Mr. Postman

May 11, 2009 - Your stamp cost will increase again
Buy your Forever Stamps now.

Fine, whatever. Increase the cost of the stamp again. I sort of wish the USPS would just increase the stamp in larger increments. That way they don't keep doing it each years. Make the damn things .50 cents each for all I care. Maybe that will help them get a grip on their finances.

I have difficulty understanding how they are billions in the red. My postal carrier only delivers Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and the occasional Saturday. And to hell if the weather is bad. You won't see him or her, that one or the other one, if the weather is even slightly bad. At one point my neighborhood had a consistent postal delivery person. Now it's just a game of luck that you get anyone.

If you go to the Post Office, there are usually 2 clerks working. One consistently filters folks through the system. The other is chatting away with everyone and each other. "She" usually can service 1 customer every 15 minutes or so.

Did I just give her a pay raise?

Postage

.42 cents for a stamp

The incremental increase of the monotonous stamp drives me crazy. I write letters all the time. Many people are amazed at that fact. It was a slowly learned trait that I got from my father. He despises talking on the phone. A 5 minute phone call is much less important to him than a written or typed 1-page letter. He used to write his parents each week and they did so in return. It was his version of a phone call just took longer and cost less. But it's gotten me to the point that I enjoy writing my weekly letters to my parents. But the increases annoy me. Why can't "they" just consider:

• raising it to .45 cents for four more years. Bank the extra; managed by a frugal financial manager (like that's gonna happen...). Then raise it again .05 cents for another 5 years, invested frugally. Somewhere along the line you would think the USPS would have money in the coffers, or a rainy day fund.
• pricing the stamps at intervals of .05 cents. Isn't that a lot easier?
• keeping the cost of stamps from rising by delivering mail on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Wouldn't that cut down on shipping costs? My father would say, you would not want "them" to stop delivering on certain days. Once you start taking away services it begins to snowball.
• Reducing overhead might not be a bad idea. Richmond, Virginia is the first place I have lived that has so many post offices. It seems like there is a location every 5 miles; even less in certain areas. I just don't get the need for that. Why can't they make fewer locations that are bit larger?
• Do you have any ideas?