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This is my experience as well.

Q: How many people work at the post office?
A: About half of them.

Q: What does it mean when the flag at the post office is at half mast?
A: They're hiring.

bloke wrote:just general info:

In my experience, mailing two or three pieces of paper domestically via First Class Mail for 44 cents gets to its destination just as fast as mailing two or three pieces of paper in a Priority Mail envelope for $4.95

That's been my experience too, Joe. However... 44 cents only buys you transport for one ounce. You can mail sheets of lead (up to seventy pounds of it) if you can cram it into a $4.95 Priority Mail envelope!

If I need to move paper quickly... I scan it and email a .pdf file.

KiltieTuba wrote:People still use snail mail?

I've always enjoyed sending and receiving personal letters. Receiving a letter in the mail is much more gratifying than getting an email. Further, my representative and senators take much more notice when they receive letters than when they receive emails. These days, where everything is "now, now, NOW!", it's often nice just to sit down, write a letter to a friend, stamp it, and drop it in the mailbox. While I don't have pen pals by the "classic" definition, I do enjoy taking the time to pen (or type) a letter, stamp it (with my "forever" stamps), and drop it in the mailbox. I may or may not get a timely response, but the overall patience it takes to write and mail the letter is something I enjoy which, from my experience, is lost on the majority of today's youth.

I still use the USPS for personal letters and have not once had a piece of personal mail damaged or lost. For $0.41 (I'm still working on the many books of forever stamps that I bought years ago), it's a great deal. That's also probably one of the reasons why the USPS is going through such hard times.

Steven

My paternal grandparents saved a lot of old correspondence, from 80-90 years ago, now in the hands of another relative. They've been gone for many years, but those letters could last another century and their descendents for generations will be able to read them and know what kind of people they were.

Brucom wrote:Q: How many people work at the post office?
A: About half of them.

Q: What does it mean when the flag at the post office is at half mast?
A: They're hiring.

Well, yeah, I know it's a joke....but people not working at the post office is history. They work the hell out of them and treat them horribly. The pay is still decent but the abuse they have to go through to get it, would not be worth it in my book.
MA

bloke wrote:just general info:

In my experience, mailing two or three pieces of paper domestically via First Class Mail for 44 cents gets to its destination just as fast as mailing two or three pieces of paper in a Priority Mail envelope for $4.95

Use couriers like OSAMA-----------its much more secure and dependable.

I'm just waiting for when someone in the gubberment- preferrably a southern or midwestern freshman GOP congressman- decides it is necessary to privatize the USPS and finds that it is a constitutional requirement for the national government to run a post office.

The Big Ben wrote:I'm just waiting for when someone in the gubberment- preferrably a southern or midwestern freshman GOP congressman- decides it is necessary to privatize the USPS and finds that it is a constitutional requirement for the national government to run a post office.

Agreed!!------------Ben they could just leave one pony and rider(as token constitutional requirement) relaying free(at tax-payers expense) congressional advertizing mail between Cal and DC and contract the rest out to UPS------------------------Heck, since when did Congress or the courts respect and adhere to the constitution anyway.

I worked as a barroom band leader for 24 years and as a rural letter carrier for 21 years. I gotta tell ya, the post office job was a far better gig.
At the post office:
I never got ripped off of a paycheck.
I never had to duck hot lead like I did in a barroom gunfight.
Pay was better with health care and retirement.
My customers were usually sober.
My work mates were usually sober.
I never had to worry about the mafia burning down my place of business as well as all of my equipment.
It was nice to work without a hooked up 100 watt Fender Twin Reverb amp boresighted at the back of my head.
The post office supplied us with dog spray to deal with belligerent canines.
Bar owners did nothing to help us deal with drunks in the parking lot with tire irons.

SRanney wrote:

KiltieTuba wrote:People still use snail mail?

...[M]y representative and senators take much more notice when they receive letters than when they receive emails.

I just received a personal(ized) response via USPS from my representative regarding two comments I had on recently-introduced bills in the U.S. House.

I read somewhere (many years ago) that, when it comes to constituent contact, congress people count one letter on a given topic as the equivalent of 100 phone calls and 1000 emails. In other words, emails don't count for much when it comes to influencing your congressional representatives. (More than likely, there probably isn't much that you or I could do to influence our congress people; we just don't have those kind of financial resources.)

Steven