Damn USPS...

[TripleDigitRide]

I don't know if it is the same commercial, but I saw one the other day that stated they run completely based on revenue derived from stamp sales. Amazing...

Based on what I dig out of my mailbox every day, I'm thinking most of their revenue comes from forcing junk mail on me.

[TGO David]

Based on what I dig out of my mailbox every day, I'm thinking most of their revenue comes from forcing junk mail on me.

It does.

[101]

Howdy all. First post here. I could not resist any longer. I have been reading this forum for a while and decided to finally join.

Ok, to start out. With all the USPS bashing posts in this forum, I can't be the only gun lovin' fanatic to work for USPS who is willing to open his mouth. There seems to be a TON of misconceptions about the USPS and its operations. Some of it is true and some of it is not. I don't even know where to start with the information, and not really going to try. Simply put, USPS does not receive one dollar of tax money and hasn't for over 30 years. All revenue comes from stamps and packages. The USPS is a company just like Walmart, FEDEX or any other companies out there. Unfortunately, we are still "controlled" by Uncle Sam. Similar to the way Uncle Sam doesn't run the airline business but it basically does with all it's stupid regulations, FAA and rules. In the '80-'90's the USPS was making money hand over fist and had a yearly surplus of money. Now we all know that profit in a company is bad. USPS tries to break even to not show a profit. Along comes Uncle Sam and they see that we are making money and decides they wanted it so they stopped all of our spending that we were doing to improve the company (vehicle replacement, computers, sorting machines, so on and so on). So they imposed the mandatory front loading of the retirement account (aka general fund) that no other company in the country has to do...just USPS, which you guessed it, is controlled by none other than Uncle Sam. So, using the power the Constitution gives congress to maintain a "post office/routes" they bossed us into doing stupid things that are now biting us in the rear. Our payroll for one month alone, just salary not including benefits, is almost 5 billion dollars.

"The Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service sets policy, procedure, and postal rates for services rendered, and has a similar role to a corporate board of directors. Of the eleven members of the Board, nine are appointed by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate (see 39 U.S.C. § 202). The nine appointed members then select the United States Postmaster General, who serves as the board's tenth member, and who oversees the day to day activities of the service as Chief Executive Officer (see 39 U.S.C. §§ 202–203). The ten-member board then nominates a Deputy Postmaster General, who acts as Chief Operating Officer, to the eleventh and last remaining open seat.

The USPS is often mistaken for a government-owned corporation (e.g., Amtrak) because it operates much like a business, but as noted above, it is legally defined as an "independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States" <------- (what in the world does that sentance mean? How can you be an independent establishment and still be controlled by the government?), (39 U.S.C. § 201) as it is controlled by Presidential appointees and the Postmaster General. As a quasi-governmental agency, it has many special privileges, including sovereign immunity, eminent domain powers, powers to negotiate postal treaties with foreign nations, and an exclusive legal right to deliver first-class and third-class mail. Indeed, in 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision that the USPS was not a government-owned corporation, and therefore could not be sued under the Sherman Antitrust Act.

That's why USPS employee's are labeled government employees, but we really aren't......or are we? It's very confusing. To make matters worse, the Office of Inspector General has taken over most of our fiscal, auditory, contracting and postal inspector operations. Let me tell you, you want something screwed up, allow the OIG to be involved. They took over our charge accounts, credit card for fuel and parts, retirement, disability, fraud, customer service...just about anything you can think of. Not to mention the worthless Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) crap we had to conform too. I'm not EVEN going to get started on how bad the 3 different unions are messing the company up also.

As far as the Postmaster in Smyrna doing what he did to this OP, that disgusts me. If anyone in here has an issue with a postmaster, supervisor or manager please post it. Not sure what I can do, but you’d be surprised what the right word in the right ear can do. Management is on edge and they are eliminationg jobs left and right at the company level so a complaint in the right place might be the one that tips the scales.

Short story. A fellow employee of mine that happens to be a supervisor of a post office in Nashville, but does not live in Nashville, tried to mail a rifle at the post office he lives near. He had the exact same argument with the clerk at the counter that this OP had. Then, he argued with the supervisor of that post office until that supervisor finally looked up the regs and realized he was wrong. Even after finding out that he was wrong, he still didn't want to ship the rifle.

What it boils down to is this...OIG has everyone scared silly for their jobs. No one knows the regulations and they are beating the "suspect everything and everyone as a bad guy" into us almost daily that they are afraid that even if they follow the regulations regarding firearms, the OIG doesn't know the regulations about firearms either and there is no explaining it to OIG because they know everything.

One more thing to think about also. There is approximately 625,000 people living in Nashville alone. Every day, a postal worker comes to their house. For the most part, the complaints are miniscule considering the scope of the job that is done. A little over 380,000 USPS employees visit 100,000,000+ households everyday (except Sunday) so you are going to hear about the bad stuff. In reality the percentage of bad is extremely low in the scale of the job that we do and the people we interact with. If Uncle Sam would just get out of our way, even with the unions still causing trouble, we could provide so much more proficient and enjoyable service for everyone.

For the record, USPS ships more packages a year than FEDEX. Plus, you would be surprised at how many of us postal workers are closet gun freaks and conservative minded, patriotic Americans. In my office alone, 75% of us have carry permits (including the ladies). Our clerk the other day just shot her first AR and is in love.

"On December 5, 2011 the USPS announced it will close more than half of its mail processing centers, eliminate 28,000 jobs and end overnight delivery of first-class mail. This will close down 252 of its 461 processing centers. On December 13, 2011 the USPS agreed to delay the closing of 252 mail processing centers as well as 3,700 local post offices until mid-May 2012." This statement is true, but mainly to scare Congress into letting us do our own thing. If the People get upset about losing their local post office, then they will contact their senators. (Hopefully).

Sorry for being all over the road in this post. I'm just tired of a few bad apples giving the majority of us USPS workers a bad rap. The problem is the size of our company. 10% of bad apples is 40,000+ workers. Those 40,000 can affect a lot of people in the community.

[Oh Shoot]

.... Medium Flat Rate box by just a hair, so I shoved two boxes together ...

Yep, they're damn obsessive 'bout them flat rate boxes. Can't use 'em for regular Priority for lesser price, can't send regular Priority packaging as flat rate, etc.

[kb4ns]

So... What can Brown do for you?

Can't say UPS is much brighter. This package here: http://wwwapps.ups.c...uester=trkinppg left out from right down the street via UPS 2nd day air (because the shipper sends all packages 2nd day air) on 04/17/2012. If you click on "shipment progress", you can see where all it went. Instead of taking it to the hub, putting it on a brown truck and dropping it off at my house the next day, they flew it to Louisville, KY where it got on a truck and headed to Nashville. From Nashville, it got on a different truck and came back to Memphis. I guess they figure that, if you pay for air, by God it's gonna get a plane ride! Next time I guess I'll ask if I can walk over and get the package...

Edited April 20, 2012 by kb4ns