Ever since the Canada Post strike, people are talking about if post offices are even needed anymore. I read this article just now and it got me thinking of the many or few ways the USPS can be improved.

http://beta.news.yahoo.com/canada...



- Cutting out the mail man.
 
I think this one might be a little complex to even suggest but people are out all the time. Taking the kids to school, grocery shopping, and going to work. Why not offer free P.O boxes? That could cut cost in so many ways. Not having to pay a mail man, gas expense, sorting, and other things.

- Free delivery confirmation.

Why is this not free already?

- eBay affiliation.

I think the post office needs to team up with eBay in some way or form. I think discounts on flat rate boxes would be a good idea. Preferably large flat rate boxes. Maybe have some sort of marketing campaign on tv, print, and online showing people how easy it is to use eBay. The thing that stops people from using ebay is that some people think the process of shipping is hard.

I dont think post offices dont have the storage space to keep everybodies mail. I dont think they should change the mailbox, plus how many people want to drive to the post office every day to pick up bills.

Very true. I did not think about that and other rural places. I guess I should of took that into account.

But yes, I thought this would be a good discussion on how to fix the post office system if even possible. I wasn't trying to make this a discussion of my ideas.

I also think teaming up with ebay would help monopolize ebay even further which I am not for at all.

I have no idea how to improve the postal office though.

They need to make a teleport device that sends our mail to our home instantly. So no more waiting for important checks or lost package.

Maybe a in-home printing device that sends you your mail.

Then mailmen would be out of a job. In this economy, such an implementation is not feasible.

no strikes...

The public is expected to subsidize "busy work"? Bloated shipping costs due to postal service over-employment is undoubtedly contributing to "this economy".

I understand that. This might sound sour but I just don't think that type of job warrants a 54k a year salary. If you try to cut the pay, you have what is going on in Canada.

What I meant by "Not having to pay the mail man" was simply not having to pay mail man SERVICES. I wasn't trying to imply to fire the poor mail man.

What should they get paid then?  Who wants to do Post Office work, it's not a job of glory anything.  It also requires working Saturdays, when many corporate jobs are Mon-Fri.  Also, there is no downtime.  The mail never stops.  Even if you are the best / most efficient worker in the entire world, there will always be more work for you to do.

Not necessarily directed at you, but I hate when people complain about what other people get paid.  If they are making so much money for so little work, then why don't you become a Post Office worker? 

If anything, I think reducing the work week to a normal Mon-Fri only would be the best improvement.  But that would also drastically slow down the mail system and only create more backlog.  Also, making more services free is not an option because the Post Office is already losing tons of money as it is.

They should first start by firing that NGD guy, I heard he's nothing but trouble.

Monthly fee for spam filtering. I would pay to have catalogs/advertisements/credit card offers shredded before they get to me.

I am surprised at least some of Saturday hasn't been stopped already, like just the delivery part.

There are already discounts on flat rate items, and free/discounted delivery confirmation when you print your eBay shipping labels through PayPal. Don't know how anyone lives without it!

Make it easier to fire lousy employees.

And as for complaining about what the postal worker makes.... It is not only the right but the duty of every citizen to audit government spending. Now private sector jobs are not anyone's business.

Exactly.

True private sector salaries/wages have to have a business model that adds at least that much value to support it.  Public sector is extraordinarily arbitrary.

When government organizations have the acronym "PDW" for "People Doing Work", and a relatively small number of people fall into that category, it's worth griping about.

Just fire the union and rehire non-union employees at whatever people are really willing to work for.

Since the USPS operates in every state, there are states where this would not be legal, due to state-specific labor laws.

lol, sorry I was thinking this was another canada post/strike thread

Would Canada not have the same problem?

Very true!

The PO makes terrible decisions about stuff daily!  They waste money all the time to make their #'s and %'s look better on paper, but bottomline they end up losing money to do so.  I could think of hundreds of ways to make the PO better, but they are all usually ignored.....
~~NGD

We have a similar problem but in my imagination thinking "how would I improve it", I had the power to rectify that problem.

Lets put NGD in charge. He can give us all jobs

The big problem with USPS is that they don't need to worry about going out of business because they are owned by the gov't. That being said, they don't care about their service because it really doesn't affect them in the slightest. If they had compitition, they would have to do better because people would just stop using it. If the goverment stopped being in controll of the post office, this wouldn't be a problem. Just my thoughts on the subject.

The issue with this, is that if the postal service wasn't a government service, there would be no mail service, at all, to rural areas, due to the low population density never offering a profitable business model for a privatized mail service.

Suddenly people in those areas can no longer easily file their taxes, pay their bills, or get printed news media.