I had a little business online with the Post office today. I ended up with a question that couldn't be answered by the faq. So I found an email address for questions. It says,
"You can expect a response within three (3) business days."
For years now the P.O. has had to cut back on workers and finally they have cut back too far. Its time to get our senators on the telephone and demand that some of those lost jobs be replaced with new hires.
There are plenty of people willing to work and the P.O. (and many other government agencies) are now so short of low level workers that they can't get their assigned work done.
NXP promised me an answer about ARM processor clocking within 5 days. It's been about 7 so far. I have a strong feeling that, eventually, they may come up with some words that aren't the answer.
-loss-jobs/1 The U.S. Postal Service revealed Friday a larger than expected loss of $8.5 billion for its 2010 fiscal year. Earlier estimates put the figure between $6 billion and $ 7 billion.
"we don't expect to have sufficient cash to pay all of our obligations, primarily the $5.5 billion retiree health payment due at the end of the year."
Who wudda ever thunk that they wouldn't be able to make its health care payment. Someone call Obama! He should take them over. ...or give them a waiver, or sumthing.
They need to can those "if it fits, it ships" ads on TV. Who are they kidding? Unless you're shipping concrete, or lead, it's almost always cheaper to ship via UPS, especially with a corporate account.
They must think that folks will be swayed to pay extra just because it's a fixed price. Any (OK, most) idiot business folks will know enough to shop their shipping around. So I guess, the conclusion is that the US Postal Service's business plan relies upon selling overpriced services to dopes. Usually, that's a good business model, except this is the government, so it MUST run on deficit spending.
I suppose 1 Billion of that went to design this year's commerative stamps? Of course, they do have the Buzz Lightyear series coming out later this year so it's not like our tax dollars are totally wasted. (I know, I know... the USPS is supposed to be self-sufficient on its own revenues.)
Why can't the PO give out some kind of lottery ticket with every $10 a customer spends there? I just thought of this and I'm already liking the idea. Gotta ship something now!
The PO is going out of business because there's UPS, FedEx, DHL, and probably others for packages, and why write a letter, address an envelope, affix a 40-something cent stamp, and have your message get there anywhere from the next day to a week from now, when email is instant?
I suspect the crack about the leg is about Obamacare - imagine if the ER was run like the DMV!
USPS pretty much self-operated. What would the Senate do?
Service is bad so people don't use USPS. When people don't use USPS, the funds per mailbox and per postal office fall. When the funds fall, service gets worse. It's a death spiral that started years ago. There's probably no saving them as long as they're delivering postcards and envelopes.
I'd rather ask the government to improve Internet services so that USPS can be more of an on-demand service like FedEx or UPS. Upgrading to IPv6 and slapping around the greedy Telcos a bit would make peer-to-peer data transfer as easy as a phone call. It's impossible for the general population now because NAT, dynamic address allocation, and draconian Terms of Service Agreements make it all too complicated.
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I will not see posts or email from Google because I must filter them as spam
It's part of a test program to find the best country to get medical care if Obamacare becomes a reality. Mikek PS. Just added Obamacare to my spellchecker.:-(
On a sunny day (Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:32:54 -0600) it happened "amdx" wrote in :
Oh well, I bought a super filter on ebay in early december 2010. Posting via UPS, they charge me 275 USD to send it to the Netherlands (from Miami). OK, I want this, so anyways, ordered around December 12, arrived in Europe customs December 22 (well track and trace, did not know flights took 10 days, wonder how much fuel that takes to stay up in the air that long). Nothing heard until last week, then January 6 2011 I got a form from the Dutch postal service, I have to fill in: What exactly is it. What did I pay for it. Copies or receipts, email, all required. So I did some printing of web pages, put it in the FREE return envelope and mailed it last Friday. Was expecting an other month for processing time, but no, just found a note in the mailbox today (Jan 12 2010) that they were here, and I was not home, and will be back tomorrow, and I have to have an other 100 Euro in cash available for the mailman. that is probably customs. At least I hope it is my filter, and not 100 Euro for some other 20 Euro stuff I bought from ebay. Now if a return flight to Miami drops to 400 USD I know what to do, fly, and look happy and walk through customs 'nothing to declare'. Anyways with some luck I have my 70 K cooler tomorrow, will stay home for it. The posting + customs was a lot more then I payed for the thing though. And that was after I negotiated the ebay shipment cost down from 500 USD with the seller. So with a bit of luck 1 month, not bad for a small package from US to Europe. I was really pissed at one point, wanted to write to the US embassy that somebody is f*cking up their US exports.
Ok, which UPS and which postal service do you use? Maybe corporate rates at UPS are lower, but for two day shipping, Priority Mail is about 30-100% cheaper than UPS or FedEx for normal folks. I know, I do a lot of shipping via USPS!
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