US Postal Service deserves to go out of business

They're too big to fail.

They don't have the best customer service and seem to not care.

My local Postal guy is okay most of the time - he's cordial, but, he's working in a small town, so not a lot of pressure working there.

Actually this is incorrect (but a lot of people do not understand the USPS).  They are not a government agency in the normal sense (like DOT or DHS etc..).  They control their own budget and income, but the government covers any shortfalls with tax money.  It was mandated to be revenue-neutral (kind of hard ot make a profit when you do this).  It's a quasi-private-public sort of arrangement.  It has lots of rights that other gov't agencies do not.

BTW the only reason I know this is my uncle has worked for them for many years.  And he agrees that it's screwed up and in need of an overhaul.

Here's one reason:

The US Postal Service would have shown a net profit of $76 million in April (of 2010) had it not been for the $458 million charge for future retiree health benefits (RHBTF) imposed by Congress. Unaudited financial results released yesterday show that for the fiscal year to date, the USPS has lost $2.3 billion. Without the RHBTF charge, the USPS would be showing a net profit of over $1 billion, despite the continuing decline in mail volume.

Let me qualify my statements by saying my wife is a postal carrier and she goes out of her way to help customers.

Now, raise your hand if you've ever worked for a major corporation (USPS isn't one but it's big enough to have this happen) and you've thought at one point "Jeez, I wonder how they stay in business."  One poster here told us why already - the federal government covers shortfalls.

Now raise your hand if you've gone to a store or any other place of business and got crappy service.  I'm not excusing it because if what you say is true, both of those people should be put in roles where they don't have to work with people.

And at the end of it all - my wife still comes home and talks about how much the place sucks and how some of their practices and policies don't make sense.  And for all the talk of letting the USPS go out of business, I need to ask - is there anyone out there that does EVERYTHING that the USPS does?  I don't even think there are niche players that handle letters on the scale that the USPS does.

Unless and until we all use electronic means to communicate EVERYTHING, including birthday cards, Christmas cards, and ads etc., I don't think we're seriously talking about them going out of business.  Besides which - local stores pay for bulk mail of their ads to be sent out because it is garaunteed to be seen and handled, unless you never get your mail.  And the grim reality is that if you handle a flyer for a new local pizza place, you can bet they did it that way because they don't have your email address.  And if they did - people would get pissed.

Could service be improved?  Yup and my wife apologized for your crappy experience.  It chapped her hide.  Can practices be improved?  Yup and my wife talks about it a great deal.

I worked for USPS for 4 years.  By far the worst working experience for me ever!  And I worked an office job that most of the union guys would have loved.  Most of the people I worked with had been promoted from mail delivery etc and they resented people like me that were hired to work in an office.  I really can't think of anything  positive to say about that experience for me and I am glad that it is behind me. 

Another poster mentioned that the USPS would be in the black if it was not for future retiree obligations and that is true.  I have to say though, in this case congress has it right.  USPS will only see their revenues decline in the future.  There are probably well over 100,000 UPSP employees elgible to retire. It appears to me that ensuring that USPS has the funding to support future retirements is a good thing.  Rather than the money not being available and expecting the fed to bail them out.  If they want to get serious about not losing money than maybe they need to look at the pensions they are paying. Afterall, they pride themselves as being a "quasi-government agancy".  Let them make some of the difficult decicions that other corporations have had to make during hard times.

FWIW, I avoid the post office as much as I can.  That said, many USPS carriers work very hard and I feel for them as I believe they are under appreciated.  Also, the clerk behind the window...yea, it's frustrating that there are 2-clerks for 5 or 6 windows.  For the most part I think they do the best they can for the situation they are in.  It's not there fault that USPS does not staff adequately.  The management at USPS leave a lot to be desired.

As to nobody doing everything the Post Office does. I think if Fedex/UPS and others were allowed to actually use the mailbox you would see a lot more parcels going that direction because they would likely do it better, and cheaper.  As a competitive business in a capitalist society I feel the USPS would naturally go out of business if it wasn't for the mailbox monopoly.

I hate junk mail too.  But it's what keeps the cost of a normal stamp down.  Think about this: A letter is hand delivered from door to door across the entire country for $0.44.  Not too shabby really. 

If you got rid of junk mail some back of the napkin math says that a stamp would cost about $1.76 (I'm sure there are tons of other factors but just crunches some basic #s on volumes of mail and such)

The internet has killed the postal service, and they need to adapt if they want to stay in business.

There are VERY few things I need to use the post office for, since I can do virtually everything online now. And why wouldn't I? Saves time and the frustration of poor customer service.

Certified letters are the only thing I have used the post office for in years.

Nothing is stopping FedEx or UPS from doing just this.  They deliver door to door.  They have just chosen not to go this route.  Right now the cheapest option to mail a letter via UPS is about $5.50 (local, in town, business to business).  To get that down to $0.44 would be a monumental undertaking.

I guess I should have been more clear. I know they are not like DSHS/FDA etc. but they do report to congress and are responsible to tax payers. We do have a post master general in charge of it all vs. say fedex or boeing which are large corporations who are responsible to their investors first and their customers second. In the case of the post office though the customers and investors are the same people (tax payers).

Also I knew the retirement plan was pushing them down a lot but I had no idea it was that large of a burden. The system needs to be either completely redesigned or completely privatized in my opinion. (I will add when growing up in a small suburb of a small city - my post office workers were all super nice and really helpful from the guy in the mail truck to the guy behind the counter. For the last 10 or so years though my local post office has been terrible for customer service and even when I went back to the post office in my hometown last year it was terrible. It seems like they just had no pride in their work anymore.)

I don't understand this.  I've gotten passports for my kids and renewed mine and my wife's a few times and never visited a post office (for this purpose)

i think that some of the foul service everyone gets at the post office is partially brought on my us as a customer.  for years and years and years everyone has HATED going to the post office for a variety of reasons, right....and when we get there, we have to wait in line forever with a bunch of other smelly people (not sure why people in line at the post office always smell, am i the only one that thinks that?).  so when it's our turn at the counter we automatically have a pissy tone in our voice and tend to be quick and rude to the service people because we're ready to get the heck out of there. 

now put your self in the service person shoes.  wouldn't you take your time and be snippy back to the customers if that's all you got from them all day long?  i would.  i seriously doubt postal workers go in to the job every day and have meetings before their shifts to discuss how they are going to of the US population even more than yesterday.  they have probably been conditioned that way after years of people like us walking in there with our preconceived attitudes.

i make a habit of being as nice as possible to the post office people, and similar professions, and i ALWAYS get better service than others do.  you'd be surprised how you can change your experience with a service person just by saying hello and asking how they are doing before you jump into the business at hand.  you can literally watch their expressions soften when you look them in the eye and say something friendly to them.  try it...

I think part of the attitude issue might be it is next to impossible to be fired from the USPS.  The union is all powerful.  My uncle tells me stories that infuriate me. 

Not that all USPS employees are mean and nasty.  But the ones who are have no reason to try to be nice.