Paul Krguman compares his experience at the Post Office to that at FedEx and UPS:
Art Laffer (why is he, of all people, on my TV?) asks what it will be like when the government runs Medicare and Medicaid.Maybe things are different in New Jersey, but my couple of experiences at the Post Office since moving to Brooklyn a few months ago have been really awful. The first time I went, to mail out my tax forms on April 15th, I had to stand in line for the better part of 20 minutes to buy a couple of stamps. The second time, when I had to mail out some forms for a passport renewal, the clerk "serving" me decided literally without warning or apology half-way through processing my forms that it was time for her break; it took a good 15 minutes, with most of my personal documents slid conspicuously under her window, before someone came to relieve her. The third time, when I had to send some corporate documents to Albany for my consulting business, things were going smoothly enough -- until I actually had to fill out the shipping receipt, and discovered that there were literally no working pens available in the entire building. I had to go across the street and buy one.
But I’d raise a further question: he warns that when the government takes over these, um, government programs, they’ll be like the Post Office and the DMV. Why, exactly, are these public functions unquestioned bywords for “something bad”?
Maybe I’m living a sheltered life here in central New Jersey, but I don’t find the Post Office a terrible experience — no worse than Fedex or UPS. (Full disclosure: I worked as a temp mailman when in college.) And nobody likes going to the DMV, but the one on Rt. 1 I go to always seems fairly well managed.
There's probably only one customer service experience that is routinely as bad as the Post Office: FedEx Kinko's.
The last time I went to FedEx Kinko's, the black & white printer was broken, the fax machine was broken, and the "high-speed" Internet connection -- which I was being charged for by the minute -- was about as fast as a dial-up line in Ulan Bator. And then I had to stand in line for 15 minutes to pay an arm and a leg for the privilege of having my time wasted. The clerks at the Court Street Kinko's are actually quite sweet -- but the location is chronically understaffed and undermaintained on one of the busier commercial thoroughfares in the Five Boroughs. There are also the simple things that FedEx Kinko's doesn't get right: why do I have to fill out shipping forms by hand -- invariably transposing the ZIP+4 or something and having to start over again -- instead of by computer, when the clerk has to key in everything I've written down anyway? This is the
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And apparently, I'm not alone in these experiences. Yelp.com has compiled 237 ratings for a total of 67 distinct USPS locations throughout the New York City area. The average rating, on a scale of 1 to 5, is a 2.29. As Yelp raters tend to be fairly generous with most things, this is really bad. But the ratings for FedEx Kinko's are even worse: an average rating of 2.07 (n=78). The UPS Store, at least, gets somewhat more decent marks (an avergae rating of 2.70), which matches my experiences, although UPS has a somewhat hipper brand and Yelp is notorious for having a pro-hipster bias.
All kidding aside, I do think the Post Office creates some small, residual level of disdain for the idea of government-run services. The level of funding seems manifestly suboptimal and probably ought to be increased. But if every private-sector business were run as badly as FedEx Kinko's, we'd all be frickin' Communists in no time.
129 comments
Trying really, really hard to find a point/perspective to this post.
btw, I like Little Caesar's pizza, whereas Pizza Hut, not so much.
take care, blessings
btw, McDonald's in Russia serve more than 200,000 customers every day which signifies absolutely nothing! except er free enterprise ...
"The first time I went, to mail out my tax forms on April 15th, I had to stand in line for the better part of 20 minutes to buy a couple of stamps. "
Nate, that's like complaining about the long lines at Wal-Mart the day after Thanksgiving.
Some post offices - and some postal workers - are great; others are not. The same thing could be said about any other type of business or occupation.
My local US Post Office is a model of inefficiency and rotten retail. It's dreadful, and I can't state that strongly enough.
My local Fedex/Kinko's may be even worse, but I don't know: I'm not required to use Fedex/Kinko's to mail letters, as I am the US Post Office.
If Fedex/Kinko's is universally as bad as your location, I except the market will eventually (never fast enough!) eliminate them. Sadly, the market will never eliminate the US Post Office.
Sorry you don't like your post office. I think going to mine is a treat. The folks are friendly and my mail arrives on time and for a fair price. I actually think it's pretty amazing that I can mail a letter to anywhere in the country: inner city, exurb, suburb, town, village, or country road for 44 cents and it gets there.
My letter carrier brought large packages (that wouldn't fit in my mailbox) to me so I wouldn't have to wait and pick it up at the post office the next day.
Not perfect, but I can think of a whole lot of other examples of bad service and inefficiency besides the USPS. I'll start with UPS that lost my son's passport and VISA last summer. We tracked it by its tracking number to within 200 miles of our home, then it was gone forever. We were never reimbursed for the new ones or for our trouble.
Shiloh, I think the point is we can't compare government services to some absolute, but to similar private-sector services. So, regarding package delivery, we can compare the post office with FedEX and UPS and find that it is the middle of three, at least as opined by New Yorkers.
So, for example, for health care, we'll be comparing Medicare/Medicaid/future governmental health care to private services, so even if it's still rantworthy*, as long as it's an improvement, that's good.
* For example, I think no matter what happens, as long as there is an income tax that can be mailed in, a letter-delivery service will be busy on the day before the papers need to be postmarked, and service will be worse than usual. It doesn't matter who is running it.
My local Post Office is a disaster. It might as well be staffed by a troop of chimpanzees...although chimps would probably be friendlier and more professional.
Ironically, my local DMV is a model of efficiency and friendly service. Every time I've been there it's gone smooth as silk.
*shrugs*
Weird country, I guess.
The DMV gets a lot of heat, but I've had nothing but good experiences, here in Chicago. The lines move quickly and the employees are prompt and helpful. I've switched State registration for two vehicles and renewed my license twice, and it's always been a piece of cake.
It's tough to argue with anecdote. You ought to know that, Nate.
My local PO (Riverdale) is quite good. Rock Center is one of the inner spheres of Hell.
The midtown DMV is actually quite well run, I think, while Yonkers is a model of Kafka-esque absurdity.
YMMV.
Nate,
Doesn't your PO have self-service? If I'm just buying stamps (as you say you were on 4/15), I use the machine. (Usually, they have a scale, so I can know how much stampage to buy.)
wv: moeit: what you do when the grass is too long.
Anyone else wonder what a free market version of the dmv would look like?
Here in the People's Republic of Boulder, not only is my post office well run, but the Boulder Co. DMV is a joy. I look forward to the yearly
visit to witness the model of efficiency.
I guess you get what you pay for.
~ Rebecca said...
Shiloh, I think the point is we can't compare government services to some absolute, but to similar private-sector services. So, regarding package delivery, we can compare the post office with FedEX and UPS and find that it is the middle of three, at least as opined by New Yorkers.
So, for example, for health care, we'll be comparing Medicare/Medicaid/future governmental health care to private services, so even if it's still rantworthy*, as long as it's an improvement, that's good.
* For example, I think no matter what happens, as long as there is an income tax that can be mailed in, a letter-delivery service will be busy on the day before the papers need to be postmarked, and service will be worse than usual. It doesn't matter who is running it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OK, thanx for the explanation, but part of the reason this "flew over my head" lol is because what you say is just stating the obvious.
Which highlights the irony of conservative wingnuts saying they don't want the U.S. govt. running health care, when these are the same fools who say they are very, very happy w/Medicare/Medicaid ;)
btw, the post office compares to the Rep party in that they are both going the way of the dinosaur ie w/the internet, myspace, facebook and twitter etc. there will no longer be a need for the post office.
but, but, but don't know how comedians will cope w/out the Rep party! :)
ciao
I got my passport at the post office on Cadman Plaza (possibly the same one you went to?) about 3.5 years ago and didn't have any problems, but obviously YMMV. Also, what self-respecting blogger is mailing in hard copies of their tax return? E-file!
Nate writes:
"All kidding aside, I do think the Post Office creates some small, residual level of disdain for the idea of government-run services. The level of funding seems manifestly suboptimal and probably ought to be increased. "
The Post Office is self-funded by law, so maybe you mean stamps should be more expensive. Personally, I think they should just have more of those automated tellers. Like ATMs, they're more charming than the people.
