, write out the complete address, the date and time of delivery and next to that the signature area...Today the driver just punches in a few things and drops off the package. If the package requires a signature, the driver can simply forgo the signature and make the delivery or he can leave a tag on the door for the customer to sign if they are willing to allow the package to be left by the driver.
Bottom line is all the writing is gone and if one does the math, if each package took 30 seconds to deliver and writer down all the info. if a guy delivers say to 300 stops, at 30 second per stop that is 9000 seconds or an extra 150 minutes or 2.5 hours.
This is why drivers have more stops because the technology allows them to visit more stops.

What's bullshit? THe fact that some of the workers are being phased out by technology?
no its what you said about the Unions stopping jobs from disappearing.....the PO had eliminated something like 200,000 workers just by people retiring and not hiring anyone in the last 7 years i was there ....many positions were eliminated in the clerk craft....and the PO of the early 80's is WAY different than now....back then i was able to get through with any route by 1 PM and hide for the last 3 hours.....that all disappeared in the early 90's with the advent of DPS mail,when they automated 70% of the letters and now the flats are automated....now it is a totally different ball game....

 

[thereisnospoon]

Now... over the half hour I was in there... there was easily 50 people in line when I got there and when I left it was probably close to 100... with people waiting in line OUT THE DOOR... standing in the sun. How many saw that line and drove on by is anyone's guess.

Seven people ahead of me... Two people working the counter... the guy on the Left was still serving the same guy that was there when I got there, when I left.

My bill was $17.00 to ship a package to NY.

So... easy math indicates that TODAY, that post office had the opportunity, the equipment, facility and personnel to produce an easy $3400/hour.

Which, due to pure incompetence, it instead earned $272/hour.

And THAT folks is the net result of socialized: ANYTHING.

maybe they need a scale that prints out weight as a bar code.

Maybe they need to put some of those postoffice employees into those Point of Sale Stations.

The Post Office is operated as a social program and not a business... and as a consequence, it's an albatross that is being subsidized to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars a year, by the US Taxpayers. It should be shut down or the Union should be shut out, so that it can be managed as a business.

The Post Office is perhaps the MOST "audited for efficiency agencies" in existence.
All one has to do is go and observe the Supervisors watching the clerks like a hawk.
In so far as an entity increasing our taxes, any entity that pays it's employees minimum wage and trains them how to apply for Food Stamps, Welfare and Medicaid is just as much a cause.

Oh please. The Walmart argument?
Yes, the USPS may be audited. But the audits apparently have no teeth, All that matters is the results. And the USPS has a performance problem...
A couple years ago a study was preformed on the USPS . It was discovered that the Charlotte,NC region had the nation's slowest mail delivery system of all large metro areas in the US.
When interviewed a spokesperson said that the Charlotte area had a 97% success rate. The reporter then queried on the other three percent of the mail which was delivered late or not at all. The spokesperson dodged the question.
So using that rate of FAILURE.....Let's say the Charlotte bulk station processes 10 million pieces of mail per day. At a 3% rate of failure that means 300,000 pieces of mail are either late or not delivered.
That is UNACCEPTABLE....Any other business which fails to serve 3 % of it's customers would be OUT of business. And very quickly. Unfortunately, the USPS is protected by the federal government The workers protected by their unions.
Any modern country requires a system where paper and package must be moved from point A to point B with as little extraneous cost and at peak efficiency.
The USPS is NOT getting it done.

Neither UPS nor FedEx have an infrastructure that comes anywhere near the USPS.
The question is what are the factors that lead to this problem and what it takes to achieve as close to 100% as possible.
If the Audits had no teeth, they wouldn't be published for Republicans such as yourself to critique.

Oh, so to you this is political?
What does the size of the USPS' infrastructure have to do with anything?
Wehn these discussions regarding the stability and efficiency of the USPS, why it is you libs come out in force to defend the USPS to the point of near worship of the Postal Service...
I don't understand why this particular entity is so important to you. Why is it?
Question....If the USPS as we know it were to shut down at midnight only to be replaced by a non government entity would you really care? I mean, what is the difference which entity gets you your bills and other crap?..
And BTW, this bulk mail rate? Get RID OF IT...Let those who send out their annoying ,landfill clogging tree wasting garbage pay the first class rate. The USPS would then be able to operate much more smoothly and be swimming in cash.....

 

[Indeependent]

maybe they need a scale that prints out weight as a bar code.

Maybe they need to put some of those postoffice employees into those Point of Sale Stations.

