Just noticed that the US Postal Service has decided to close hundreds of post offices across the country. Reason: people aren't writing letters anymore, businesses aren't sending as many circulars, people aren't paying their bills by mail, and magazines have skinnied down so they are lighter and therefore cheaper to send. And of course, USPS is losing money. $7 billion projected for this year. And according to the GAO, they're not innovating nearly fast enough--despite the regular and, so it seems to me, more frequent increases in rates.All perfectly understandable, except maybe the business flier part. Don't know about you, but you couldn't deduce this from what appears in my mail every day. I can honestly tell you that there are probably fewer than one in a hundred of the pieces of junk mail we get that gets read or even glanced at. Junk mail goes automatically into the recycle bin. This cannot be a unique procedure. Doesn't everybody do this? And one other thing: how much waste and environmentally destruction is represented by junk mail? To me, it's on a par with bottled water, 98 percent of packaging, and disposable anythings as symbols of our profligate late-capitalistic lifestyle. (FYI, you can get great instructions about how to reduce your own personal level of junk advertising right here. By the way, no, everybody doesn't dispose of junk mail without reading it. According the link just cited, only half of the junk mail goes in the trash unread. And are you ready for this? Amount of junk mail sent each year: 400 million tons!)
Of course people aren't writing letters anymore. They have email. Even people without computers have email. Have you checked the banks of publicly accessible computers in libraries lately? Always jammed. The days when people would sit down and actually handscribe a letter to family or friends are as gone as the dodo bird. But, boy, don't you love getting them? I think the future of Christmas cards, another huge category of mailed matter, is also grim. Everybody's noticed a drop in their numbers of cards, simultaneously with the paring down of their own Christmas mailing lists.
And skinny magazines? Like newspapers, magazines are struggling to stay alive. As advertising shrinks, so does the bulk of magazines. Pretty soon, not many of them are going to be around either.
Everything we're talking about here is emblematic of the post-modern world we now inhabit. Old ways go, new ways come. The intrepid mail-carrier in the snow, sleet, and rain going about his appointed rounds, even he won't be able to survive the way the winds are blowing now.
4 comments:
There are many dedicated snail mail enthusiasts, like me, who have found the Internet to be a true boon to expanding their mail horizons. Sites like PostCrossing.com, sendsomething.net, swap-bot.com and a host of Yahoo, Flickr and Google groups are dedicated to nothing but sending mail... real mail. I send about 30-50 pieces of mail a week... personal mail... and I get about that much in return.
The problem with the USPS is a business model that relies on bulk mail... the very stuff that annoys their customers. Also, a culture of contempt behind the counter. Electronic postage strips are forced upon the typical customer because it is easier for the clerk. Unbelievable high pressure up-sell. Low to no enthusiasm for the product.
I am okay with shutting some offices, opening satellite offices in grocery stores, and for 5 day a week delivery (but I'd prefer no mail on Tuesdays... Tuesdays are always bad mail days). I don't want to pay more for postage, but I think the US does have some of the lowest postage rates for domestic mail in the world, but that is anecdotal. There just needs to be better business model.
Hi, thanks for the thoughtful and informative response to what I thought was a post that would hardly draw any attention at all. As a matter of fact, I do participate in Postcrossing, and I'm anxious to get home from my trip tomorrow to find out how many cards I've received during the 8 days I've been gone. And I intend to check out your suggestions as soon as I've posted this response.
You would think that somebody in the USPS would have thought about the points you're making about the business model. Even the people who inflict the tons and tons of junk mail on the rest of us, must be annoyed by their own stuff at their own houses, wouldn't you think?
You're right also about the attitude behind the counter. But won't closing post offices simply exacerbate the tremendous crowding we now have in many post offices across the country? Like you, I don't want to pay any more postage, and I agree it's a bargain for what we get. But what we get could be greatly improved. Thx for writing.
Closing free standing post offices and having more satellite post offices in grocery stores and drug stores would go a long way to helping the USPS. Leave the free standing for post office boxes (most around here are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) and have an automated postage machine. The staff at the satellite offices don't have to be USPS people, so that helps saves money since some postal workers make an obscene salary. And if the satellite offices also had incentives to make their particular shop more friendly, it would go a long way to making snail mail something attractive to more people. Oooooo.... if only I ran the USPS.
Oh... as for the mailers of junk mail not liking it coming to their mailboxes... the people who make the decisions to send junk mail are executives who probably never, ever, in a million years, go to a mailbox. They have someone on the staff who does that and sorts out the junk.
What you say makes tons of sense. I've used the automated postage machine to mail packages several times for parcels too big to handle conveniently from here. I've had a postage scale for years, and I bypass USPS on all small packages. I also buy almost all my postage via this computer and the Net. Nonetheless, I still must trek to the actual post office every once in a while. It's an onerous task almost all the time.
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