PS: ditto on Fedex. I think it's a merger pains thing. The Kinko's people are trying to have the same people that do the copying run the Fedex desk and they're just clueless.
I prefer the Post Office to over-priced and underserviced FedEx any day.
Nate, it is great to have you in Brooklyn! The borough just got even better than it already was.
On the post office....its all depends on when you go. Of course, I am super lucky with my BKLYN post office:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpenney/3305556590/
(not my photo)
Tip: Use the machines! Don't wait in line.
Could it have to do with population density or factors unique to NYC or other large metropolitan areas? I see people bitch about NYC service all the time so I find it hard to relate any comment on a service in NYC to other parts of the country.
I have personally never had an issue with Post Offices or the DMV in my home state of Minnesota or other states that I have lived (such as CO). The last time I renewed my plates it took 3 minutes. I stood in line less than 5 the last time I was at the post office. And the last time I renewed my passport and had to expedite it? I don't remember even waiting.
Moral of story: want good service - move out of NYC.
.
Throughout this argument I remained frustrated that no one - not you, and not Paul Krugman - had dealt with the original fallacy in Laffer's comparison of current proposals for health reform and the Post Office.
Namely that the government has no intention of running hospitals, just of paying for their services. The customer service end of things will not change from the current arrangement, just where the money comes from.
(Also, someone should point out to Mr. Laffer that the government already runs Medicare and Medicaid.)
I've lived in the city of Pittsburgh and in its suburbs, and I've got to say, I've never had a negative experience at any of the post offices I went to. No package ever went missing, I always got prompt service, and while sometimes there were lines, the clerks were clearly getting them to move along as fast as they could. So I've never gotten this assumption that the USPS is inept. My one complaint regarding the Postal Service is that they refuse to record a second album. :::rimshot:::
Note: the Post Office is actually a privately run, Government sponsored entity. So any PO-related hellishness can be blamed on its private sector-ness.
And for Kinko's anecdotes, I've had a similar experience as Nate's except that they had no one staffing the register, so after standing in line for a couple of minutes to pay for a computer that didn't do what I needed, I decided that if they didn't want my money badly enough to staff the register, I wasn't going to pay. Only time I've "stolen" something from a store...
While doing remodeling work on my house in the late 90s, I had to order some plaster washers from a hardware store in Boston.The store always used UPS, and no one else.
The second time I ordered washers, UPS was on strike, and the expectation was that the strike would last at least another week or more likely more. The store didn't want to take the order because they 'had no way to deliver them'. I asked if they could use the Postal Service, and the comment I received was on the lines of "WHO? They deliver more than letters and magazines?"
I politely asked them to contact the Post Office to see how much it would cost to ship the plaster washers.
A day later, I called back - the order was going to be shipped by USPS as soon as I gave them the needed information (including charge card), and the rep, in a very surprised manner stated that the USPS was actually cheaper than UPS!
There was no difference in the amount of time it took for the order to be shipped from Boston to Baltimore.
Later on when I needed to order another batch of washers, the rep asked if I wanted the order shipped UPS or through the Postal Service.
Go figure.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
Here's the deal about the Post Office and the DMV.
In big cities, they suck. Suck suck SUCK.
Take Chicago. They have exactly 7 DMV offices in the entire city limits. That's 1 DMV per 400,000 people.
There isn't a single DMV you can go to in Chicago without having to wait at least an hour to see a clerk, at any time of day.
Now look at suburban/rural areas. The population of my county is 200,000 people. Using Chicago numbers, I'd have to drive to another county just to get to a DMV, since my county would have half an office.
However, guess what? My county has 4 DMV facilities, one of them 8 minutes from my house, with never a wait. That's 1 facility per 50,000 people, or 8 times what Chicago has.
Same goes for the Post Office. Hate it in Chicago, love it in my small town.
So really, that Post Office/DMV argument shouldn't even play in the sticks, because the sticks is where government services KICK ASS.
Rather, it should be more appealing to urbanites, but that's not who they are targeting with that argument. It's weird.
As Abby notes, the USPS is no longer government run or funded. So its a bad point of comparison to a robust system of government involvement and funding.
It actually is a better comparison to these co-op concepts, where the goverment would sanction them but not run them or be able to help them during the transition. That is the government would get all the blame but not be in a position to ensure success.
There are plenty of government services that are more equivalent to running a healthcare plan(other than Medicare). The Patent & Trademark Office comes to mind. Its a fee for service driven organization with a lot of rules and regulations that are byzantine to average folks but are pretty comprehensible once you've worked in the area a while. Dealing with the PTO is generally viewed by people who use it as a pain, but no worse than dealing with any number of large companies or service providers. The real complaint there, though (and perhaps a risk in a really robust public option) is that the fees the PTO charges aren't just used to finance it despite a statutory mandate to do so - it helps underwrite the rest of the Federal Government, making it constantly understaffed and overworked.
I actually live in Princeton as well, and Krugman is actually RIGHT about the DMV! It's well staffed, very organized. I went in April to replace a missing license and registration. Only took 15 minutes!b
The post office, while not wonderful - is better and cheaper at delivering packages. There are things they can learn from FedEx - but I would argue that they HAVE been learning - they've been competing - and its been good for them, and good for FedEx and UPS.
DMV, last few times I've been - has been suprisingly efficient. So long as everything goes as planned, the DMV gets everything right.
The ONLY place where strong institutionalization fails, is at surprises - personalized looks at circumstances instead of procedures. Get that mix right - let doctors be doctors, and let the institutionalization work where it does - and we'll all be better off. Let's have a solid public option and lets have a competitive insurance marketplace - we need it all.
QT
The DMV argument is getting silly.
I do all my DMV stuff online and it takes literally minutes to do anything. Last time I was in a DMV was years ago.
Lumi,
I can easily top your example.
In the county in which I grew up has about 47,000 population. The number of DMV offices in the county is 3 - one in the largest town on the east side of the county, one in the largest town on the west side of the county, and one in the county seat in the center of the county. The residents of the county can go to any of the DMVs to conduct business.
So the number of residents per DMV office is now at an 'astounding' almost 16,000 per office!
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
and, if you want to get involved in health care...
Not sure how many of you were involved during the campaign but my.barackobama.com and the tools available are now used for Organizing For America. A search of my local zip brings up dozens of events going on in the next few weeks related to health care. It looks like there's phone banks, canvassing and signature collections at local farmers markets and metro stops etc.
Just sing up at the site my.barackobama.com, go to find events on the right side, enter your zip and have fun. If its anything like during the campaign, its a great way to meet like minded people...cheers.
I live in Central Jersey also. I have never had a problem at the Post Office or at the DMV (the one time I went for my nondrivers ID). My half brother in NYC hates the post offices there and loves FedEx.
As I've said, I've had no problems with any government run or owned place. I think it's just a bandwagon thing to say they all suck and dont work.
Remember that post Sean made a while back about how people take one bad experience at the government run things and extrapolate it? I cant find it cause I dont know the tags.
Just moved to NY (Monroe County) and have found the DMV delightful on multiple visits--helpful, friendly, efficient clerks, well thought-out procedures for optimizing flow, etc. Dramatic improvement over any office I've been to in WA, OR, or IL.
I know that post office. It's on 7th Avenue in Park Slope. It's the worst post office in history. It's an exception. The post office on 9th St is better, as are all of the ones in downtown Brooklyn.
Perhaps there should be a 'correction' of sorts to this post to really clarify to everyone that, as a few others pointed out, the Post Office is NOT FUNDED OR RUN BY THE GOVERNMENT. I believe it received subsidies in the 80s, but it operates completely separately. There are political appointments, but there really is no reason to use the USPS as an example of a government program. Many are misinformed.
When I moved to Wisconsin 22 years ago, I had to of course change my driver's license and car registration. I was astonished at how efficient the DMV was. The department was open after normal working hours, allowing people who worked full time to take care of business without leaving work early, they had a "take a number" system for people who were waiting which included a seating area so no one had to stand in line, and the windows were clearly marked for which one handled what sort of transaction. Since then, my local DMV has improved upon the situation by providing an automatic scrolling display showing who's number is up next, and the seats are comfortably cushioned. It's almost a disappointment at how quickly you get in and out. Of course, most business can also be handled on-line, so there's less reason to go to the bricks-and-mortar place, but when you do, everything is the model of speed and efficiency. (I was there about two years ago, and couldn't help but notice that they also had cheery artwork on display provided by school children. It's a far cry from the gray bureaucratic hellhole that most people might imagine it to be.)
