by Outcast_Searcher » Mon 19 Nov 2012, 03:39:46
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '
')This has happened all over the US where States have allowed private interest to take over what was once public, nonprofit supported services. An example being State toll roads, where fees have quickly doubled with no apparent improvements or maintenance. Currently the push is on to privatize our national postal service. Which by the way already must support itself without taxpayer support.
Only a liberal who thinks everything must be subsidized for some imagined "good" would be upset that the USPS might be privatized and become more like, oh say, Fedex, UPS, or any of the other private carriers.
(By the way, the USPS is NOT supporting itself. It is in default on a huge loan from the Treasury, and at their debt limit. It looks like they will implode without some sort of congressional intervention.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/17/news/us ... index.html (and many more like this)
So far, from what I can see, the response is to have only one worker a lot, making lines of an hour or more except during the "busiest" hours. And from what I can tell, having the worst employee run the counter at those times. If they expect this to garner more business, they're even dumber than I thought).
In objective surveys on package delivery (where such outfits are allowed to compete), the USPS is FAR worse as far as on-time delivery and packages lost.
As an example - packages:
Unable to understand the bizarre randomness of my packages from the USPS, I tried asking management. What a joke. Every manager I talked to lied to me, promised to look into it and get back to me and then never called me (I have an answering machine on all the time). So much for management.
Then I befriended one of the better counter workers. When I explained I just wanted to UNDERSTAND the process and what was going on, and NOT get anyone in trouble -- she explained -- there are "sorting runs". Things get put into the wrong pile. Then they go to the wrong place (such as being returned instead of delivered).
So OK, human error happens. So good tracking should help with this. BUT:
For USPS tracked packages, there is NO WAY to ascertain where they are or what their status is while they are being delivered. For the private competitors, you can find out every time the status changes, via the web. For a really important package, you can call them and they can contact the driver.
I have had packages delivered to my PO box, and all too frequently no key in the box even though the package was supposedly delivered. Upon investigating with my delivery notice -- the key gets placed in the wrong box. (Luckily I've found out before stuff was stolen. I GOT (and paid for) a PO box since at my apartment key mail delivery was just a random number generator as far as what went to which apartment). When I investigated why this was happening I was told they did late shift "box filling runs" where everyone gets grabbed at end of shift, so people can go home. There are apparently a LOT of mistakes made when this happens.
I had so many packages come from the LOCAL Amazon warehouse to the post office less than a mile away and sit there (in some room) for 10 days, only to be returned to the shipper, or lost, or whatever, that I finally gave up and got Amazon Prime service -- just so UPS would actually deliver my packages.
So Lore, go ahead and cry over the post office. I'd strongly prefer to have some outfit like UPS or Fedex deliver ALL my mail RELIABLY and QUICKLY -- even if it costs me more. (And no, I don't think I should subsidize dirt cheap mail delivery to, say, folks who live in the Alaskan frontier), even when you and/or they claim they "need it".
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.