The Post Office is operated as a social program and not a business... and as a consequence, it's an albatross that is being subsidized to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars a year, by the US Taxpayers. It should be shut down or the Union should be shut out, so that it can be managed as a business.

The Post Office is perhaps the MOST "audited for efficiency agencies" in existence.
All one has to do is go and observe the Supervisors watching the clerks like a hawk.
In so far as an entity increasing our taxes, any entity that pays it's employees minimum wage and trains them how to apply for Food Stamps, Welfare and Medicaid is just as much a cause.

Oh please. The Walmart argument?
Yes, the USPS may be audited. But the audits apparently have no teeth, All that matters is the results. And the USPS has a performance problem...
A couple years ago a study was preformed on the USPS . It was discovered that the Charlotte,NC region had the nation's slowest mail delivery system of all large metro areas in the US.
When interviewed a spokesperson said that the Charlotte area had a 97% success rate. The reporter then queried on the other three percent of the mail which was delivered late or not at all. The spokesperson dodged the question.
So using that rate of FAILURE.....Let's say the Charlotte bulk station processes 10 million pieces of mail per day. At a 3% rate of failure that means 300,000 pieces of mail are either late or not delivered.
That is UNACCEPTABLE....Any other business which fails to serve 3 % of it's customers would be OUT of business. And very quickly. Unfortunately, the USPS is protected by the federal government The workers protected by their unions.
Any modern country requires a system where paper and package must be moved from point A to point B with as little extraneous cost and at peak efficiency.
The USPS is NOT getting it done.

Neither UPS nor FedEx have an infrastructure that comes anywhere near the USPS.
The question is what are the factors that lead to this problem and what it takes to achieve as close to 100% as possible.
If the Audits had no teeth, they wouldn't be published for Republicans such as yourself to critique.

Oh, so to you this is political?
What does the size of the USPS' infrastructure have to do with anything?
Wehn these discussions regarding the stability and efficiency of the USPS, why it is you libs come out in force to defend the USPS to the point of near worship of the Postal Service...
I don't understand why this particular entity is so important to you. Why is it?
Question....If the USPS as we know it were to shut down at midnight only to be replaced by a non government entity would you really care? I mean, what is the difference which entity gets you your bills and other crap?..
And BTW, this bulk mail rate? Get RID OF IT...Let those who send out their annoying ,landfill clogging tree wasting garbage pay the first class rate. The USPS would then be able to operate much more smoothly and be swimming in cash.....

Recent interviews with the CEOs of both UPS and FedEx have stated it is currently impossible for a private entity to replace the USPS.
If you have ideas on how to do this, please post them and these ideas may be a terrific investment.

 

[thereisnospoon]

The republican Congress forced the USPS to, over 10 years, fully fund its retirement program for the next 75 years. That's not "spend 75 years putting money in the bank," it's "have 75 years' worth of money in the bank within 10 years."

It's drained the USPS' operating funds to the point where it can barely function. The good news is that the timeframe will be up in a few more years and the USPS will be able to go back to normal.

Why did Congress do this? To force privatization of mail delivery. Somebody stood to make a shitload of cash from that.

Simple. Because Postal workers get to retire at a relatively young age. My friend's uncle retired at 55 with a full pension. He also "banked" three years of unused sick time and almost a year's worth of vacation time. Which he elected to take in regular installments rather than a lump sum.....BTW, he started with the PO when he was 20...
That pension, and hundreds of thousands of retired PO workers MUST be paid...so the Congress had to make sure the pensioners were taken care of. And of course with people living much longer, even more funding would be required to keep the pensions checks flowing.
IMO the USPS SHOULD be privatized.
Heck the USPS has lost half of its business to private enterprise as well as the internet.
Did you know that the Postmaster General wanted Congress to tax the internet because people were no longer writing letters and using the PO? Would you be surprised that there is an obscure law that requires us to use the Postal Service for certain kinds of packages. Mainly one ounce envelopes?
The USPS even got the phone carriers in on it. The long distance wireline carriers wanted to be able to charge every internet connection a long distance charge saying that the internet users were using the "common carrier" network.
They wanted to tax email.
The USPS is in the condition it is in not because of pensions or anything like that. The USPS is mismanaged and is inefficient.
The workers are over paid for the level of skill required to become a postal worker.

