Is the postal slowdown affecting you?

[Larry Caldwell]

They should let Amazon deliver mail. They're already better at parcel delivery than anyone on the Planet. For most items, I can order today before 7pm and have it tomorrow. And I live out in the sticks! (That's Texan for "a rural area".) It takes the Postal Service three days for Priority Mail even if it comes from the same town. :confused3:

You can get the same crappy service from FedEx for 3x the price.

 

[deserteagle71]

No - our rural USPS employees have never worn uniforms. No uniforms in the small post offices either. Larger towns and cities they wear the uniforms. Don't know about other regions. Several small post offices have closed window service and only offer boxes and others have closed completely.

Just something I don't understand....

The counter in the Post Office in the biggest town around here is open only limited hours, 6 hours a day...if you have a package to pick up you have to show up during those limited hours or you're not going to get it. But if I drive to one of the tiny one-horse towns near here - the Post Office counter is open from 8-5 daily and until noon on Saturday. Each of them is staffed by one little old lady who is most glad to help with whatever you need - and give you all the neighborhood news besides. The big Post Office is NOT open on Saturday, despite all the people working there. Makes no sense to me.

 

[Mat4644]

Absolutely - before retirement I worked equipment repair. Long hours and almost every Saturday. Our rural carriers would not drop packages off at that time. They would honk a couple times and then leave a card to pick up at the Post Office. Impossible to pickup with the reduced hours. I had to email the regional Post Master and get this changed. I asked for the same package drop off service UPS gives and this person forced the local office to change. I'm still on their s##t list for doing this as they didn't hide my name.

 

[Mat4644]

I should also add for my region there is a long list of people wanting to become rural mail carriers so it must not be too bad of a job.

 

[dragoneggs]

I should also add for my region there is a long list of people wanting to become rural mail carriers so it must not be too bad of a job.

Specially if it can land you a government pension.

 

[Doofy]

Our Contract Carrier is required to have new vehicles with a certain square footage of cargo space. They must also have a backup vehicle that meets the same specs. Our Ladies do a great job.

 

[Mat4644]

My son married the rural carriers daughter and his sister-in-law is the RCA. I didn't complain when they hung $1,200.00 worth of electronics off the mailbox in a used Walmart bag.

 

[japody]

98% delivery people are still USPS employees with full benefits. They get paid an equipment allowance for using a private car for deliveries plus wages. More of a training, setting expectations and supervision issue.

The career delivery % is down to less than 70% and rapidly decreasing Only career employees receive full benefits. Carriers are divided into 2 categories - city and rural carriers. They are governed under separate union contracts. All city carriers use postal vehicles and do not get paid an allowance. You can tell the city carriers because they wear a uniform. Rural carriers may or may not use postal vehicles, depending on their situation. If they use their own vehicles, they are paid allowances, based on the measured distance of their route. The USPS is currently having a difficult time retaining new carriers. In some areas, it is under 25% retention after their initial training.

 

[japody]

It would certainly help to know what the utilization was on those machines before they were removed.

Big difference if running 24/7 or a couple hours out of a day.

Or running a couple hours a day and spending the rest of the hours fixing problems with the machines.

The USPS has been reducing it's fleet of letter mail processing machines for years as the mail volume declines. Letter mail volume has declined rapidly since the peak period of around 2008 - 2009. One of the main reasons for doing so is the high cost of maintenance and parts. Even if the machines are underutilized, they have to have their daily, weekly and monthly scheduled maintenance, not to mention having to keep parts on hand. They are extremely complex computerized machines that require a high level of maintenance.

 

[japody]

In case anyone is bored and has nothing to do, here's a report from the USPS Inspector General written in 2016. It cites that over 12,000 mail boxes were removed in the prior 5 years.

https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2016/DR-AR-16-007.pdf