I use several different post office branches, and while they're not as fun to sit and wait at as my local DMV is, they are pretty darned efficient -- even at tax time when the lines are unduly long. They've recently expanded their hours so that once again working people don't have to take off early to take care of business. I've never had a package or a letter go astray, and some of my mail gets to its destination astonishingly quickly. I will say, however, that letters mailed to my sister in West Chester county (the one in NY) are very very slow to arrive. Clearly, it's a case of YMMV, and things depend a lot on where you live and how well your local DMV or Post Office is managed.
Wow! Really?? UPS is "hipper" than FedEx? That's a fascinating bit of marketing magic--and a little surprising.
Until FedEx showed up in the 80's, the only way anything moved was through the Post Office or those dingy, boring UPS brown vans. Sending a box via UPS was a dreadful experience, having to call ahead, figure out on the phone the amount of the fee, being home for an arranged pick up with a check, etc., etc....And forget it if you needed something to go across the country overnight, unless you were willing to pay literally for someone to board a flight carrying an envelope for you...
FedEx arrived, all exciting and cutting edge. They had that fast-talking guy in the ads. They were entertaining. The business was cutting-edge and quickly created and then dominated the world of reasonably-priced overnight shipping.
Don't know when UPS overtook FedEx again in the hippness scale. Completely missed it...
Some post offices are very efficient and well-run; others aren't. Likewise, some UPS stores are well-run, and others aren't. And some FedEx (they've officially dropped the Kinko's name) stores are well-run, and others aren't. Why is this on a politics blog?
I guess I'm just lucky; I've NEVER had anything but the BEST of service at all the post offices; FEDX, Kinkos, as well as our UPS man knows us and has been very helpful when we've been out of town, and always left a note that reads where he left the package (either with our guard service or a neighbor).
What I find is I make sure I've got everything ready when I go to any of these places; it works best if you package properly - are clear with your questions, and expect to deal with lines and difficulties like any business incurs.
I've lived in 9 states;; probably 26 different cities, and have NEVER had one problem in my 50 years of dealing with these people.
I've had the mailman leave a note about a package that he has but didn't leave it because of bad weather, and tells me he'll bring it again or I can pick it up and leaves the hours of pick-up.
The only thing I've had to deal with our faulty vending machines for stamps, that's about it!
Remember, it's a PRIVATE COMPANY that runs the post office even though it's owned by the government.
I have been selling my books via Amazon.com to lighten my eco footprint and to raise money for campaign donations. (My contribution may have helped put Al Franken over the top!) I ship sold books via the U.S. Post Office--either First Class or Media Mail. Among the 200+ books shipped, there was only one major delay that a customer complained of--a three-week delay. (Another customer e-mailed regarding not receiving the book, but I think that had more to do with the destination being a public school address.)
Here in California, DMV service has been cut back even before this latest budget crisis. Online service is the way to go, though automatic driver's license renewal can't be twice consecutively. For vehicle registration, the auto club (for members) is sort of a second DMV.
When I went to college, Kinko's was a copying service that primarily serviced nearby campuses.
The only time I use Fedex now, if I have to get a package delivered after 4:30.
Yes the post office can be annoyance with a long line near closing time and there are fewer, not more, clerks to serve you. I think Nate was trying to tie this to the health care debate, and the quality of government service. This is a big and real fear that goes beyond the astroturf mobs.
Nate - You've got an award-winning website that makes you some comfortable bucks, you're writing a book with a big advance, you're a television personality.
So all I have to say is - get an office. You're not in college any more, running your hobby-business out of Mommy and Daddy's basement or garage. You shouldn't need to use someone else's postage meter, Internet connection (what happened to WiFi and 3 or 4G?), pens or anything else.
Time to grow up.
Also, why do you send in your income tax return on April 15? Are you a lemming? On April 10 apply for an extension and then send it in on April 16. Is that too hard for you?
You are as pathetic and disorganized as the companies you rip here. And you're a lot more profitable.
At one post office near me (in Berkeley, Calif.), I have never had to wait more than three minutes. At another one in a more densely populated part of the city with more offices, I've never waited less than 15 minutes. Both USPS, but completely different experiences.
At the closest DMV, in Oakland, I waited 20 minutes to start the process to get a California license. Then I went to Walnut Creek DMV to register my car and hadn't even finished the forms when I was called. Both California DMV, but again completely different. Go figure.
Lived in Brooklyn, and I now live in rural Jersey. (There is such a thing!)
In Brooklyn, I loved Fedex, hated UPS, hated the Post Office on 7th Ave, wasn't too much in favor of the one on 9th St and avoided the DMV offices as best I could. In southern NJ, I love UPS and the USPS and hate Fedex. While I still get a rash at the thought of government bureaucracy, I have a decent relationship with the people at the local DMV (they know me because of a problem registering one of my motorcycles) and even the local government officials seem human. Something I'd never accuse government officials in NYC of.
Still, I miss Brooklyn. Even if it is the only city I've ever been to where I have to use off-road driving techniques. And yes, it is perplexing why those forms have to be filled in by hand.
On the other hand, both UPS and Fedex think the customer is the shipper. They forget they have two customers, and the one that out-ranks the other? The person getting the package.
Carolyn Ann
PS I do miss Brooklyn, but it is so much nicer listening to the fauna than squealing bus brakes. Just my opinion, and my night's sleep. :-)
I'm in a suburban MD town, and I find the Post Office service to be adequate, though not great, and the local Kinko's (or "Fedex Office" as I think they call it now) has decent service but high prices. I really haven't experienced the supposedly bad Post Office and DMV service that people complain about. The worst offender in customer service in my area is probably Comcast.
I think this is something that varies greatly between local areas. I also suspect that bad customer service is most often the result of not having enough employees, and these days that seems to be the case everywhere, in both public and private establishments.
Forty-four cents. Forty-four cents! That's what it costs to mail a letter ANYWHERE within the U.S. Postal Service (including Puerto Rico). Take forty-four cents to UPS or FedEx, or anyplace (even the corner store) and see what it will get you. Forty-four-Effin' Cents!
I LOVE the post office! For sending letters, media mail (books, cds, dvds), flat rate shipping, parcel post and even often priority mail you cannot beat the price. And delivery is never a problem with a 75 cent little green delivery confirmation sticker! Best of all they have those machines in front so you can buy stamps and send most mail (minus media mail) without standing in line, or just standing in a short line for the machine, but that's rare. I love it!
As for the DMV, when I lived in Montgomery County, MD over a decade ago,it was horrible but now that I live in Johnson County, KS it's great! VERY FAST service and you get to sit in chairs while you wait, which is rare for most businesses.
DMVs are state agencies. Why do people always use this highly variable state-run entity as a warning when discussing some sort of possible federally run operation? Why is that? Presumably everybody here scored above average on their SATs.
The closest equivalent to a public option federally sponsored/run health insurance program are existing federally sponsored/run health insurance programs.
Beyond that, why not compare it to other federally sponsored/run insurance programs, such as FDIC?
But stop with the DMV comparisons.
The two agencies most people have contact with are the Post Office and the DMV. Like it or not, Terry, those are the two entities people think of when they think about government intervention in anything!
It's not necessarily accurate, but it is what people experience. Medicare isn't often thought of as a government program. Even if it is. So even those who rely on Medicare think of the DMV and the Post Office when they think of "government".
Like I said, it's not accurate. It doesn't have to be. It simply has to be stated.
Carolyn Ann
Kinko's/FedEx gets bad marks for being inconsistent. The problem is that some of the employees can't read, which is a problem in the printing business (I confess I haven't used them for mail, completely trusting the post office for that).
