The post office is a business, not a service

[greensinestro]

This was something a customer said to me a while back at the post office, before the automated machines came into existence, and I think it's an accurate statement.

These days, whenever you go to have a package delivered, it seems like the postal workers are always offering to have an upgrade, similar to fast food places that offer to upsize your meal. The last few times, I would send something by media mail, and the postal worker would always say, "For another fifty cents, you could send that first class." I'm polite about it, but my feeling is if I wanted to to that, I would not have asked for media mail.

It's great that the postal service offers upgrades and faster delivery, but are they in it for the money? Will the postal service go defunct if they don't get more people to ship overnight or priority mail? To me, it's better than using a company like UPS or Fed Ex being they seem higher in rate.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

I assume you're talking about the US postal service. It is highly regulated and assisted by government funds, that's why it's so cheap to mail stuff here as opposed to many other places. The government pours a lot of money into the postal service to keep it cheap for us and doesn't get any of it back. Now that we've got a trillion-some-odd dollar deficit going, I'm not surprised they are trying to drum up more money.

UPS and Fedex are higher, because they are private companies, and they have to make a profit to stay in business.

[protege]

Ah..the US Postal Service. Where else can you get an item to Australia faster than you can across town

[Geek King]

UPS and Fedex are higher, because they are private companies, and they have to make a profit to stay in business.

Note also that UPS, FedEx, and other private carriers are legally (via US federal law) not allowed to compete on the non-urgent first class mail front, and is forced to charge at least $3 for "urgent" mailings that the post office could handle. There is a great arguement debate going on over wether private companies could compete on price if it were deregulated.


The wiki on the US post is pretty well cited, so here's a link, if interested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...Postal_Service

[Becks]

Ah..the US Postal Service. Where else can you get an item to Australia faster than you can across town

As proven by the Christmas card exchange, right?

[Rine]

This is why I like my post office--it's a true small town post office and they mostly don't badger people about upgrades and whatnot. It's a shame though that it's close right now because someone thought it was a drive thru post office.

I also like it when they come up with ways to make my mailing cheaper as opposed to the other way around. It's nice.

[Shopping4Dummies]

That's funny. Our local post office is more of the "Yeah I got your sh*t. Now get the h*ll out!" variety. And I'm not kidding. They will give you the glare of death if it even appears you have more than one question to ask them. I think they send all of the "questionables" to our branch, so if they ever do "go postal" they can just shoot it out amongst themselves and be done with it.

P.S. Apologies to good postal workers. This is just the office in our area.

[SuperB]

They put it under the "Customer Service" umbrella. From what I remember of the training videos, the arguement is that if they don't offer the alternatives and the package takes longer to get there, they then don't have to deal with the complaints that the clerk didn't tell them their other options.

Trust me, postal customers can be more deranged than postal workers.

One of the small offices I work p/t at is very tiny. One person behind the counter at all times and the mail is usually handed over the counter. Very few people ever use their key. I was about 15 months pregnant (well, it felt like it) and one woman whose box was up on top wanted me to climb on top of the counter and reach all the way into the back of the slanted box to see if there was any mail that had slid down. (I could reach the front part)

"I'm not climbing up on anything in my condition so you might want to dig up your key if you're that concerned."

One local was obsessed with the speed of the mail. I tried telling her that our office can do nothing about the speed and until the letter actually is delivered to this office we are also not to blame. She and some relative would mail letters back and forth to each other just to count how many days it took, and then bitch about it to us. (this was before dispatch tracking) *I* should have so much time on my hands.

[Sparky]

Regarding the US postal service....

A couple of years back I was in the post office, and made some lame joke about "My tax dollars at work." I wasn't being sucky, honest! Just kind of kidding. Anyway, the worker told me, very politely I might add, that as of a date only a month or two in the future -- which is now several years in the past -- the post office would be 100% self-funded. This is why, he explained, the URL was changing from usps.gov to usps.com. Which is what it is now.

I've always gotten excellent service at my post office, though sometimes I did have to stand in line.