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Hold the mail to save dough and energy
Sunday, August 17, 2008
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The news is so full of how much more everything costs. Under a new administration (either party) it is pretty certain that we will be set upon with new taxes. Food costs more, gasoline costs a lot more than it did a year ago — the sky is falling down on us. Wouldn’t it be nice if maybe, just maybe, the government could save some money and pass the savings on to us, the poor overburdened taxpayer?

I have an answer! It’s so much in front of us I can’t believe it. It’s like walking into a room and “seeing” the 3,000 lb. gorilla.
Have you ever walked into a United States post office on a Saturday, looking for counter service? If you have, in a vast majority of post offices, you discover that there is no counter service on Saturday. The postal service is smart enough to close on Saturday and therefore save a ton of money. So why do they deliver mail on Saturday?

It is difficult for the common man to figure out how many folks work five days a week and how many work six days a week for the post office. Those in charge seem to make it so complicated that even common mortals who work for the post office have a difficult time explaining who works and when.
One thing that seems clear is the fact that if we didn’t have Saturday delivery, some six-day-a-week people would be working five days a week and the extra folks wouldn’t be needed to fill in. If we didn’t have Saturday home delivery, the payroll savings would only be a small part of the total savings. Think of the huge savings in energy! One sixth of the total that the post office pays for energy to fuel our mail trucks would be saved. The savings would run into the millions and millions of savings of taxpayers dollars. Maybe with the savings the postal service wouldn’t have to raise the price of postal stamps so often.

Who might suffer if there were no Saturday home delivery? The one group that I can think of are the folks who might receive a Social Security check on a Saturday. Perhaps Social Security could isolate all the people whose checks are not directly deposited into checking accounts and mail those checks the first of the week.
None of us like change, but I really think that we could digest this because the savings would be huge.

Now how do we get this before the right people in Washington? This is why we elect people like Rep. Mike Thompson. Rep. Thompson would know exactly what committees to send this concept to. He could even call it “the Mike Thompson bill,” and he could take all the credit for an idea that could save big-time dollars. Who knows — they might even come up with a postal stamp with his picture on it as a way to say thank you.

Actually, the idea is so good that the folks in D.C. won’t know what to do with it.

P. S. this letter was hand-delivered, not mailed.

(Jay Jacobs lives in Napa)
5 comment(s)

napa wine guy wrote on Aug 17, 2008 10:40 AM:

" Sorry Jay spoke to a couple people from the post office last week. They will never drop sat service. Business are structured for 7 days a week and sat is considered a work day. Also it would mean laying off employees to work with a five day week. Yes the main depot is empty but on the streets we have hundreds of postal carriers. Restructing the system to go to 5 day would actually cost more and is not a long term answer. What if we discover that say Sonoma is the largest oil field int he world. Do we jump back to 6 days? "

postal wrote on Aug 17, 2008 5:59 PM:

" First of all Jay- Social Security checks are not and have not been delivered on Sat. USPS and SS take that into account when the schedule date of delivery falls on Saturdays. Most financial institutions are not open for them to process.
They will be delivered the Friday before.
Secondly- most Post Offices do in fact have morning counter service and those employees are crafted to receive the trucks, sort the mail for route carriers in addition to working the window service.
Many carriers - known as "relief" are the ones to work Sat. That is the only scheduled day they do work-a possible fill in for sick and vacations happen too. USPS pays an EMA to rural carriers, but does not provide the vehicle. gas prices went through the roof and the EMA remained the same till just last month.
If you really want to write up an article on this subject- I suggest you investigate further.
Start with why does USPS have trucks delivering mail from distribution centers on Sundays and Holidays- when there is NO scheduled employees to process, distribute or deliver? "

SCPostman wrote on Aug 17, 2008 6:15 PM:

" Jay's problem is that he does not have any idea about the Postal Service. No, I repeat NO, taxpayer money is used to finance the Postal Service. He needs to check his facts before he comments. "

Postal Clerk wrote on Aug 18, 2008 2:47 PM:

" Just to correct you--there is processing on weekends and all holidays. The only closures are the stations as well as Sunday delivery. The main plants are open 24/7 and any employees that work in the plants unless they have high senority have to work all weekend long as well as every holiday including xmas. The reason is due to the next day delivery. Naturally there is no Sunday delivery, but mail comes into the plants on Saturdays that needs to be processed because even more comes in on Sunday that needs to be processed for Monday delivery. Trust me any 2 day carryover or when there is a holiday it's very hard to process (at the proper dispatch time) all that mail in the walk sequence for the carrier versus a 1 day turn over. If they are to stop Saturday delivery sure there would be some savings but not as much as you think because come Monday they will need extra help or to pay overtime to deliver Fri/Sat/Sun's mail--let alone a Monday holiday would make it 4 days worth of mail. The heaviest mailing days are Friday's and Monday's. If they are to go to a 5 day delivery they need to cut out 1 weekday to truly save $. "

Sandra wrote on Aug 19, 2008 9:52 AM:

" I have a better suggestion...why not a ban on all junk mail? Think of all the paper that would be saved, carriers would have less to deliver. I wonder how much of our postal service is taken up by what the majority of us throw away without looking at. "

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