The workers are over paid for the level of skill required to become a postal worker.
thats true of the clerks but not the carriers.....i dont know how many people i have seen come in and work a week and quit and the ones who stick around admit that they thought the job would be easy until they have to put up a route, pull it down, load the too small truck and then get out there and deliver the route in 8 hours.....and when its pouring rain?....then you really see who wants to work or not...most letter carriers who have worked at least 25 years have had knee surgery or just bad knees bad backs and shoulders,attacked by dogs,some have been bitten, some bad enough to require hospitalization.....a clerk gets the same pay and works inside and when 8 hours is up goes home,if he/she wasnt done with what they were doing,no biggie the person on the next shift takes over....not that way with a carrier,its dark and you cant see what your doing and you still have an hour to go?...tough....a letter carrier is the hardest working person in the PO and deserves the pay they get.....

I'm not really referring to the carriers per se. They are the warriors. They can only perform as well as the ones who handle the mail before them.
With that in mind there is one thing you probably already know, but I will inject this anyway. Most US mail is delivered not by USPS employees but contract carriers.
In fact the only municipality in this entire metro area that uses USPS employees to carry and deliver mail is Charlotte. And only the inner ring most urban areas are employee carriers.
IMO it is the people in the bulk centers and the actual post offices which are the issue. It seems to me that the clerks especially are concerned only with the time they get to go on their next break. Their attitude is the customers are there for them rather then they being there for the customers.

Most US mail is delivered not by USPS employees but contract carriers.
if you mean Rural Carriers you are wrong....there is way more City Carriers and Cities get way more mail than Rural areas....if thats what you are referring to....

Look there used to be employee carriers in my town. There are not any longer. There haven't been for years. And this place has 35,000 people.
Anyway, it doesn't really matter because the guys and gals that deliver the mail are really not at issue here.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Maybe they need to put some of those postoffice employees into those Point of Sale Stations.

The Post Office is operated as a social program and not a business... and as a consequence, it's an albatross that is being subsidized to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars a year, by the US Taxpayers. It should be shut down or the Union should be shut out, so that it can be managed as a business.

The Post Office is perhaps the MOST "audited for efficiency agencies" in existence.
All one has to do is go and observe the Supervisors watching the clerks like a hawk.
In so far as an entity increasing our taxes, any entity that pays it's employees minimum wage and trains them how to apply for Food Stamps, Welfare and Medicaid is just as much a cause.

Oh please. The Walmart argument?
Yes, the USPS may be audited. But the audits apparently have no teeth, All that matters is the results. And the USPS has a performance problem...
A couple years ago a study was preformed on the USPS . It was discovered that the Charlotte,NC region had the nation's slowest mail delivery system of all large metro areas in the US.
When interviewed a spokesperson said that the Charlotte area had a 97% success rate. The reporter then queried on the other three percent of the mail which was delivered late or not at all. The spokesperson dodged the question.
So using that rate of FAILURE.....Let's say the Charlotte bulk station processes 10 million pieces of mail per day. At a 3% rate of failure that means 300,000 pieces of mail are either late or not delivered.
That is UNACCEPTABLE....Any other business which fails to serve 3 % of it's customers would be OUT of business. And very quickly. Unfortunately, the USPS is protected by the federal government The workers protected by their unions.
Any modern country requires a system where paper and package must be moved from point A to point B with as little extraneous cost and at peak efficiency.
The USPS is NOT getting it done.

Neither UPS nor FedEx have an infrastructure that comes anywhere near the USPS.
The question is what are the factors that lead to this problem and what it takes to achieve as close to 100% as possible.
If the Audits had no teeth, they wouldn't be published for Republicans such as yourself to critique.

Oh, so to you this is political?
What does the size of the USPS' infrastructure have to do with anything?
Wehn these discussions regarding the stability and efficiency of the USPS, why it is you libs come out in force to defend the USPS to the point of near worship of the Postal Service...
I don't understand why this particular entity is so important to you. Why is it?
Question....If the USPS as we know it were to shut down at midnight only to be replaced by a non government entity would you really care? I mean, what is the difference which entity gets you your bills and other crap?..
And BTW, this bulk mail rate? Get RID OF IT...Let those who send out their annoying ,landfill clogging tree wasting garbage pay the first class rate. The USPS would then be able to operate much more smoothly and be swimming in cash.....

Recent interviews with the CEOs of both UPS and FedEx have stated it is currently impossible for a private entity to replace the USPS.
If you have ideas on how to do this, please post them and these ideas may be a terrific investment.

If either or both companies were offered the opportunity to take over, they would find a way.
Now, you may answer my questions.....
Please refrain from responding with anything else. Just answer the questions.