My business does use UPS. Yes, it is hipper in origin (I'd love to have been a bird on labor secretary Alexis Hermann's shoulder when she weighed in to help solve their strike back in the 90's), but their stress on efficiency and speed has been twisted by the profit motive in the Chicago area. Again, this may be because of low standards for hiring employees, but it is as likely that the extra fees they charge if they DON'T deliver a package, bouncing packages back to our warehouse, or cycling them through multiple times, leads them not to emphasize problem-solving on their employees part, but failure.
This is a GREAT analogy, which I'll use in my health care organizing with small businesses. People at the Post Office can be surly sometimes, and the dirty deals they collaborated on with the state department during the Bush Administration sucked (you could have your application for a passport delivered more quickly by courier for an extra $150), but they can actually read.
Nate,
Your lousy experience at the Post Office in Brooklyn has a lot more to do with the fact that it's in a big city. I've lived in small towns all my life, and have had nothing but great experiences with the PO. No issues whatsoever.
I love the post office. Post offices in north Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa all seem to run well, be really helpful informative, intelligent and get my mail sent quick.
If I have a choice I ALWAYS pick USPS.
Fucking love those guys. USPS rocks.
I have yet to hear a sensible reason why a government bureaucracy has to be any less or more efficient than a privately owned bureaucracy. I think its something the GOP trots out whenever this kind of debate comes up, but take the healthcare debate as an example of what I mean. Are the insurance companies that currently exists helpful and reliable? My guess is that the GOP are making a decent gamble that not that many people have to deal with their health insurance company all that often, and so don't have that many bad experiences, or at least those that have very bad experiences are few and far enough between as to not endanger the rhetoric.
The bottom line is that a healthcare bill needs to be brought together and sold reasonably quickly. I think one reason the GOP has been so quick to jump on this issue is that they know that the Democratic Party hasn't sorted out their bill completely yet, and so they are wading in trying to create a public atmosphere that makes a strong bill less likely. I still think the Democratic Party will keep their nerve and pass a worthwhile bill.
My Texas post offices were great - friendly. efficient, with short lines. My Manhattan and Brooklyn post offices have been nightmares. When you go, you just have to factor in an extra 45 mins. to an hour. And yes, sometimes there are machines, but many of them are broken. I think urban spaces must be more difficult to serve. And now the news that 14 of NYC's post offices are closing... good God.
Interestingly, the really bad DMV seems to be a NYS phenomenon. When I lived in Maryland for a couple years, the MVA was a treat to go to.
They had ATM like kiosks all over the state where you could do routine business which does not require a person to help you.
They had branches in the local malls where you could go to[admittedly, limited hours] meaning that they worked WITH public transportation.
They had late hours a couple days a week AND limited Saturday hours so people who actually had to work for a living could go.
Interesting tidbit, the woman responsible for revitalizing and getting this all setup was promptly replaced by a car salesman by the new Republican governor who pledged not to engage in politics as usual. He lasted one term.
Quinnipiac: 57% say health care reform should be dropped if it adds "significantly" to the deficit.
Quinnipiac: 52% disapprove of Obama's handling of health care. Disapproval was 42% a month ago. 60% of independents disapprove.
Gulp.
What I would really like to see is a focus group on healthcare reform at the moment, rather than these bland numbers. I think that in the end people's concerns are not being met in the healthcare debate, and that is the level of dissaproval. These polls give no indication of areas of dissaproval or what could be done to raise approval.
I am getting more and more convinced that 1 people don't fully understand the healthcare debate at the moment, (partly becuase the Democrats haven't refined there message yet!) and 2 support for a public option is higher than people would imagine.
Where have government services contracted out to private sector businesses gotten us? Blackwater, and First Student busing come to mind. Both examples of cheap initial bids that in the end cost government way more money with horrible results! You may think government is inefficient, but only until you have to deal with a government contractor.
In NYC, the trick is to go to the right post office. The post office closest to my home in South Williamsburg is all around terrible - they loose packages and constantly have a TV with bad reception playing soap operas. On the flip side, the post office near Grand Central is amazing.
The same goes for DMVs. Have you ever been to the License X-Press in midtown? It's unbelievably efficient. It took me about 15 minutes to finish the process to get my license.
"My local Fedex/Kinko's may be even worse, but I don't know: I'm not required to use Fedex/Kinko's to mail letters, as I am the US Post Office."
a little late response, but it bears pointing out this is why I find Republicans arguments about health care OPTION so apphalling. You are not required to mail letters from the USPS, you're lying. You could certainly mail a letter through UPS or Fed Ex, I have done it many times. Now it is ineffective cost wise for you to do so, but claiming someone is forcing you to do something because the other places are too expensive is just flat out silly. Sorry, I can send a document aross the country and it gets there in 3-4 days for 44 cents...But Nate, you don't hit the point that seems to be what they are making, which is not that the service is bad, but that it is constantly running a deficit. Of course, this is their same eventual argument for every government program, like Social security and Medicare...Of course, both those have run surpluses every year and still do, but the government steals from them to fund other projects when Reaganomics has them robbing Peter to pay CEo
i'm working! but i'm not working for you! slack motherfucker!
-Superchunk "Slack M**********r"
Let's see: I write letter, put it in my mailbox, and the Post Office sends an employee TO MY HOUSE to pick up my letter. It sends it across the country to New York in about 3 days, delivering it to the house of my friend. The cost?
42 cents.
I wish all programs ran as smoothly and cost effectively.
It's a little bit bizarre to me that Mr. Statistics is offering his own anecdotal stories to counter someone else's anecdotal stories.
I guess, according to you, then, Nate, the Republicans must be right, government-run health care will be bad.
Yeah it only runs about what, a 5 billion deficit a year?
Quite the model of efficiency there.
Shiloh, it's kind of like a parable. Everybody who's against a public option for health care uses the argument that anything the government does is bad and everything the private sector does is good. The Post Office is cited as example of something bad and private carriers like FedEx and UPS are cited as good. But if we have a public option for health care, the argument goes, then everybody will jump to the government plan, the private insurers will go out of business, and all we'll be left with is a bad government program. This parable shows that this argument is meaningless, because we have competing government and private plans with mail deliveries that have comparable good points and bad points. I live in Kansas and use all three at different times and my experience overall has been good. So I have no fear of (and am strongly in favor of) a competing government health care plan.
Not to mention, competing with a government subsidized monopoly certainly hurts the competitions ability to compete on a level playing field.
As with most things bureaucratic (it's the bureaucracy, not the government), some post offices are well run, others not. I would say, however, that I've had favorable experiences at most post offices I've visited. I don' know that this is a winning point for the GOP inasmuch as my experience seems inversely correlated with the size of the post office—small ones (in outlying areas) have always given great service (except that their hours are not always the best). It's the offices in urban areas where you don't find many GOP voters that the service seems to suck the most.
Yeah it only runs about what, a 5 billion deficit a year?
Quite the model of efficiency there.
Of course is does, it has to service all those rural areas with low volumes. More welfare for places that tend to lean Republican in nature, not surprising at all.
What can you buy for a buck nowadays? Well, you can mail two letters to anywhere in the country and have change left over. I’d call that dirt cheap.
The PO, in terms of surliness/helpfulness of employees, is no different from any other concern. There are Ernestines everywhere.
"What can you buy for a buck nowadays? Well, you can mail two letters to anywhere in the country and have change left over. I’d call that dirt cheap."
Its not dirt cheap when you factor in the $5 billion annual deficit the USPS runs. You still pay for that you know, or at least we are borrowing for it and your children will pay.
Clearly the Post Office must be scrapped then.
"Clearly the Post Office must be scrapped then."
Perhaps it should, but my larger point is that it should not be held up as the model of efficiency to make the argument for a health care "reform" when it merely offers a tax payer supplied subsidy to compete with private organizations and a 5 billion deficit to go along with it.
The farce that the post office is "cheap" is exactly why you should receive a "reciept" when you pay your taxes, with a break down of how much everything costs.
In addition to the 44 cent stamp, tax payers subsidize the USPS deficit at a cost of about $1600 per year. Wow, so cheap!
Well, by your logic, GM, Ford, Chrysler, and all the banks that just got bailed out should be scrapped too. All the airlines have been in bankruptcy over the past decade or so—junk them too?
