matraina

Wish I had that kind of job, mojo11.

grandma Janice

unless things have changed, years of service and age, must add up to 55 to retire. DH had 30 years in.

mzsooz

That may well be. She did not tell me that part. She has a boss that first retired as a CPA and then went to work at the postal service. In 3 years he will retire from there with 20 years of service. Pretty sad that people have to get double retirements to be able to make it after they retire. I don't think my DH will ever be able to retire :(

hpylady

Oh Dear, What about our quilting magazines?

MoMoSews

I disagree! I was a union factory worker for 34 years. The reason businesses close down is because of all our jobs moving overseas by greedy corporations. My DIL works for the postal service, and they have been cutting back for years!! When someone retires they just give their work to someone else. No one gets to work full time anymore and the benefits are slim!

Willa

Unions are like a coin - there's two sides. They protect people who shouldn't loose their jobs BUT they also keep people who goof off and don't work very hard. They work to get the employees a good wage BUT those good wages drive up the price of the product causing them to get wedged out of the market. After all if the company can't make a profit how can they stay in business. Unfortunately lots of thing contribute to a business closing. Look at how many blacksmiths there are now technology has greatly reduced their numbers since we so seldom use horses as a means of transportation. Hopefully they won't do away with the postal system but I'm sure there will be changes.

Novice.for.now

Our change happens this weekend. I am really going to miss next day mail. Our post office closes at 4:30 but the mail is now going to leave town at 4:15.

AZTeri

Interesting enough, my daughter (19) and her bestest friend who recently moved to California are corresponding by mail. Her friend really likes getting her letters, and one arrived just today for dd from friend. Also, dd has sent her brother post cards. Yes, they do communicate via Facebook and Skype, but don't count them out entirely when it comes to real letter writing!

starshine

I haven't read all the pages so I hope I'm not repeating too much.
The post office is managed by someone other than the federal government.
I know mail offers and catalog senders are given a greatly reduced rate. Which results in lots of mail we don't want. Some catlogs come every three weeks with nothing new in them. There may be some saying all this junk mail has kept po going but it seems to me that it just takes more of the postman's time for less revenue. If we were just getting letters and bills they might be able to deliver faster. And as stated earlier it is probably wasting a lot of trees.
We had 24 hr. service at the facility at the airport and ours too now closes at 11 p.m. I would rather they close on a mid-week day such as Wed. or Thur. as it might get harder to get to one if they aren't open on Sat. :-(

Born2Sew

I would like to address some issues (pardon the pun).
Regarding retirement, one can retire with 20 yrs of service but they must meet the minimum age requirement to do so, which under the current system is 59 1/2 yrs old.

On getting returned mail that is months old, mail cannot be returned (even if not picked up) until the box rent expires and is not renewed. So, that mail must be held as long as the rental period has been paid. This sometimes appears rediculous to the sender when it has been months sitting in an abandoned po box.

Regarding refused "junk" mail. IF there is an endorsement on the mail, then the piece or address service is sent to the sender (which the sender pays for). Any other junk mail (with no endorsement) is disposed of.

All employees hired after 1982 pay into social security (just for the record).

On the stamp sale of priority stamps, I can only guess at the reason for such. So here's my best guess depending on what level office it was. In the bigger offices, a clerk is only allowed to submit a stamp requisition weekly. Each clerk has an alloted amount they can have in their supply.
They must go through their inventory to see what they need to order. If someone else had been in earlier and purchased an unusual quanity, then it throws everything askew. Same goes for the main stock in the office. They can only order so many $$$ worth of stamps for the entire office, once a month. Used to be able to order up to a 3 month supply at a time, not so anymore. Another requirement that was passed down. Thus, everything upper management deems appropriate, seems to shoot themselves in the foot regarding customer service.

I've been retired a little over 3 yrs now so I'm unfamiliar with WTF. There are many abbreviations used on forwarded mail, but this one is new to me.

I wouldn't say the post office is private. They are their own entity, yet regulated by the government. They receive no tax dollars and are wholly dependent on postage sales for revenue.

For one, I'd sure like to see it continue for a few more years at least. My mom orders stuff from Swanson's, and has been waiting on her order for days now. In the mail today was a post card from UPS, saying her package was being held 60 miles away from us at their center, because something was wrong with the address. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the address. I called and they said we could come by and pick it up. Like I want to drive 120 miles to pick up a package that should have been delivered?
Don't think so. If we didn't have mail delivery, we wouldn't even have known....Needless to say, their call center heard a few things from me.

I do agree that most of the problems stem from upper management, and many of them don't want to lose their cushy jobs so they create work for the lower lever managers (stupid stuff) just to attempt to justify their jobs.

Thanks for the opportunity to try to set the record straight.