quote:

Originally posted by chellim1: . . . I think the answer is inefficiency. I don't see a solution as long as it's run by government.

With most gov't operations there isn't much incentive to perform. And not much ding for poor performance. That's why I worry when the CA Governor suggests he might take over Pacific Gas & Electric. If he does it is certain the cost will go up, the reliability will go down.

After two search requests they say they finally found the package. It left San Francisco headed to the destination.

That was a week ago. I live an hour from San Francisco.

What am I missing?

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:
After two search requests they say they finally found the package. It left San Francisco headed to the destination.

That was a week ago. I live an hour from San Francisco.

What am I missing?

A car?

quote:

Originally posted by Ogie:

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:
After two search requests they say they finally found the package. It left San Francisco headed to the destination.

That was a week ago. I live an hour from San Francisco.

What am I missing?

A car?

You are correct, my wife has it, she is out shopping. (I think I saw the pic on this forum, to guys, "When you go shopping with your wife hold her hand. It isn't a matter of romance, it's a matter of economics).

Quick update.

They say the package left San Francisco ten days ago, headed in my direction. I live an hour from San Francisco. What's wrong with this picture? I told them I would be happy to pick it up.

After a third service order was issued (they say the first two service orders were "resolved") they still can't find it.

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:
Quick update.

They say the package left San Francisco ten days ago, headed in my direction. I live an hour from San Francisco. What's wrong with this picture? I told them I would be happy to pick it up.

After a third service order was issued (they say the first two service orders were "resolved") they still can't find it.

Maybe final update. I was able to talk to a real live person at USPS. They say the pkg was never in San Francisco, rather Oakland (although their tracking website says San Francisco). But they concur it was shipped out to me two weeks ago (an hour away).

I asked if I could go pick it up, they said (in short) they have no idea where the pkg is (they tacitly admitted it is lost). But they are confident I will get it "soon". (I asked if soon was in geologic time.) I guess it's time to file a lost claim.

My wife noticed a couple of times the inside of the local Postal truck that parks at the corner of the street, almost every package in there was Amazon. So maybe if you want your package delivered, put it in an Amazon box.

USPS has a lot of problems. I would say most of them stem from the people who work there...

Ordered some dog food. Carrier had enough energy to bring a slip to the door saying the parcel was too big for the locker but didn't bother bringing the box to the door. Slip said I could go pick it up. Nope. I ordered it for delivery, not pick up. Went online and filled out the form with the tracking number to have the package dropped off tomorrow. They dropped it off today, didn't bother ringing the doorbell the first or second time.

With 3 dogs, I think I would've heard the doorbell ring.

The Postal Service is especially burdened by 2006 federal legislation, the Postal Enhancement and Accountability Act, that required it to prefund all current and former employee retirement and health benefits in advance as opposed to a "pay as you go" system. The service saw its annual net losses double to $8.8 billion in 2019, and it currently has $160 billion in unfunded liabilities to those pre-paid pension and health plan obligations, according to the Washington Post.

Shipped a package on 7/21 from VA headed to PR. Stopped moving in the Greensboro distribution center 7/24. No scans since.

Visited local PO twice. First time they blamed COVID in San Juan. This week they blamed the Postmaster General. I kid you not. Missing mail.com doesn’t function. Calling the consumer relations line gets you a recorded message. Filing a complaint online generated a boilerplate automated response promising a response within 24 hours. No response after a week. A call to local USPS consumer affairs department gets an admission of lots of problems, and a promise of a phone call within 24 hours from the Greensboro distribution center. No call.

There is no accountability anywhere. And Congress’ solution is to throw $25B at the problem. Bad performance gets rewarded? I will not be using USPS in the future if I can avoid it.

I used UPS to send a small envelope to my brother last week.

Took 2 days.

He send me one the previous week using USPS, took 7 days.

SEVEN GODDAMMED DAYS. SEVEN to go 200 miles. SEVEN GODDAMMED DAYS.

The USPS union needs to be busted and the pension fund completely defunded.