The annual budget of the USPS is between $80 and $90 billion, near as I can figure out. To run a 6% deficit in this current year, when practically everybody is running one, is sort of par for the course, wouldn’t you say?
USPS runs a deficit because it tries to balance the prices it charges with the mandated level of service it provides to every US citizen throughout the country, from every small town in central Wyoming to the busiest neighborhoods of New York City. Whether people in distant locations or in crowded cities (both of whom, in their own way, increase the costs of business) are Republican or Democrat or other is IRRELEVANT. We as a country have agreed on the value of a service, and we get generally excellent service for a price lower than almost every other Western industrialized nation. I assure you, if the UPS and FedEx and other private shippers were REQUIRED to handle all items people wished to ship (including letters, political announcements, store circulars, packages, etc.) to all the locations in the US [like the Postal Service is], you'd see costs shoot up so fast you'd think you were watching... the health care debate.
..."tax payers subsidize the USPS deficit at a cost of about $1600 per year." Brandon, where did you get your figure? If the USPS deficit is $5 billion, and there are 300 million Americans, we only pay $16+ each for the deficit. If there are only 100 million tax-paying households, the cost only rises to $50 each.
Brandon…
Where do you get your figures? If the USPS deficit is $5 billion that works out to about $16 a person, not $1,600.
By contrast, let’s look at the war in Iraq, which has cost about $1 trillion. That’s well over $3,300 per person. If we examine the total deficit Bush ran up ($4 trillion) that’s over $13,000 per person.
Gee, I’d take the bill for $16 over the one for $13,000. Oh wait—we’re all stuck with Bush’s emptying of the Treasury.
"Brandon, where did you get your figure? If the USPS deficit is $5 billion, and there are 300 million Americans, we only pay $16+ each for the deficit. If there are only 100 million tax-paying households, the cost only rises to $50 each."
You are absolutely correct, I read 5 billion and was thinking 500 billion.
Its still the same problem on a smaller scale.
"Gee, I’d take the bill for $16 over the one for $13,000. Oh wait—we’re all stuck with Bush’s emptying of the Treasury."
Agreed and likewise we are stuck with Obama's taking the deficit spending to a whole new level.
Brandon…
With the critical exception that the deficit spending now is being used the same way it was used in the 1930s, to revive an economy that was just barely pulled back from the brink of ruin. During the Bush years the deficit was created by rolling back taxes on the rich, and how did Bush deal with the subsequent enormous shortfall? He sent Dick Cheney out to tell everybody “Ronald Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.”
In short, I would wager that President Obama is foreseeing a time when deficit spending can be reined in, and has made plans to do just that, whereas for George Bush, he couldn’t have cared less what the Treasury looked like after he was through with it.
Agreed and likewise we are stuck with Obama's taking the deficit spending to a whole new level.
Fun fact - Obama's deficit as a percentage of our current debt is exactly what Reagan's deficit was his first budget year.
Similarly, the projected increase in debt as a percentage of GDP over Obama's two terms is far less than Reagan's was.
Strange, isn't it, how it's only bad when Democrats run deficits?
No, deficit spending is being used to permanently increase the size of the government. See healthcare.
And the bush tax cuts for everyone, did not increase the deficit. See this CBO report on government revenues after the cuts:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/81xx/doc8116/05-18-TaxRevenues.pdf
The deficits were caused by the 2 wars, the construction of the department of homeland security, increase in entitlement spending, prescription drug bill and a failure of bush to reduce spending.
"Strange, isn't it, how it's only bad when Democrats run deficits?"
I'm a deficit hawk, but I do apologize for not being more vocal about Reagan's deficits when I was 6 years old.
Whyever would you want a private company to be in charge of your health care? Why do we expect it to be any different than your experience at other private entities, like bail bondsmen or funeral parlors?
No, deficit spending is being used to permanently increase the size of the government. See healthcare.
And the bush tax cuts for everyone, did not increase the deficit. See this CBO report on government revenues after the cuts:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/81xx/doc8116/05-18-TaxRevenues.pdf
The deficits were caused by the 2 wars, the construction of the department of homeland security, increase in entitlement spending, prescription drug bill and a failure of bush to reduce spending.
Oh, good lord, JR., please just pipe down and learn something, I beg of you. First off, those bush tax cuts are still in effect, so they are a part of Obama's deficit as well, if you want to be really honest. Plus, another part is the additional tax cut Obama signed for most working Americans this year. Oh yeah, the 2 Bush wars, um, those are actually part of Obama's deficit as well, especially since he isn't off budgeting them as Bush did, so there's another epic fail. Another contributing factor to the projected Obama deficit, falling tax revenue...why is tax revenue falling you might ask, because your party had 6 years of ABSOLUTE power and bankrupted the country, which is an impressive feat, i must say, in such a short period of time.
"And the bush tax cuts for everyone, did not increase the deficit. See this CBO report on government revenues after the cuts:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/81xx/doc8116/05-18-TaxRevenues.pdf
The deficits were caused by the 2 wars, the construction of the department of homeland security, increase in entitlement spending, prescription drug bill and a failure of bush to reduce spending."
"I am not broke because my salary was reduced. I am broke because I bought that boat."
I believe Consumers Reports recently did a comparative study on FedEx, UPS and USPS shipping different sized packages from/to different point in the country. USPS finished first, UPS a close second and FedEx a distant third. When I lived in Japan, the Japanese took great pride in their post office, which typically delivered a letter in 1 - 2 days! However, the distances involved in Japan are MUCH smaller than here AND they charged 90 cents! My experiences with government run entities has been much better than, say, the telephone company, cable TV, satellite TV, credit cards and, yes, health insurance companies.
"I am not broke because my salary was reduced. I am broke because I bought that boat."
As you can see from the CBO report above the tax cuts did not result in lower tax revenues. They increased tax revenues by stimulating economic activity, much like increasing taxes would have the reverse affect. So yes, buying the boat is what caused you to be broke.
Hilarious.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/slideshow/ALeqM5ibGXhJv-N7Qg6nh-nQpPOgJRTgugD99ROBK80?index=0
Brandon…
Your logic reminds me of the old Joan Rivers joke—“How can I be broke? I still have checks in my checkbook.”
Being a deficit hawk is fine. I’m one myself, but a rigid hawk is one that gets shot at and killed.
wow, tax revenues drop during a recession? What a brilliant observation. Doesn't change the fact that AFTER the tax cuts, and before the recession, tax revenues went UP.
Raising taxes, would not encourage the economic growth needed to get the tax revenues back up. Sure we'd collect a larger portion of the failing economies GDP, but we'd be ultimately worse off then if we allow the economy to grow.
Nate I used to think you were super smart but you're complaining because you had to wait at the Post Office on April 15th!!!! Probably the single busiest day for the USPS. Even I know to stay away from the Post Office on Tax Day!
Maybe it's a NY thing but my experiences with the USPS has been fair. But God knows one could not wish the tellers worked at any slower speed.
I know I used to hate going to my old state of Virginia's DMV because of the impossible huge lines. But during the 90s the head of the DMV, Rick Holcomb [BTW a great guy too], instituted a system which divided the wait into catagories of service. It really cut down on the wait time. And only half the staff were the Bouvier twins!
But Nate if your looking for a Government run service that no one can complain about, why don't we look at our armed services along with police and fire departments. Yes, they have waste and fraud but so does every corporation in the world. Plus last I looked we haven't been invaded in almost 200 years and have only suffered 2 foreign attacks on our soil. So one of those nasty government run services must be doing something right - and it's one the Repubs can't diss.
Shouldn't we be comparing government run health care to, not just the post office but, the whole postal service.
All in all, it's pretty amazing that I can drop all my bills in a little blue box on the side of the road every month and they get where they're going almost 100% of the time.
Nate:
If you want to see how awful government health care will be, look at a government health care program: Medicare.
Compared to private health insurers, Medicare gets great reviews with most recipients giving it favorable ratings.
Think of a government run insurance program as simply medicare lowering the age of enrollment down to 1 years old.