 

[Indeependent]

The Post Office is perhaps the MOST "audited for efficiency agencies" in existence.
All one has to do is go and observe the Supervisors watching the clerks like a hawk.
In so far as an entity increasing our taxes, any entity that pays it's employees minimum wage and trains them how to apply for Food Stamps, Welfare and Medicaid is just as much a cause.

Oh please. The Walmart argument?
Yes, the USPS may be audited. But the audits apparently have no teeth, All that matters is the results. And the USPS has a performance problem...
A couple years ago a study was preformed on the USPS . It was discovered that the Charlotte,NC region had the nation's slowest mail delivery system of all large metro areas in the US.
When interviewed a spokesperson said that the Charlotte area had a 97% success rate. The reporter then queried on the other three percent of the mail which was delivered late or not at all. The spokesperson dodged the question.
So using that rate of FAILURE.....Let's say the Charlotte bulk station processes 10 million pieces of mail per day. At a 3% rate of failure that means 300,000 pieces of mail are either late or not delivered.
That is UNACCEPTABLE....Any other business which fails to serve 3 % of it's customers would be OUT of business. And very quickly. Unfortunately, the USPS is protected by the federal government The workers protected by their unions.
Any modern country requires a system where paper and package must be moved from point A to point B with as little extraneous cost and at peak efficiency.
The USPS is NOT getting it done.

Neither UPS nor FedEx have an infrastructure that comes anywhere near the USPS.
The question is what are the factors that lead to this problem and what it takes to achieve as close to 100% as possible.
If the Audits had no teeth, they wouldn't be published for Republicans such as yourself to critique.

Oh, so to you this is political?
What does the size of the USPS' infrastructure have to do with anything?
Wehn these discussions regarding the stability and efficiency of the USPS, why it is you libs come out in force to defend the USPS to the point of near worship of the Postal Service...
I don't understand why this particular entity is so important to you. Why is it?
Question....If the USPS as we know it were to shut down at midnight only to be replaced by a non government entity would you really care? I mean, what is the difference which entity gets you your bills and other crap?..
And BTW, this bulk mail rate? Get RID OF IT...Let those who send out their annoying ,landfill clogging tree wasting garbage pay the first class rate. The USPS would then be able to operate much more smoothly and be swimming in cash.....

Recent interviews with the CEOs of both UPS and FedEx have stated it is currently impossible for a private entity to replace the USPS.
If you have ideas on how to do this, please post them and these ideas may be a terrific investment.

If either or both companies were offered the opportunity to take over, they would find a way.
Now, you may answer my questions.....
Please refrain from responding with anything else. Just answer the questions.

Both CEOs addressed this also and they both had great admiration for USPS Operations.
You really should read Financial Magazines once in a while.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Our postmaster told me that the computerized system slowed the whole process down.

Yes. The Postmaster is correct. Lines are longer.
The thing is the technology is supposed to eliminate the need for the number of workers in a typical post office or mail facility. But the unions will not allow any positions to be eliminated. The workers know that eventually\ the machines will replace them.

thats bullshit......many clerk positions have be eliminated because of automation and many routes have been eliminated and absorbed by the other carriers for the same reason.....i had 750 deliveries on my route after 3 routes were eliminated in the office i had 1030.....and their mindset was because mail was now being automated it should not take any longer to do the route maybe 5-10 minutes yea right........Wayne the UPS driver on my route said UPS was doing the same thing his route grew by 150 deliveries,and same thing,it should not take that much longer....

What's bullshit? THe fact that some of the workers are being phased out by technology?
As for UPS. The have been doing that since the early 80's when I worked for them as a casual package car driver.
Basically, UPS would look at the routes and how they were performed. If a particular PC Driver was logging in right around 8 hours or less, the company would simply add stops to the route to make sure it was an 8 hour route.
Now it has been 30 years since I worked there but I can tell you this. When I got to work, my truck was so full, the loaders had to put the hand truck in the cab....When i came back to the Center, the truck was again stuffed to the gills with stuff from all my pickup stops.
I have a friend in Upstate NY who has been driving a package car since he was in his early 20's. He is now 55. He is not going to retire just yet because he just doesn't feel the need...But while he likes what he does, he really busts his ass...
One thing. Today, as opposed to paper sheets, all deliveries are logged electronically. No longer do drivers have to fill out these sheets opn which we had to list a shipper label number, write out the complete address, the date and time of delivery and next to that the signature area...Today the driver just punches in a few things and drops off the package. If the package requires a signature, the driver can simply forgo the signature and make the delivery or he can leave a tag on the door for the customer to sign if they are willing to allow the package to be left by the driver.
Bottom line is all the writing is gone and if one does the math, if each package took 30 seconds to deliver and writer down all the info. if a guy delivers say to 300 stops, at 30 second per stop that is 9000 seconds or an extra 150 minutes or 2.5 hours.
This is why drivers have more stops because the technology allows them to visit more stops.