Couple years ago, I ordered a knife from custom knife maker Bill Sanders. The package required an adult signature and a delivery attempt was made while I was at work. The postman left a note to pick it up at the post office.

After waiting in line for half an hour, I presented my delivery receipt and the postal employee went to the back room to get my package.

When he came back to the counter, he asked to see my ID. He then refused to give me my parcel because my name wasn’t Bill Sanders. Had to explain to him that the SENDER was Bill Sanders and I was the recipient. He looked puzzled and reluctantly gave me my package.

So yeah... Mail in ballots... What could go wrong?

quote:

. . . There is no accountability anywhere. And Congress’ solution is to throw $25B at the problem. Bad performance gets rewarded? . . .

You make a good point. If poor attitude, poor performance is rewarded with $25B, what is the likely result?

quote:

. . . Mail in ballots... What could go wrong.

Given the level of competence, combined with the USPS union's open political preference, I think there is grounds to be concerned with mail-in ballots.

My biggest problem with the US Postal System is they still get any bills by mail to me on time every time.

The USPS needs to be seriously re-vamped. Trump is right it should be down sized. Email etc. has replaced SOOOOOOOO much of what used to be part of the PO. Once again Trump is right. And what do the democrats do? Pump 25 Bil. $$ into another loser of an institution.

The Cold, Hard Truth about the Post Office
By Kevin Cochrane

Apparently, Congress doesn't have time to pass an economic stimulus package and save the American economy, but they do have time to address — in an emergency session no less — the Post Office. Yeah, yeah, we're being told that it's some deep plot to fiddle with the election by suppressing mail-in ballots, but why don't we look at the facts?

I do know a little about the Postal Service — my dad was a "letter carrier" for over thirty years. Back then, we called him a "mailman" because, well, he delivered mail, and he was man. But today... Anyway, let's take a dive into some numbers and see if all the hoopla is really accurate.

Last year, fiscal 2019, the USPS lost almost $9 billion on operations. Let that sink in. It's about $27 for every man, woman, child, and non-binary person in the country. That means, in addition to paying to mail stuff or have it mailed to you, you also paid an extra $27. That's about a hundred bucks a year for an average family of four. And by the way, last year was the thirteenth consecutive year the USPS lost money.

Clearly, the Post Office needs fixing. It loses money — tons of money — and something has to change. But let's put that thought on hold for a bit. Instead, why don't we take a peek at what's happening below the surface? Maybe we can also find out about this whole recent uproar about suppressing the vote by reducing USPS service.

Mailboxes! My dad would be angry at me for misspeaking. Collection boxes! You know, those big blue hunks bolted to street corners that always squeak when you open the slot to drop a letter inside. Apparently, the USPS is ripping them out so folks can't mail their harvested ballots back in November. I've even seen pictures of trucks with collection boxes stacked on them on the internet, so it must be true.

Well, it turns out that it is true! The USPS is removing mailboxes. But wait! They've been doing this for decades! It's nothing new. According to the USPS and the Universal Postal Union (a United Nations organization, so we believe them), between 2000 and 2015, the number of collection boxes in the U.S. declined from 365,000 to 153,000. Wait...that was the Obama administration suppressing the vote! Probably not true, but why were the boxes being removed?

Why don't we turn to the USPS deputy inspector general for an answer? She was an Obama appointee and in 2016 said, "As the Postal Service adapts its collection infrastructure to meet customers' needs at a reasonable cost, it has eliminated underused collection boxes that on average receive fewer than 25 pieces a day, and added collection boxes that are convenient for customers." Ah, so it's an efficiency "thing." And here's another idea. Rather than wandering all over the city trying to find one to mail a letter, why not just put it in the mailbox you get your daily deliveries in? You know, the one that is just a few feet from your door!

"But wait," they scream. "What about all the other cuts to slow down the mail and make ballots arrive too late to be counted?" Okay, then, let's have a look at service efficiency. According to the Postal Service website, over the past five years, the total amount of mail handled has declined from about 156 billion to about 143 billion pieces per year. Included in this decline is even an increase of about two billion more packages from places like Amazon and eBay.

