Hold the mail to save dough and energy
By Jay Jacobs
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)
All comments will be screened and may take several hours to be posted.
• Keep comments clear, concise and focused on the topic in the story.
• Comments exceeding 300 words will not be posted.
• Refrain from personal attacks, degrading comments or remarks that do not add to a constructive dialogue.
• Comments implying suspects in crime-related stories are guilty before they have been proven so in a court of law will be deleted.
• Do not post e-mail addresses or links except for pages on Napavalleyregister.com or government Web sites.
• Comments will not be edited - they will be approved or declined.
• Comments may be used in the print edition of the newspaper.
• If you feel a posted comment has violated our guidelines, please contact dross@napanews.com or bkennedy@napanews.com
For further information on the comment guidelines,
click here.
napa wine guy wrote on Aug 17, 2008 10:40 AM:
postal wrote on Aug 17, 2008 5:59 PM:
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:
Postal Clerk wrote on Aug 18, 2008 2:47 PM:
Sandra wrote on Aug 19, 2008 9:52 AM: