Postal Letter

Do you remember what the United States Post Office was like before 1969?

It's odd how certain events stick with you. Odd but understandable. Everyone who was anywhere when Kennedy was murdered, remembers clearly what they were doing. I remember when the post office was turned over to the private sector for management and the UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE was born. The USPS struck a bronze medallion to commemorate the occasion. And, right then and there, I should have seen what was coming down the road. The USPS, which runs in the red and has more than its share of disgruntled employees, has had its fingers in most every non-postal pie for the last 20 or 30 years. Whatever happened to selling postage and delivering mail? If you've been in a post office, you've seen all sorts of products, from framed football player first day cover letters to stuffed animals, from fancy packaging to small weight scales, from pre-stamped stationery to envelopes and cartons of every size and variety. And what's with all the free priority packaging and supplies?

Public Comments

1. As you point out, it's in the private sector now; they're simply trying to make money. There's a lot of competition out there, from e-mail to companies like Fedex and UPS. If it's going to remain viable, then it's going to have to continue to make money, and businesses, like any other "organisms," either change, or die.
2. It was running in the red before it became under private management and it is still running in the red despite the fact that they cut back on services. It use to be in downtown areas businesses would get mailed delivered more than one time a day. If you have a post office box you could go down in the morning and pick up your mail and go back a couple of more times and pick up mail as they had someone sorting and putting mail in boxes all day long. Now they have a specific time in the morning and once they put mail in boxes any mail that comes in later will be held to the next day.
3. Now the walls are cluttered with a combination of stamp commemorations and packaging methods. The interesting part is how it doesn't really need to make a profit to continue to exist.