Post office $2.8 billion in the red

[DogPoundPup]

Source: Yahoo Biz

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The ailing economy caused a big drop in mail, leaving the post office $2.8 billion in the red.

Postmaster General John Potter said Thursday the agency is making sharp cuts in hours and overtime but added there are no plans for layoffs.

Also, the cost of sending packages will go up in January. The annual increase in the cost of letter mail is still scheduled for May.

The Postal Service says a 9.5 billion-item decline in pieces of mail contributed to its loss in the fiscal year that ended in September.

*Note; entirety of short Yahoo article as seen here.

Read more: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081113/postal_finances.html

[Historic NY]

1. Boy if the cut the junk mail out they go bankrupt completely...

we get spam delivered via computer & postal service.

[davidinalameda]

2. honestly-big deal!

why should the Post Office be forced to make money while other areas of the government which also charge the public for services aren't

the Post Office serves areas that wouldn't be served otherwise-rural areas and inner city areas

[tclambert]

17. It's fiscal responsibility.

The Post Office pays its own way. It hasn't taken tax money in over 30 years. Social Security pays its own way, too, for over 70 years. Those two government programs provide very useful services and don't contribute one cent to the deficit nor the national debt. They are a model of how other programs should work. The USPS didn't anticipate this decrease in mail volume. To be a little more responsible, they probably will need to raise rates just a little extra in order to give themselves a safety cushion in the future.

[Thothmes]

20. Nor the rise in fuel costs.

[davidinalameda]

23. maybe other departments should become fiscally responsible

how about the EPA

maybe if the EPA would really enforce the laws on the books, the fines would be able to pay for their budget

the Labor Department-same thing

[Azlady]

3. Oh geez! I live in rural area.. Postal service is already so bad!

What the heck is going to happen now! Just getting mail from the big city 60 miles away has taken up to 2 weeks to get here! Lovely!

[Mabus]

36. It's not any better in the city

We live in a residential neighborhood of family homes. Our house is like all the others in the neighborhood. It set back from the street and has a small concrete stoop with the mailbox next to the door. I have two problems with my mail guy. First, he seems to come by whenever he feels like it. It's irritating because I never know when or if he has come by. I work out of the house so I'm here most of the day but I find notices that something needs to be signed for but I wasn't home even though I was. I've camped out by the door and sometimes he shows up in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon and sometimes, I swear, he comes by in the evening. I've gone outside after 6 p.m. to pick up my husband and there is no mail. We'll get back home around 7 p.m. and no mail. Then I'll take the garbage out around 10 p.m. and there is mail. Second, he constantly misdelivers mail.

Yesterday I took close to twenty misdelivered letters, a magazine, a delivery notice and a small package to the post office. And here's the shocker: this is typical. My mail guy is seriously lazy. I usually spend a few minutes every day going through the mail and highlighting the addresses that the mail should have been delivered to or writing "Addressee Unknown" or "Wrong Address" before sticking them back in the box.

I've left notes with the mail guy telling him that only two people live here, giving him our names and asking him not to leave mail for people (especially if the address is different) who don't live here. fwiw, soon after we moved in (back in January) I put our names on the box but it disappeared after a few days. I kept putting our names back on the box but they always disappeared. Finally I just decided to print out a sheet of labels so I put our names back on the box whenever the label disappears. I've tried to talk to the guy but I never know when he is going to come by.

And for some reason, the amount of misdelivered mail has gone up recently. It's driving me nuts. Add to all of this, a week ago I finally got a letter that was postmarked back in August. It was an $85 check from a client and was the last installment payment that I had written off ever getting paid for. The envelope itself had been opened and taped back shut. I figure someone opened it without looking, realized it wasn't theirs, taped it shut and then forgot to put it back out for redelivery until recently. But who knows. That was it. I finally had it. I saved the misdelivered mail for three days ended up with eighteen misdirected letters, a magazine, a notice for a certified letter (not ours) and a small package. I took them to the post office and asked them what was going on. I also mentioned after hour deliveries and they looked at me like I was crazy (for all I know whoever actually got my mail was a good samaritan and ran it over to my house after they got home from work). They promised to talk to the guy.