DMV offices in most places seem to vary depending on type of business. They're reasonably efficient for routine matters such as license and registration renewals, markedly less efficient for more complicated things such as handling the paperwork for a private sale of a used car, and absolute clusterf***s for suspended-license restorations.
Peter
My Post Office, DMV: Great.
Down here in Texas, no problem whatsoever. Typical waiting time is 5 minutes; about 1 in five times, zero minutes. We have a stamp vending machine that works with coins and bills; we have a scale that computes postage in the lobby. Trips to the DMV? Infrequent, but lines are less than an hour long, I see students at my university waiting longer than that for financial aid application help.
It depends on where you are, I suppose, but in my town I think "It would be run like the post office or DMV" would produce the response, "Oh, alright. Let's do it."
I should also point out that the VA, 100% government run health care AND insurance, beats private insurers and hospitals on all 284 measures of quality and service used by Joint Commission (the hospital certifying body) and in patient surveys. That includes stats on medical outcomes, cures, infections, repeated visits, errors, etc.
The problem with free marketers is they cannot get their head around the idea that people can be motivated to work efficiently for any reason other than personal gain. It is so alien to their greedy little minds they cannot comprehend how a non-profit enterprise can ever work; they just assume some greedy bastards like them are in there defrauding the taxpayer and goofing off.
Sorry Nate but anyone waiting until April 15th to go to the Post Office to buy stamps loses the right to complain about having to wait in line at the Post Office!
***
I know in California during the 80's the DMV was a nightmare. But the state actually put a lot of effort into modernizing and making it more efficient. Now in CA you can do a lot of routine business with the DMV online and for the time when you do need to go down there you can make an appointment online and then get in and get out with a minimum of waiting or hassle. The government can run things well when it tries, but the problem seems that too often no one in government bothers to try.
Rillion…
Yep, the CA DMV was almost worse than getting in a car accident.
Interminable waits, no information, so if you got in the wrong line and waited and waited and then found out it was wrong line, tough toenails, you had to go get in the right line and start waiting again. There was no pity at the DMV.
But now it is a breeze. I’ve never taken more than 15 minutes there to do anything. And they do it with fewer employees too.
"The level of funding seems manifestly suboptimal and probably ought to be increased."
Isn't this 0? Maybe I have this confused, but I thought the USPS was a self-funding corporation. The only thing it gets from the government is the monopoly on 1st class mail. I do not believe it recieves any tax payer money.
I have never had a bad experience at the post office, and only only one moderately bad one at the California DMV.
I avoid going into the post office on April 15th just as I avoid going to the supermarket the day before thanksgiving, avoid going to the mall the day after thanksgiving, and avoid going to mexican restaurants on Cinco de Mayo. The April 15th anecdote demonstrates that if you value your time you should avoid businesses and government offices on their busiest days of the year.
On the other hand every time somebody sends something to my home UPS it is bad.
Sometimes they decide to leave the package on the doorstep in clear view of the street. If they don't do that it ends up at their warehouse which is always out in the port area and is open 9-6 m-f with long lines from 9-10 and 5-6 and their employees seem just as leisurely as those at the post office. The post office daily hours are similar, but it is open on Saturday, doesn't have the huge lines, and my package is at the nearest of dozens in the city rather than the one location for the entire city.
My experience with fedex is pleasant, but perhaps only because I can mooch the services of the receptionist off of my employer.
@Jeff:
For me, FedEx is AWFUL. I am not home to sign for packages and they won't leave them, I cannot receive them at work, so they leave me a note and I have to drive 35 minutes to the boondocks industrial/airport area to get my package; and once it wasn't there: They put it back on the truck to try again, so I had to come back a second day, costing me TWO 80 minute round trips. Whereas my post office is about five minutes from my house. (My front door isn't visible from the street, so UPS isn't too bad, although they will leave packages exposed to the weather.)
All told, just mail it to me.
My rule of thumb:
UPS for work shipments.
Post office for home shipments.
Never fails, works great.
Priority mail flat rate is a fantastic deal for someone with relatives ~2000+ miles away.
The USPS' failing is really in business delivery, where they bring all the packages to the mail rooms, which are generally fucked. UPS and FedEx bring it to the door, which is really nice.
Brandon -- nice try. Revenues did indeed increase after the Bush tax cuts, but that's because of inflation. If you adjust for inflation, they increase about 1% from 2001 to 2006 (the last time I looked) and they surely aren't increasing now, are they? And those numbers compared a bad year with a good one. Bascially, under Bush's eight years revenues did NOT rise relative to inflation and have almost certainly (the 2008 numbers aren't all in yet) fallen.
Basically, the expenses of doing everything increased with inflation under Bush but the income only barely kept pace, whereas if tax rates had been held where they were under Clinton the deficit would have been far less. Your unwarranted assumption that people would have refused to invest money under such high tax rates (a whole FIVE PERCENT higher) but is nonsense, since serious investors don't pay income taxes on the bulk of their profits -- they pay capital gains taxes, which are lower. Bush lowered those, too, but the recovery from the dot.com crash was already well underway before he did that. The REAL reason there was a recovery was the setting by the Fed of interest rates at virtually zero, thereby providing the cheapest cost of capital in my lifetime. Taxes had squat to do with it.
I'll grant you that costs increased because of homeland security; I will NOT grant that they increased because of two wars because those wars were kept off budget (until Obama) and thus did not affect the pro forma deficit. (They do now, because Obama is being honest about the deficit, whereas Bush was not.) The drug benefit, yes, did increase costs as well. So did an increase in defense spending that was NOT related to the two wars (at least directly) and there were other increases as well. Of course as a conservative you have to bitch about entitlement spending increases but, with the exception of the drug benefit (which was new), entitlements only went up with inflation. SO DID REVENUES. Funny how you overlooked that.
Nor is any of this new. Reagan's cut taxes in 1981 by FAR more than Bush did, and the recession that was in progress then never blinked until Paul Volcker began cutting interest rates in late 1982. The cost of money is FAR more important to major businesses than the income tax rate and always has been.
I've generally had good experiences with the post office. Lines aren't terribly long, even when they're crowded, they get my packages to me quickly and cheaply, and they can deliver TO MY MAILBOX when Fedex and UPS can't and there's no where to leave the package at my apartment.
Fedex customer service is horrendous and their retail locations suck. Maybe their phone support is fine, but I've never had to call them. UPS's phone support is great, but their locations are ridiculously far away (and I live in a major US city!) but the last time I had to go down to one the woman was incredibly rude about how my signature looks. What the FUCK is that?
Plus, only the USPS delivers on Saturday, the only day I'd actually be home before 5 to sign for my packages.
If we're basing out economic model on home delivery then paint me red and hand me a sickle, because I'm already a damn communist!
Others have made the point about people passing judgment on the USPS based upon April 15 quite well. I'd like to add that the alternative to the USPS would be that mail go via private carriers, and guess what that would mean -- RATIONING. After all, you can't expect a private carrier to have branch offices in every town in the country, no matter how remote, can you? No, private carriers would quickly establish different prices based upon frequency of usage, which would hurt rural areas at the expense of cities.
I'm not saying that means that private businesses are bad people. They're in business to make money. THE USPS IS NOT. It exists to provide cheap mail service for EVERY NOOK AND CRANNY OF THE COUNTRY, and it does that.
Privatizaion would also mean rigid standardization. You have to fill out a specific form for FedEx or UPS but you can scrawl your mother's address on an envelope and put the stamp on the wrong side and drop it in the blue boxes that are every couple of blocks in the city (and in front of the convenience store here in my rural town) and it will get there 99.9% of the time.
Does this mean that the USPS is less efficient than private services? Hell yes. In the back offices of any major mail sorting center are employees who sit all day reading envelopes with zip codes that are missing or illegible and correcting them. UPS won't even accept such mail. But it's interesting to note that even with these inefficiencies, the price of a stamp is a hell of a lot less than what UPS charges.
As for the demeanor of USPS employees, I've experienced some of the horror stories Nate tells (on days other than April 15), but I've also found USPS clerks and delivery people who are princes among men and women -- eager to help. Some of that is the difference between rural and urban life, I suspect, and some of it is just that there are nice people and nasty people.