What's bullshit? THe fact that some of the workers are being phased out by technology?
no its what you said about the Unions stopping jobs from disappearing.....the PO had eliminated something like 200,000 workers just by people retiring and not hiring anyone in the last 7 years i was there ....many positions were eliminated in the clerk craft....and the PO of the early 80's is WAY different than now....back then i was able to get through with any route by 1 PM and hide for the last 3 hours.....that all disappeared in the early 90's with the advent of DPS mail,when they automated 70% of the letters and now the flats are automated....now it is a totally different ball game....

UPS calls their delivery/pickup vehicles "Package Cars".....Heck they even refer to the truck that takes the tomorrow stuff to the airport as the "Next Day Air Car"

 

[thereisnospoon]

Oh please. The Walmart argument?
Yes, the USPS may be audited. But the audits apparently have no teeth, All that matters is the results. And the USPS has a performance problem...
A couple years ago a study was preformed on the USPS . It was discovered that the Charlotte,NC region had the nation's slowest mail delivery system of all large metro areas in the US.
When interviewed a spokesperson said that the Charlotte area had a 97% success rate. The reporter then queried on the other three percent of the mail which was delivered late or not at all. The spokesperson dodged the question.
So using that rate of FAILURE.....Let's say the Charlotte bulk station processes 10 million pieces of mail per day. At a 3% rate of failure that means 300,000 pieces of mail are either late or not delivered.
That is UNACCEPTABLE....Any other business which fails to serve 3 % of it's customers would be OUT of business. And very quickly. Unfortunately, the USPS is protected by the federal government The workers protected by their unions.
Any modern country requires a system where paper and package must be moved from point A to point B with as little extraneous cost and at peak efficiency.
The USPS is NOT getting it done.

Neither UPS nor FedEx have an infrastructure that comes anywhere near the USPS.
The question is what are the factors that lead to this problem and what it takes to achieve as close to 100% as possible.
If the Audits had no teeth, they wouldn't be published for Republicans such as yourself to critique.

Oh, so to you this is political?
What does the size of the USPS' infrastructure have to do with anything?
Wehn these discussions regarding the stability and efficiency of the USPS, why it is you libs come out in force to defend the USPS to the point of near worship of the Postal Service...
I don't understand why this particular entity is so important to you. Why is it?
Question....If the USPS as we know it were to shut down at midnight only to be replaced by a non government entity would you really care? I mean, what is the difference which entity gets you your bills and other crap?..
And BTW, this bulk mail rate? Get RID OF IT...Let those who send out their annoying ,landfill clogging tree wasting garbage pay the first class rate. The USPS would then be able to operate much more smoothly and be swimming in cash.....

Recent interviews with the CEOs of both UPS and FedEx have stated it is currently impossible for a private entity to replace the USPS.
If you have ideas on how to do this, please post them and these ideas may be a terrific investment.

If either or both companies were offered the opportunity to take over, they would find a way.
Now, you may answer my questions.....
Please refrain from responding with anything else. Just answer the questions.

Both CEOs addressed this also and they both had great admiration for USPS Operations.
You really should read Financial Magazines once in a while.

Again you ducked the questions.
I don't care about the CEO's....For that matter, unless you can post a link so that others may read, these statements don't exist...
One more time....Answer the questions.

 

[Indeependent]

Our postmaster told me that the computerized system slowed the whole process down.

Yes. The Postmaster is correct. Lines are longer.
The thing is the technology is supposed to eliminate the need for the number of workers in a typical post office or mail facility. But the unions will not allow any positions to be eliminated. The workers know that eventually\ the machines will replace them.

thats bullshit......many clerk positions have be eliminated because of automation and many routes have been eliminated and absorbed by the other carriers for the same reason.....i had 750 deliveries on my route after 3 routes were eliminated in the office i had 1030.....and their mindset was because mail was now being automated it should not take any longer to do the route maybe 5-10 minutes yea right........Wayne the UPS driver on my route said UPS was doing the same thing his route grew by 150 deliveries,and same thing,it should not take that much longer....