This afternoon I opened the mailbox and there were four letters that had misdelivered. One looked like someone's bill from Home Depot, one looked like a bank statement, one looked like an over-sized birthday card and the fourth one, which should have been delivered to the people across the street, was (according to the envelope) a recall notice for their car. I took the latter envelope across the street to my neighbors and I'm taking the rest to the post office tomorrow and having another talk with them. I've talked to a couple of neighbors and they are having the same problem. They promise to call or talk to the post office but, according to the guy running the local post office, I'm the only one who has been complaining.

I'd take letters that were only two weeks late. At least your mail eventually gets where it is supposed to go. Here, it is a crap shoot.

[happyslug]

40. First most letter carrier no long case their own mail,

For that reason, whatever is in each bundle of mail set up for you home is NOT set by your local Carrier but by a Clerk who sets up the mail for delivery. What is in each bundle is up to the clerk who cases the mail NOT the Carrier who delivers it.

The Postal Service says this is for increase efficiency i.e. a clerk sets up the mail to be delivered by the Carrier, thus reserving the Carrier to the job of getting to his route and dropping off the mail. This has been a Postal Service goal ever since the Postal Strike of 1970, where the Carriers went on Strike, but the Clerks did not (Two Different union and even the Carrier's union opposed the Strike, but the Carriers went on strike anyway, even through it was illegal to do so). The Postal Service says it done to increase efficiency, the Carriers do what they do best, deliver mail, the clerks do what they do best, sort the mail. This ignores the fact Carriers have, since the Civil War when City Mail Delivery was started, always sorted their own mail for delivery, they know their routes better then anyone else (Most routes have two Carriers assigned to it, a regular carrier who delivers mail 5 days out of 6, and a flouter who does the 6th day but on five different routes).

Thus, on most routes today, the Carrier is NOT setting up your mail, a Clerk is. The Carrier has no authority or ability (given that the Clerk set up each set of mail) to makes changes or even to note that a letter is misdirected. If the Clerk does not catch the problem nothing happens till it is returned (The Clerk do NOT have first hand knowledge of the routes and who is on it).

Now in the 1980s before my Father retired from the Postal Service, the Postal Service was already on its way to making the Carriers NOT sort their own mail. Even then the Postal Service had another problem, it wanted to minimum number of Carriers, and did this by giving other carriers overtime to delivery mail over a route that has been cut so that four Carriers can delivery the mail on that route. Sounds like you are on such a route, divided up among other carriers who then delivery mail to your area after they have finished with their own routes. The Carriers will do it when they could, sometime before they did their own routes, but mostly afterward. Such routes are notorious for getting bad service for even the Carriers do not know what part their are delivering to till the day they are called in and asked to do the overtime.

[Mabus]

41. Thank you for the great explanation

I can't tell you how much I appreciate the time that it took for you to explain how things work within the post office. I just wish I had read this before this morning's trip to the post office. I went in this morning and had another talk with the station manager about the misdirected mail that we're still getting. He assured me that he would take care of it and apologized for the mess. I also talked to him about the late deliveries and he didn't know anything about that. He said the trucks were all parked by 5:30 (at the latest) and didn't have an explanation for mail showing up after 7. We talked about it for a while and the only explanation we could come up with was that a neighbor had brought it by. But he said he'd look into that too.

I do think it was a good thing I finally went to the substation and talked to the manager about what is going on. Hopefully he'll have a talk with whomever is sorting the mail and it will help improve service around my neighborhood.

I really don't want to make trouble for anyone but someone is not doing their job. I'll quit thinking mean thoughts about my carrier and just try to work with the station manager a little more. I'm just glad that he is as alarmed as I am that I'm getting so much misdirected mail at my house. He seems like a really nice guy and I think we both want things to work smoothly.