So if you were a business person and you saw your business declining by that much, wouldn't you get rid of some staff? Yeah, but you're not the Post Office. During that same period of time, the number of Postal Service employees actually increased by about 10,000 folks. More employees, less mail, but slower delivery times? I'm struggling with the math here.

Look, the facts are these: the Post Office has been yanking out collection boxes forever, the volume of mail has been declining for years, and the size of the Post Office staff has increased. Does Trump hate mail-in voting? He says he does (but he votes by mail). Is he monkeying with the USPS to mess up mail-in voting? It sure doesn't seem like it. But I'm certain the Democratic Congress will find out — maybe they'll even appoint a special prosecutor!

In the meantime, we're told that the Post Office loses so much money because it has to set aside cash for its future retirees in advance. Okay, but that's what every firm has to do if it maintains an employee pension plan. Plus, like many businesses and local governments, the Post Office hasn't even done that since 2012. That's right: the USPS hasn't funded its retirement plan for almost a decade. Sorry, Dad...

https://www.americanthinker.co...the_post_office.html

The headline from an article copied in the LA Times:

‘Like Armageddon’: Rotting food, dead animals and chaos at postal facilities amid cutbacks

Employees at California postal facilities provide a glimpse of the chaos amid both the pandemic and widespread cuts imposed by the USPS.
(Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union- Tribune)
By Laura J. Nelson, Maya Lau
Aug. 20, 2020
11:07 AM

Six weeks ago, U.S. Postal Service workers in the high desert town of Tehachapi, Calif., began to notice crates of mail sitting in the post office in the early morning that should have been shipped out for delivery the night before.

At a mail processing facility in Santa Clarita in July, workers discovered that their automated sorting machines had been disabled and padlocked.

And inside a massive mail-sorting facility in South Los Angeles, workers fell so far behind processing packages that by early August, gnats and rodents were swarming around containers of rotted fruit and meat, and baby chicks were dead inside their boxes.

Accounts of conditions from employees at California mail facilities provide a glimpse of what some say are the consequences of widespread cutbacks in staffing and equipment recently imposed by the postal service. . . .

https://www.latimes.com/califo...ks-post-office-chaos



From chellim's post above:

quote:

. . . Last year, fiscal 2019, the USPS lost almost $9 billion on operations. . . .
the volume of mail has been declining for years, and the size of the Post Office staff has increased . . .

quote:

Originally posted by Belgian Blue:

When he came back to the counter, he asked to see my ID. He then refused to give me my parcel because my name wasn’t Bill Sanders. Had to explain to him that the SENDER was Bill Sanders and I was the recipient. He looked puzzled and reluctantly gave me my package.

Hey I know that guy! He was let go by McDonalds because he couldn't figure out how to make change. First he thought a $2 Bill was fake. Then he couldn't comprehend why I gave him a $5 Dollar bill and a Penny when my order was $4.96. I just wanted to get rid of a penny and not get 4 more pennies. Guy had that deer in the headlights look.

A few corrections in the article by Kevin Cochrane:

"Last year, fiscal 2019, the USPS lost almost $9 billion on operations. Let that sink in. It's about $27 for every man, woman, child, and non-binary person in the country. That means, in addition to paying to mail stuff or have it mailed to you, you also paid an extra $27. That's about a hundred bucks a year for an average family of four. And by the way, last year was the thirteenth consecutive year the USPS lost money."

I know I haven't spent $27 more for mailing stuff. Also, the Post Office is not funded by tax payer dollars.

"So if you were a business person and you saw your business declining by that much, wouldn't you get rid of some staff? Yeah, but you're not the Post Office. During that same period of time, the number of Postal Service employees actually increased by about 10,000 folks. More employees, less mail, but slower delivery times? I'm struggling with the math here."

It's called the Postal Service, not the Postal Business. They are required to deliver to every address in the United States. If a carrier route has 500 deliveries and the carrier only makes 400 deliveries he still has to deliver the whole route. In addition, if Postal customers used to deliver 10 pieces of mail to each customer and now they only receive 2 pieces of mail, then guess what? The carrier still has to deliver all the mail with actual delivery time having not been reduced by a significant amount.