What Nate seems to be asking the USPS to be is FedEx, and the USPS isn't SUPPOSED to be FedEx. If it "absolutely, positively has to be there in the morning," you pay a lot extra and you get Cadillac service. But for the mail that makes the country run -- bills, bill payments, notices, advertising, all the things that make our economy possible -- the USPS works, and works cheaply.
Disclaimer: I have never worked for the USPS (or any other government entity, for that matter) but I have worked in the private sector with companies that do extensive business with it.
I have several fesex and or kinkos horror stories, and not one USPS or UPS.
When my daughter was 9, she was playing outside, the fed ex guy had a dell computer(gross) for a neighbor but they weren't home. He told her to sign her name for it, she did and he left the box on their front porch(he made a note of it in the file, but later tried to save his job by saying my daughter took possession of it-like that would be any better). They were gone for three days, my daughter didn't mention it to me, so the box stayed there and was predictably stolen. Apparently the neighbors left a message at fed ex to hold it until they got back. The investigator who stopped by my house asking for my daughter caught a kick out of meeting her!
I had to return a monitor and for some reason HP uses fed ex. So I printed out their shipping label, with the correct to and return addresses. Brought it in to kinkos, they scanned it gave me a receipt. On the way out I noticed that the shipping address magically became my address, which was 8 blocks from the store. Took 30 minutes to explain to them that I do not work for HP and I didn't bring the box here to be shipped from California(which is 2 states away). I remember learning about mailing addresses and return addresses in grade school, don't they at least hire grade school graduates?
I ordered a cell phone a few months ago from Amazon, it was defective so they shipped out a replacement with free next day shipping. Unfortunately, they used fed ex. The next evening since it didn't arrive, I checked where it is at. It is in Tennessee the state it was shipped in and had left and arrived from the same facility 4 times that day. Three days later it was still in Tennessee. So I called fed ex. They asked for my name and tracking number and then wanted to know what was in the box, when they found out it was a cell phone, they wanted to know what the serial number was. I told them I didn't know because I hadn't got it yet. They said they couldn't find it without the serial number. I asked them if they were going to open every box in the warehouse instead of just looking for the box that matches my name and tracking number. Apparently that confused the retarded lady because she started saying um a lot, and then asked what was in the box yet again.
So she eventually said if I don't get it in a week to call again and they will start a trace. I am not sure what they are tracing since it was only ever listed as being in one place. I called Amazon, 10 minutes later they sent out another replacement with next day service, but used UPS. Yes, I got it before 10 AM, from Tennessee to the west coast. I talked to Amazon around 4 in the afternoon. So UPS did it in about 18 hours. The lady working for Amazon didn't sound shocked that fed ex was caught rogering the dog.
Last little story. I had a 6 page .doc file and needed a better copy then my crappy printer can do, so I went to Kinkos, because it is closest, to get a laser copy, nothing special the file was on my USB drive and needed 6 pages, standard white, black ink. They wanted to charge me $4.50. I laughed and went to office depot: bill came to $0.90.
Anecdotes? Yup, but these are the only times I ever had any contact with Kinkos/Fed Ex. These incidents are years apart.
I use UPS 80% of the time and USPS the rest, never had any issues with either.
/rant off
Something left out of your discussion: the Post Office is quite profitable. The service that you complain about results in much higher efficiency, and even though the Post Office MUST have an outlet in every town and hamlet in America... It shows a very nice operating profit (which gets flushed into the general fund).
Slow day at 538.
Actually I don't mind it when Nate drops something light in our laps just to remind us he's human. The rest of us regularly get baited by trolls so I'm glad Nate has some buttons that can be pushed.
But to wade in the water of this topic: I think it says much more about Brooklyn than it does the postal service, though I hear their about to lose their shirts Just how does the Postal Service lose $7 billion dollars in one quarter anyway? Did everybody stop mailing stuff after the great contraction?
And I think Jon Stewart put it best the other night (paraphrasing), 'the Post Office takes the useless drivel you've written in New York and drops it off in the middle of Wyoming all for 42 cents'.
In that regard, I think the analogy to govt' health care is specious at best.
Nick,
Maybe the problem isn't with the postal service, or FedEx for that matter. Maybe the problem is that you live in New York City.
Persuter said...
Agreed and likewise we are stuck with Obama's taking the deficit spending to a whole new level.
Fun fact - Obama's deficit as a percentage of our current debt is exactly what Reagan's deficit was his first budget year.
Similarly, the projected increase in debt as a percentage of GDP over Obama's two terms is far less than Reagan's was.
Strange, isn't it, how it's only bad when Democrats run deficits?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Damn you ;) we're trying to keep 538 a fact free zone lol
The Reps argument/meme for the past (30) years has been: but, but, but Carter/Clinton ...
but, but, but when one compares Carter/Clinton using total federal deficits and total jobs created during their time in office to their Rep counterparts, hmm
Then of course there's the national debt comparison.
yea, "we" want to keep 538 a fact free zone, get w/the program progressives! :)
FedEx almost lost my passport and UK spouse visa four days before I was to board a plane for the UK to join my husband. The guy actually delivered it to the wrong street. Not just the wrong house number. The wrong STREET. Fortunately, it was found. I've never had a problem like that with the USPS.
Brandon said...
Yeah it only runs about what, a 5 billion deficit a year?
Quite the model of efficiency there.
You might want to get your FACTS correct.
1. The USPS expects to run a $7 Billion deficit this fiscal year; and
2. The USPS had a $600 Million surplus (in corporate-speak, profit) in FY 2006.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
I think people can make up their own minds, and it might be better to always shift the debate to the experience of other nations with universal national health insurance programs, such as in Europe, Canada, or Taiwan where I live. More or less all of them show lower health costs, longer lifespans, etc. Some of that is in the way statistics are collected and defined. But on the whole, looking at all the expats I know here in Taiwan (a considerable number, since I have been here twenty years and operate the island's most popular blog), I can't think of any who would trade Taiwan's excellent medical system for the murderous for-profit mess you people have in the US. It's one reason so many of us remain here.
Michael Turton
The View from Taiwan blog.
Brandon said..
The deficits were caused by . . . construction of the department of homeland security. . . .
So you are saying that the DHS was created out fo thin air, and that all the programs and agencies that now make us DHS were created at the same time DHS was created?
So FEMA didn't exist before DHS?
The US Customs Service didn't exist before DHS?
The Border Patrol didn't exist before DHS?
The Coast Guard didn't exist before DHS?
The Transportation Security Administration didn't exist before DHS?
And further, the Department of Homeland Security still does not have a permanent headquarters building. From DHS, "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act contains $650 million to support construction of the Department's new headquarters, which will bring together components scattered geographically throughout the Washington area." The site selected is part of the grounds of St. Elizabeth's Hospital in SE DC. BTW - St. E's was the first large-scale, federally-run psychiatric hospital in the United States, and opened in 1855. It was greatly expanded during the 1860s because of the mental trauma that many soldiers suffered during and as a result of the Civil War.
So tell us how the DHS 'CAUSED', in part, the deficits?
Brandon said...
The deficits were caused by the 2 wars. . . .
No, idiot. The two wars were off-budget, and thus not considered part of the 'deficit'. Since they were off-budget, they had NO effect on the deficit. Maybe you meant 'federal government debt', the amount owed in total to creditors?
You really should try to do some research of the claptrap you post before posting the claptrap GOOPer talking points that can easily be disproved.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
shiloh,
My apologies! After I posted two messages filled with facts, I read you message where you stated "we're trying to keep 538 a fact free zone lol"
Do you want to whip me 20 lashes with limp spaghetti or limp noodles?
VBG
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
It appears the days of atwater/rove are still w/us. Maddow has been reporting the past couple nights of Rep special interest groups using fake letterheads to mislead Dems ie mail fraud and of course the Reps totally staged disruptions of Dem town halls which in no way reflects their fantasy of grassroots.
The Reps don't even bother w/the pretense of authenticity ie facts anymore and just continue to flat out lie, distort, deceive, misrepresent etc. because they believe older voters and yahoos will be swayed re: health care.
Re: the yahoos they're preaching to the choir. These folk either don't vote or already voted in the 2008 election against Obama, no biggie.