I'll also talk to my husband and I promise we will both stop calling our carrier "Newman!" when we go to check the mail.

[geomon666]

4. The privatization of the post office seems to be going well. n/t

[customerserviceguy]

8. It was doing OK until it hit modern times

The fax machine, and finally the Internet certainly had to change things. If it weren't for greeting cards, I'd hardly use the postal service anymore. Stuff that I buy on Half.com and eBay comes by UPS, except for a few small sellers.

If the Postal Service started making junk mail pay its own way, they could survive a bit longer. Maybe all those companies that I bought something from once fifteen years ago would think twice before cutting down half a tree's worth of glossy paper.

[tclambert]

18. I'm sure somebody said the telegraph would be the end of the post office.

Then the telephone, then television, then fax machines, then UPS, then FedEx, then e-mail. Mail volumes continued to go up. The economy may have more to do with it than e-mail, which has been around for a long time now.

[merwin]

19. How much of that mail volume is junk mail?

And although the volume of mail may have gone up, I doubt the population-adjusted volume has gone up.

[customerserviceguy]

45. All of those other inventions

just are not as versatile and as simple or cheap to use as the Internet. Nobody gets bills by telephone or telegraph, and while there was bank-by-phone, Internet bill paying is way simpler. Fax machines were used primarily by businesses, and the same is true of the overnight delivery services, which were all more expensive than first-class mail.

You're right that email has been around for some time, it's online bill paying that has changed the equation. It's taken people some time to trust that, frankly, even in my case, it was my now 75 year old mother who encouraged me to do it! I mean, if I've been to geek school, and know how incredibly secure transactions using secure servers can be, why shouldn't I use it, if she trusts it? Add to that the encouragement that online pay sites have been giving people to go paperless, and you have a real method for people to cut out a lot of life's clutter.

I still see a steady stream of junk mail in my box, my lady is on everybody's mailing list for it, but that stuff doesn't really pay its own way, its no wonder that the USPS is running out of money. It's going to get caught up in a vicious circle, raising the rates on first class will divert a lot of people to finding online ways of replacing the mails, raising the rates on junk mail will cause a lot of mailers to trim their lists, which will result in less junk mail being sent out.

Most technologies that replaced older ones did so slowly, but once a tipping point was reached, there was no going back. I know more and more people who are getting their magazine subscriptions online, that trend may contine as better handheld devices come to the market. That will be another blow to the USPS when that technology produces the same tipping point.

[high density]

28. I think the USPS has realized now that parcels are the future

Their rates for small parcels are very competitive, but companies seem to be very leery of working with the USPS. It doesn't help that the initial hurdles to ship often with them can be fairly painful. Internet postage helps but everybody still seems to gravitate to UPS.

[customerserviceguy]

42. It's service

UPS will come out to pick up things from you, with USPS, you have to wait through long lines at the post office, behind people who really don't know what they're doing when they ship a package once or twice a year. If someone's trying to make a living off of eBay, they don't want to put up with that hassle on a daily basis.

Before I moved a year and a half ago, I tried to sell off a lot of my books on Half.com, and constantly had to deal with lines full of people that needed long times at the window. If I were living in a rural area, and there was a half hour drive to the post office, that would have burned another non-productive hour out the window.

[SOS]

5. The crooks in Washington can come up with $700 billion for Wall Street

in a weekend, but can't give the Post Office $2 billion to keep 40,000 workers on the job?
This system is absurd.

[depakid]

6. So the rumors of 40,000 layoffs were...

just rumors?

I'm having a difficult time trusting any information I see these days..

[KoKo]

9. I read an article about all those layoffs yesterday...but it wasn't reported on

the TeeVee News or in our local newspaper. It does make one wonder how something could be reported and then withdrawn, or it wasn't true in the first place. Was PO looking for a bailout and somebody told them to shut up about it so as not to panic the stock market? 40,000 is a lot of people. The article was very detailed about older employees would be offered early retirement with the newest hires being laid off first.

