United States Postal Success
April 14, 2008
I was all set to rail on the US postal service, even worked out a few good zingers in the shower this morning. But, to my grave misfortune (and others great fortune) my research suggests they shouldn’t be admonished at all, in fact, they should get a fucking medal. My planned reproach began by deploring my financial obligations to the organization. Like many, I really don’t do snail mail. Aside from the occasional magazine and rare personal letter I actively dislike everything that little tin box spews forth. Why should my taxes subsidize the endless barrage of unnecessary bank statements, bills (I handle my finances exclusively online), credit card offers and coupon cards? they shouldn’t. And they don’t. Apparently USPS even turns a $600 million profit.
Berating them for home delivery was to be my pièce de résistance. Foiled again. I figured we were wasting tons of valuable postage on men with silly costumes and giant knapsacks. I figured wrong and the figures are right here: The average mailman, or letter carrier as is the pc term of times, rakes in about $48k/year plus benefits. The National Association of LCs has a paltry 300,000 members. Throw those numbers in the math box and discover that were talking a budget cut of almost 1% for firing them all. I am not going to guesstimate infrastructure budgets; I no longer care about the balance between adding 200 million P.O. boxes and taking 200 thousand goofy wrong sided trucks off the road. It’s brazenly obvious that this is hardly the postage slashing bonaza I expected. Rates go up to 42 cents on May 1, and suddenly I can’t seem to remember why I cared so much.
Needless to say, their profits and delivery efficiency caught me off guard. I need some time to sort out my feelings. What do they do with all that money? Avenue of reproach? Unlikely. My Pride Hurts.