What's bullshit? THe fact that some of the workers are being phased out by technology?
As for UPS. The have been doing that since the early 80's when I worked for them as a casual package car driver.
Basically, UPS would look at the routes and how they were performed. If a particular PC Driver was logging in right around 8 hours or less, the company would simply add stops to the route to make sure it was an 8 hour route.
Now it has been 30 years since I worked there but I can tell you this. When I got to work, my truck was so full, the loaders had to put the hand truck in the cab....When i came back to the Center, the truck was again stuffed to the gills with stuff from all my pickup stops.
I have a friend in Upstate NY who has been driving a package car since he was in his early 20's. He is now 55. He is not going to retire just yet because he just doesn't feel the need...But while he likes what he does, he really busts his ass...
One thing. Today, as opposed to paper sheets, all deliveries are logged electronically. No longer do drivers have to fill out these sheets opn which we had to list a shipper label number, write out the complete address, the date and time of delivery and next to that the signature area...Today the driver just punches in a few things and drops off the package. If the package requires a signature, the driver can simply forgo the signature and make the delivery or he can leave a tag on the door for the customer to sign if they are willing to allow the package to be left by the driver.
Bottom line is all the writing is gone and if one does the math, if each package took 30 seconds to deliver and writer down all the info. if a guy delivers say to 300 stops, at 30 second per stop that is 9000 seconds or an extra 150 minutes or 2.5 hours.
This is why drivers have more stops because the technology allows them to visit more stops.

What's bullshit? THe fact that some of the workers are being phased out by technology?
no its what you said about the Unions stopping jobs from disappearing.....the PO had eliminated something like 200,000 workers just by people retiring and not hiring anyone in the last 7 years i was there ....many positions were eliminated in the clerk craft....and the PO of the early 80's is WAY different than now....back then i was able to get through with any route by 1 PM and hide for the last 3 hours.....that all disappeared in the early 90's with the advent of DPS mail,when they automated 70% of the letters and now the flats are automated....now it is a totally different ball game....

UPS calls their delivery/pickup vehicles "Package Cars".....Heck they even refer to the truck that takes the tomorrow stuff to the airport as the "Next Day Air Car"

What does an ad hominem has to do with delivering millions of real packages to hundreds of millions of locations every day, including remote areas that no Private Entity could ever make a profit by serving?
Come on, man, read articles...Delivering stuff is extremely complicated.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Go to FedEx or UPS when there's 10-20 people on line; a freaking long wait.

The post office will also pick up at your house at no extra charge. As a matter of fact, if you print labels and postage online, you actually get a discount as well as not having to stand on line.

So your gripes about the post office are based on a lack of information, as is your notion that the U.S. has socialized medicine.

Ahh....no sane person would put up that little flag on their mailbox.....It says "important stuff inside. Steal me".....And the Post office is NOT going to pick up whatever free of charge. If it doesn't fit in the mailbox, the customer has to take it to the nearest PO.....
On the subject of rates.....Why in the HELL does the USPS charge the same for an envelope to go one mile as it does 3,000 miles?
That is very stupid.
The rate structure should reflect not only weight, but the distance the piece must travel.....

 

[Indeependent]

Neither UPS nor FedEx have an infrastructure that comes anywhere near the USPS.
The question is what are the factors that lead to this problem and what it takes to achieve as close to 100% as possible.
If the Audits had no teeth, they wouldn't be published for Republicans such as yourself to critique.

Oh, so to you this is political?
What does the size of the USPS' infrastructure have to do with anything?
Wehn these discussions regarding the stability and efficiency of the USPS, why it is you libs come out in force to defend the USPS to the point of near worship of the Postal Service...
I don't understand why this particular entity is so important to you. Why is it?
Question....If the USPS as we know it were to shut down at midnight only to be replaced by a non government entity would you really care? I mean, what is the difference which entity gets you your bills and other crap?..
And BTW, this bulk mail rate? Get RID OF IT...Let those who send out their annoying ,landfill clogging tree wasting garbage pay the first class rate. The USPS would then be able to operate much more smoothly and be swimming in cash.....

Recent interviews with the CEOs of both UPS and FedEx have stated it is currently impossible for a private entity to replace the USPS.
If you have ideas on how to do this, please post them and these ideas may be a terrific investment.

If either or both companies were offered the opportunity to take over, they would find a way.
Now, you may answer my questions.....
Please refrain from responding with anything else. Just answer the questions.