[Kingofalldems]

29. Early outs at first

Then layoffs if not enough takers.

[maxsolomon]

7. did you know that postal carriers cannot BACK THEIR VEHICLES UP?

i have the misfortune of working with the USPS to design a postal route for a new neighborhood, and one requirement is that the postal vehicle can never go in reverse.

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. Our carrier backs up every day, has to to get out of our driveway.

Maybe a new rule?

[Divine Discontent]

25. very old rule.

I was a driver many years ago - we weren't allowed to back up unless we got ourselves into a situation accidentally that required it.

[sarcasmo]

31. Online billing, F the USPS.

[MrsBrady]

12. i see our carriers back up that little mail vehicle all the time ...

we have mail boxes on the curb.

if there is a car in front....

i have seen them pull up, put the mail in, back up and go around the car in front of them

[iamthebandfanman]

15. first of all they do go in reverse sometimes

and second of all , im sure its some crazy scheme to save gas.

[Divine Discontent]

26. only told it was for safety eom

[tclambert]

16. It's not a rule that they can't back up.

But it is strongly discouraged. It's a safety issue. Those trucks have a huge blind spot behind them, and the USPS has had a lot of accidents involving backing up. The typical mail truck doesn't have a rear window, nor rearview mirrors. The newest vehicles do have a rearview camera. With dead end streets, cars blocking the way, etc., backing up is a daily necessity. Still, the USPS wants their carriers to avoid it whenever possible.

They also prefer right turns over left turns. Not a political thing. Just safety. Left turns cause more accidents than right, and remember, mail carriers drive from the right-hand side. Makes lefts that much more interesting.

[jaysunb]

11. Calling, UPS, FED EX....

come rescue us from this mess.

[iamthebandfanman]

13. uh no. just say no to private corporations. n/t

[Thothmes]

21. What do you expect their delivery fees woud be

to Nowhere Iowa, Moscow Mississippi or Buffalo Chip Wyoming?

[high density]

24. They'd raise prices by 100x and that would be that.

[Born Free]

35. FedEx is already subsidized by the USPS

FedEx has the priority mail contract, the USPS only does the local delivery, and the USPS pays regardless if they have the need at the time. The USPS also pays the airlines to keep space available for first class mail. The biggest killer was the high gas prices, as the postal service has the largest fleet of vehicles in the country, yeah, more than the Army. They are constantly upgrading the high speed sorting machines to process the mail faster with less people. A normal distribution center may process a million or more letters a day. Much of the bulk mail is already sorted, the USPS only delivers it to the door - private firms do the sorting. Even though private contractors are paid to do many things for the postal service, if they don't show up the postal service employees do it - the private contractors still get paid. The deck has been stacked against the post office and far too many people don't realize it. This is not to say some postal workers really are worthless...

[iamthebandfanman]

14. i ALWAYS use the USPS

unless my package is incredibly large.

the USPS is one of the greatest government ran agencies.

how anyone on DU could be violent and harsh with such a great service is just beyond me.

anybody who expected them to make profits are fools.


much love to my USPS brothers and sisters, keep up the good work ... dont let the bastards grind you down.

[Divine Discontent]

27. rarely do I have a prob with my former employer also

they get a LOT of flack, but I have sent thousands of items in the past 10 years, and only 2 or 3 were ruined, none disappeared.

[Mabus]

38. There are some people, like any profession, who should seek other employment

First, in interest of self-disclosure, I have a cousin who works for the USPS. And personally I have never had a problem with USPS mail service until recently. I have a horrible carrier.

I use the USPS a lot. I do IP work (mostly patents) out of the house and have for years. According to the USPTO paper correspondence must be transmitted via USPS, mostly Express Mail or good old-fashioned first class mail. I've never had a problem with our mail service until we relocated earlier this year. Our carrier constantly misdelivers mail to the wrong address. In a three day period (this past Friday, Saturday and Monday) I had over 20 pieces of misdelivered mail end up in my mailbox. I took them to the local post office yesterday and complained. Today, there were four letters - only one of which was addressed to someone on my block - in my mailbox. None of them were junk. There was a Home Depot statement, what looked to be someone's bank statement, an over-sized card and a vehicle recall notice from the factory. I took one letter across the street to my neighbor and I'll take the rest of the letters in to the local substation tomorrow and complain again.