Also, "during the same period of time"? What does that mean? What period of time? If I recall correctly, the number of employees has been reduced significantly over the years, not increased. Show me the numbers over the last 10 years.

"In the meantime, we're told that the Post Office loses so much money because it has to set aside cash for its future retirees in advance. Okay, but that's what every firm has to do if it maintains an employee pension plan. Plus, like many businesses and local governments, the Post Office hasn't even done that since 2012. That's right: the USPS hasn't funded its retirement plan for almost a decade. Sorry, Dad..."

By a law enacted in 2006, when the Post Office was doing well, politicians decided to use the Post Office as their own little piggy bank. They required the Post Office to pre-fund employee health benefits for the next 75 years within a 10 year period. No other firm or government agency is required to that, and they don't. So when the article states that the Post Office "has to set aside cash" it is misleading. In addition, the law requires the pre-funding of future retiree health benefits and has nothing to do with the pension plan itself which is either CSRS or since 1984, FERS.

Most of the article is fairly accurate but in some respects the writer has his head up his ass. Here is part of the response regarding the mischarges and overfunding from the USPS-OIG in 2011:

Tuesday, March 1, 2011
USPS-OIG responds to the OPM-OIG
The following is the response of the USPS-OIG to the report of the Office of Personnel Management - Office of Inspector General.

For more information about the Office of Personnel Management - Office of Inspector General Report See the following posts on this blog:

Dueling Inspector Generals or Revenge of the Creditor
Could Postal Employees Lose Retiree Health Benefits?

****************************************************************************************
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the OPM Inspector General’s study reviewing our recent reports about the mischarges and overfunding of the Postal Service’s benefit obligations. Both the postal pension and health funds are administered by OPM and are accounted for separately from the federal government’s benefit funds.
Our reports focused on the latest of OPM’s long history of miscalculations involving Postal Service benefit funds:

In 2002, the Postal Service’s pension fund was found to be overfunded by $78 billion. Congress corrected this in 2003.
In 2003, OPM attempted to make the Postal Service responsible for $27 billion in military service pension obligations for Postal Service employees. Congress refused to accept this attempt.
In 2009, we found that the OPM used an exaggerated 7 percent health care inflation forecast instead of the 5 percent industry standard, resulting in an overpayment of $13.2 billion by 2016. Congress ordered OPM to review it and they changed it.
The Postal Service has been overcharged $75 billion for its share of the CSRS pension payments. In essence, for 40 years the Postal Service paid its own and the federal government’s inflationary costs.

The entire article can be found here: http://courierexpressandpostal...s-to-theopm-oig.html

The Postal Service does need help but it has nothing to do with mail in ballots or collection box removal. I retired 16 years ago and we were instructed to remove collection boxes even then. The Post Office has been screwed over for many years and this sudden interest in the Postal Service by Democrats is hypocritical and clearly biased by their own perceived self interest.

quote:

Also, the Post Office is not funded by tax payer dollars.

Then where is Nancy Pelosi going to get the $25 billion that she wants Congress to give the USPS?

quote:

It's called the Postal Service, not the Postal Business.

Perhaps the point is that it should be run more like a business?

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Also, the Post Office is not funded by tax payer dollars.

Then where is Nancy Pelosi going to get the $25 billion that she wants Congress to give the USPS?

quote:

It's called the Postal Service, not the Postal Business.

Perhaps the point is that it should be run more like a business?

"The Post Office has been screwed over for many years and this sudden interest in the Postal Service by Democrats is hypocritical and clearly biased by their own perceived self interest."

You missed the part above. Democrats don't really give a shit about the Postal Service. If they were interested they would have done something the eight years Obama and Biden were ruining, I mean running the country. Of course the Post Office should be run efficiently. I don't dispute that.

You can't have universal service and be run on the theory that you have to make a profit. The Postal Service is required by statute to break even over time.