Both CEOs addressed this also and they both had great admiration for USPS Operations.
You really should read Financial Magazines once in a while.

Again you ducked the questions.
I don't care about the CEO's....For that matter, unless you can post a link so that others may read, these statements don't exist...
One more time....Answer the questions.

I don't have to memorize every article I have ever read.
You are supposed to represent the High Information Party and yet you NEVER read these articles?

Yes or No: Do you read Fortune, Money, the Wall Street Journal or any other publication with actual CEO interviews?

 

[Indeependent]

Go to FedEx or UPS when there's 10-20 people on line; a freaking long wait.

The post office will also pick up at your house at no extra charge. As a matter of fact, if you print labels and postage online, you actually get a discount as well as not having to stand on line.

So your gripes about the post office are based on a lack of information, as is your notion that the U.S. has socialized medicine.

Ahh....no sane person would put up that little flag on their mailbox.....It says "important stuff inside. Steal me".....And the Post office is NOT going to pick up whatever free of charge. If it doesn't fit in the mailbox, the customer has to take it to the nearest PO.....
On the subject of rates.....Why in the HELL does the USPS charge the same for an envelope to go one mile as it does 3,000 miles?
That is very stupid.
The rate structure should reflect not only weight, but the distance the piece must travel.....

And FedEx will hold your package at their local facility for x number of days even if it's immediately deliverable.
I love UPS.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Yes. The Postmaster is correct. Lines are longer.
The thing is the technology is supposed to eliminate the need for the number of workers in a typical post office or mail facility. But the unions will not allow any positions to be eliminated. The workers know that eventually\ the machines will replace them.

thats bullshit......many clerk positions have be eliminated because of automation and many routes have been eliminated and absorbed by the other carriers for the same reason.....i had 750 deliveries on my route after 3 routes were eliminated in the office i had 1030.....and their mindset was because mail was now being automated it should not take any longer to do the route maybe 5-10 minutes yea right........Wayne the UPS driver on my route said UPS was doing the same thing his route grew by 150 deliveries,and same thing,it should not take that much longer....

What's bullshit? THe fact that some of the workers are being phased out by technology?
As for UPS. The have been doing that since the early 80's when I worked for them as a casual package car driver.
Basically, UPS would look at the routes and how they were performed. If a particular PC Driver was logging in right around 8 hours or less, the company would simply add stops to the route to make sure it was an 8 hour route.
Now it has been 30 years since I worked there but I can tell you this. When I got to work, my truck was so full, the loaders had to put the hand truck in the cab....When i came back to the Center, the truck was again stuffed to the gills with stuff from all my pickup stops.
I have a friend in Upstate NY who has been driving a package car since he was in his early 20's. He is now 55. He is not going to retire just yet because he just doesn't feel the need...But while he likes what he does, he really busts his ass...
One thing. Today, as opposed to paper sheets, all deliveries are logged electronically. No longer do drivers have to fill out these sheets opn which we had to list a shipper label number, write out the complete address, the date and time of delivery and next to that the signature area...Today the driver just punches in a few things and drops off the package. If the package requires a signature, the driver can simply forgo the signature and make the delivery or he can leave a tag on the door for the customer to sign if they are willing to allow the package to be left by the driver.
Bottom line is all the writing is gone and if one does the math, if each package took 30 seconds to deliver and writer down all the info. if a guy delivers say to 300 stops, at 30 second per stop that is 9000 seconds or an extra 150 minutes or 2.5 hours.
This is why drivers have more stops because the technology allows them to visit more stops.

What's bullshit? THe fact that some of the workers are being phased out by technology?
no its what you said about the Unions stopping jobs from disappearing.....the PO had eliminated something like 200,000 workers just by people retiring and not hiring anyone in the last 7 years i was there ....many positions were eliminated in the clerk craft....and the PO of the early 80's is WAY different than now....back then i was able to get through with any route by 1 PM and hide for the last 3 hours.....that all disappeared in the early 90's with the advent of DPS mail,when they automated 70% of the letters and now the flats are automated....now it is a totally different ball game....

UPS calls their delivery/pickup vehicles "Package Cars".....Heck they even refer to the truck that takes the tomorrow stuff to the airport as the "Next Day Air Car"

What does an ad hominem has to do with delivering millions of real packages to hundreds of millions of locations every day, including remote areas that no Private Entity could ever make a profit by serving?
Come on, man, read articles...Delivering stuff is extremely complicated.