I do agree with you though. Most USPS workers are top notch but all it takes is one lousy carrier, like the one I have, to make the whole post office look bad. I'm not blaming the whole USPS system. I'm blaming one particular individual at this point. However, if something is not done, and soon, I'll be taking my complaints to whomever has control over our local substation.

[pimpbot]

39. Maybe because the level of service we get from the USPS sucks?

Like one poster upthread.. I constantly get misdelivered mail. Sometimes it is my house number, but wrong address, sometimes its a street name that is similar to mine. Sometimes its just plain wrong. I always take it back to the PO and tell them about it, but they just shrug it off and act like its no big deal.

Sometimes I wonder if mail meant for me is getting delivered to someone else's house. What really pissed me off was a couple weeks ago I put some outgoing mail in the box and flipped up the flag. Well it was still sitting there the next morning. The excuse I got from the PO was that I didnt have any mail that day so he didn't stop. WTF, isn't that why the lil flag is there??? The worst part is, there really is nothing you can do. All the complaints I file have done NOTHING. The same guy is still working the same route.

The only thing I get in the mail anymore is junk mail and birthday cards. My bills are emailed to me and I e-pay them from my bank. Since the PO cost me $$$ by not picking up my mail a couple weeks ago, I will never send another paid bill in the mail if I can help it.

I use UPS or FedEx exclusively for shipping boxes. The USPS package tracking system sucks. Anything I've sent priority mail gets to its destination before anything ever shows up on their website.

[Doremus]

22. How fvcking convenient. Isn't it funny how they're in the "red" every year.

The last time I checked their financials, they had $9M in retained earnings. That was a couple of years ago, but they were screaming poor mouth then too.

Their mandate is to break even.

Deregulation rears yet another of its ugly heads.

Bastards.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

30. USPS: One of the few things the federal government gets right

I love the post office - I fucking hate FedEx.

[October]

44. Good for you.

[truthisfreedom]

32. It's amazing they can deliver a letter for less than $.50. No private company could do it for that.

Fedex charges a spectacularly larger amount to deliver a letter by ground, cheapest way.

I hear a lot of complaints in this forum that basically say "stick it to the man!" about everything, and I'm getting sick of it. I am the man. I have a manufacturing company and I believe in Barack Obama. I donated $3300 to his campaign and $4600 to Al Franken's. I'm worried for my company and worried for my employees. They rely on me to provide them with income and the economy is pretty damned crappy. Honestly, the Post Office is great. They're just great. I have no complaints about their service. My neighborhood post office is quick and has short lines. I guess I'm lucky.

If they have to raise their prices, that makes sense to me. If they have a giant well-oiled machine and there's no work going through it, there are still fixed operating expenses and money is needed to keep it going.

We're all in trouble here, people. There's no need for finger-pointing except at the f*ckers who f*cked up our economy but good... and that includes EVERYONE who voted for deregulation of the banking industry, and the bush administration for complete and utter failure at minding the store.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[mattfromnossa]

34. well isnt that nice

[investintrains]

37. I've read Bush regime raided postal trust fund for Iraq

I've read Bush regime raided postal trust fund for Iraq

[dipsydoodle]

43. Does that matter

It is in effect a public utiity : there to provide a necessary service.

[KakistocracyHater]

46. I wonder how many failed cities

are in America now? Will those in gov let the Country Club Class destroy our government? They don't have postal service in some very poor countries, what will it take to stop our downwardly mobile trajectory?

[olddad56]

47. simple fix, raise the price of stamps to $10

[AngryAmish]

48. This comes as a surprise to about seven people in America

Isn't it grand that the same people who run the USPS will soon be running Wall Street? Fantastic.