Can't do it, can you?

 

[thereisnospoon]

Oh, so to you this is political?
What does the size of the USPS' infrastructure have to do with anything?
Wehn these discussions regarding the stability and efficiency of the USPS, why it is you libs come out in force to defend the USPS to the point of near worship of the Postal Service...
I don't understand why this particular entity is so important to you. Why is it?
Question....If the USPS as we know it were to shut down at midnight only to be replaced by a non government entity would you really care? I mean, what is the difference which entity gets you your bills and other crap?..
And BTW, this bulk mail rate? Get RID OF IT...Let those who send out their annoying ,landfill clogging tree wasting garbage pay the first class rate. The USPS would then be able to operate much more smoothly and be swimming in cash.....

Recent interviews with the CEOs of both UPS and FedEx have stated it is currently impossible for a private entity to replace the USPS.
If you have ideas on how to do this, please post them and these ideas may be a terrific investment.

If either or both companies were offered the opportunity to take over, they would find a way.
Now, you may answer my questions.....
Please refrain from responding with anything else. Just answer the questions.

Both CEOs addressed this also and they both had great admiration for USPS Operations.
You really should read Financial Magazines once in a while.

Again you ducked the questions.
I don't care about the CEO's....For that matter, unless you can post a link so that others may read, these statements don't exist...
One more time....Answer the questions.

I don't have to memorize every article I have ever read.
You are supposed to represent the High Information Party and yet you NEVER read these articles?

Yes or No: Do you read Fortune, Money, the Wall Street Journal or any other publication with actual CEO interviews?

Don't put your lack of homework on me...You made the claim. At least have the balls to stand behind it.
Links or shut it

 

[pwjohn]

I had to run to the post office today and when I got there I found this line. You're only looking at the few people closest to the counter, there were 30+ people behind the camera.

So I post this to social media... and the comment you see above, was offered by a Post Office 30 year man, who is incapable of seeing the problem, for what it is.

I don't see a problem in that picture. If you're concern has anything to do with the line, well let's face it. Know body likes to wait in line. But that's pretty much the way it is everywhere you go now. And I do mean everywhere you go. It's the same, so to pick on this one operation as being extrodinarily bad while ignoring the long line you just waited in at your bank, the dept store, grocery store &, fast food drive thru kinda reeks. Just saying.

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

I don't see a problem in that picture. If you're concern has anything to do with the line, well let's face it. Know body likes to wait in line. But that's pretty much the way it is everywhere you go now. ... Just saying.

You're saying it doesn't make it so. And it is decidedly NOT so.

 

[thereisnospoon]

The republican Congress forced the USPS to, over 10 years, fully fund its retirement program for the next 75 years. That's not "spend 75 years putting money in the bank," it's "have 75 years' worth of money in the bank within 10 years."

It's drained the USPS' operating funds to the point where it can barely function. The good news is that the timeframe will be up in a few more years and the USPS will be able to go back to normal.

Why did Congress do this? To force privatization of mail delivery. Somebody stood to make a shitload of cash from that.

Yes... That's because the Democrats, specifically the unions have raided the USPS Pension fund for decades and it was on the brink of bankruptcy. So... given the absurd obligations to which the USPS has conceded, having a funded pension is essential to the pensions of the thousands of 50 year olds that retire from the USPS every year.

Now... with that said, the photograph shows THE PROBLEM. Despite having PLENTY of people to man those Point of Sale stations available... where those people standing in line waiting for more than a half hour to exchange THEIR MONEY for shipping services... the Post Office Management has created an environment which wholly disregards any sense of responsibility to their employer, who's paying those salary and pensions... from BOTH ENDS.

Despite having PLENTY of people to man those Point of Sale stations available..
they dont have plenty of people to man those stations....the only clerks that can take money are ones who have been vetted and ok'd by the inspection service..
the Post Office Management has created an environment which wholly disregards any sense of responsibility to their employer
90% of the people i worked with were very responsible to their employer....its not their fault if postal middle management sucks...

As with any government entity, the job of management is to figure out how to justify their paycheck. And make life miserable for the rank and file
That's not to say the workers are blameless.

 

[pwjohn]

I don't see a problem in that picture. If you're concern has anything to do with the line, well let's face it. Know body likes to wait in line. But that's pretty much the way it is everywhere you go now. ... Just saying.

You're saying it doesn't make it so. And it is decidedly NOT so.

I merely stated the obvious. Which you chose to ignore.