And older folk, although some are easily fooled, for the most part, they know a scam when they see it.
yea, now that they are a dwindling minority and totally pissed and discombobulated, they are pulling out all the stops lol the same stops which had no effect in the 2008 election.
Again, how did the Dems get sooo damn lucky, ok (8) years of cheney/bush but still electing a bi-racial president is one step beyond their wildest dreams.
Repeating my fav stat: Obama got (((32))) million more votes than Mondale who got 37.5 million. How the the hell did he pull that off ?!? hmm, he was the best candidate, best campaigner, money, and the Reps imploded :) thanx cheney/rove/bush.
Another way to look at it, the best thing that ever happened to the Dem party was Gore and Kerry losing. Not good for the soldiers and civilians who died in Iraq :( but good for the Dems!
carry on
p.s. another way to look at it is the Supreme Court appointed Bush43, so thank you Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist, Kennedy and O'Connor. btw, O'Connor has said in so many words she really regrets her vote re: Gore v. Bush, sorry too late Sandra Day, regrets, I've had a few ...
Yea, I didn't start debating politics on the web until 2003, when the fraud, corruption, incompetency of cheney/rove/bush started to come to light and it's been highly amusing ever since hearing Reps/Cons try to apologize/rationalize for their sorry ass leaders/heroes using misinformation, deflection, red herrings, ad hominems, straw man arguments and of course my fav: but, but, but Carter/Clinton.
And now when Dems control everything, it's all the more enjoyable! :) hearing their sour grape, sore loser, whoe is me meme. My how the mighty have fallen ...
When you find yourself in the majority, it's time to pause and reflect! ~ Mark Twain
Re: Brooklyn Heights Kinko's and Post Office--a tip for you
Dear Nate,
I grew up in Brooklyn Heights and have spent a lot of time there since then. The Kinko's on Court Street is one of the worst Kinkos I've been to, anywhere. Usually more than half of the copiers are broken or out of toner. During business hours, Remsen Graphics is the place to go for copies. It's around the corner from Kinko's. Staff is super-nice. Note: it's not self-serve.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/remsen-graphics-brooklyn
Cadman Plaza Post Office: I live in Southern California now, where postal clerks are courteous 95% of the time. If I had only ever used the post office out here, I wouldn't believe that post offices could be so terrible. But they can, and the Cadman Plaza Post Office is a shining example.
My best anecdote about that post office follows. I had come in with one piece of mail that I needed to send certified, and one regular letter. I waited on the line for the usual 1/2 hour, and finally reached a clerk. She accepted the form for the certified letter and stamped it. When she was done with that, I handed her the regular, already-stamped letter to mail. She WOULDN'T TAKE IT. Because, in her opinion, that wasn't part of her job. She told me that there are slots for regular mail in the vestibule. (I wound up complaining to her supervisor.) This has never happened to me anywhere else, thank god.
My father lived in Brooklyn Heights his whole life, and I believe that use of this post office on a weekly basis contributed to his high blood pressure and general crankiness.
That said, Brooklyn is great and the benefits of living there make up for things like this.
@Pragmatus
"Well, by your logic, GM, Ford, Chrysler, and all the banks that just got bailed out should be scrapped too. All the airlines have been in bankruptcy over the past decade or so—junk them too?"
The Chrysler saga is not finished yet, and our costs may have only begun for all those characters. From what I gathered from the media, Ford was doing fine; without bailouts would all three have really died, or might the relaxed competition have made the survivors more competitive? If the United States isn't big enough for three large car manufacturers then we could let one go bankrupt or subsidize them...indefinitely.
Get your stamps online at usps.com; they arrive in your mailbox in a day or two.
Personally, USPS is the only GOOD delivery service in my area, the others don't even knock on my door to deliver packages when I'm home.
All I can say is here are the costs for delivering an envelope to Estonia.
UPS: $108
Fed Ex: $120
US Post Service: $1.80
I don't care if they have the worst service imaginable; they saved me a hundred bucks. I will always ship international mail through USPS.
The Yelp comparisons don't help. You have to account for peoples' expectations. They are higher for private businesses and lower for USPS.
Personally, my experiences with post offices has been mixed, FedEx/Kinkos slightly better, and with private mailing services overall, *a lot* better.
My local post office always makes me fill out forms twice, sometimes three times. This has happened almost consistently for ten years. It has not happened to me once in a private mailing service center.
Twice in the last year, I've had problems with UPS deliveries.
1. A note was left on my front door that UPS attempted to deliver a package. I was home at the time, but heard no knock, nor did the doorbell ring.
When I called for redelivery, I was assured that a note would be left on the delivery ticket to knock LOUDLY.
As Rachel says, 'wash, rinse, repeat', except on the third time, the package was shipped back to the merchant.
I had to reorder, and explain to the merchant the original order was being shipped back to them because UPS didn't deliver it to me.
Problem 1 - when I reordered, the item was no longer was on sale, so I had to pay 20% more than the original price.
Problem 2 - UPS claimed I wasn't home to receive the package, so they didn't have any responsibility to refund the delivery charges.
The second incident with UPS delivery was last December when I ordered items from another merchant, and I knew they would be delivered in two packages. On the UPS tracker, I could see that the packages shipped together, were received together at the local UPS office, and were to be delivered at the same time. When the UPS deliveryperson showed up at my door, he only had one package - a small box with no markings of what was inside. According to the deliveryperson "The second package (an HDTV) was not on his truck." A call to UPS confirmed that the package was listed as on his truck. The rep called him, and he told the rep it wasn't on his truck, which the rep, in a return call to me, relayed to me. I asked, since the USP tracker showed the package was at the UPS office and on the delivery truck, when it would be delivered, and was told that they would check to see where it was, and would call me back. Eventually UPS called me that day, and told me that they found it and would hold it for me to pick up at the UPS office.
Since that office is more than 20 miles from my home, and I don't own a vehicle, I asked if they also intended to pay my cab fare to pick up the package. Crickets chirping. I told them that redelivery to my home was being requested.
Less than one half hour later, I received a phone call, and I was told they found the package. I had to press and press and press to find out where - it turns out it was on the truck the entire time. I suspect the driver knew what was in the package, and intended to deliver the package, but to some address other than to the delivery address.
I had a somewhat similar incident with USPS, but it turned out much, much differently. About three years ago, my sister mailed a package to me by USPS. I was not home when the package was to be delivered, and because it wouldn't fit through the mail slot, a note was left that I could call for redelivery, or pick it up at the local Post Office. Trouble was that the notice was left at someone else's address, and eventually the package was sent back to my sister. I found out about the package and delivery notice after the package was shipped back, but before it was returned to my sister. She called the Post Office, and explained what happened. The Post Office acknowledged that an error had been made by the Post Office, and the package was shipped back to me at no cost to me or my sister.
Mistakes can be, and are, made. It's how the company responds to those mistakes that makes a dramatic difference in how a person views the company. USPS made amends. UPS didn't in one case, and tried not to in a different case.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/0284889341225109596
Oh good, anecdotes! That's scientific evidence!
And it is always good to judge a national organization (whether it be a government entity like the Post Office or franchise like Kinko's) by how one location of thousands of said organization locations is run.
As a statistician you should know better, Nate.
And complaining about the Post Office is like complaining about Big Government or Taxes or the Main Stream Media or the quality of Hollywood Movies - it's part of the culture to just rip on things regardless of their actual quality.
I could toss out my own personal anecdotes but I know they are pointless.
Maybe what you SHOULD investigate, Nate, is how proportionately good the service is at certain businesses (or government offices) versus how well staffed/how well paid the staff is. Maybe THAT would be more illuminating than revealing that you have no good sense to buy your stamps somewhere you don't have to stand in line for them - say a grocery store, gas station, or (and don't tell me Post Offices in NY don't have these) at a stamp vending machine - my little town's PO has 3 such machines.
@Merin:
Actually, Merin, as a professional statistician myself (more technically I routinely use graduate level statistics in measuring my work), all statistics is based on so-called "anecdotes." Any single measurement, such as your own experience with your own post office or my own timing of one experiment or one reaction, is anecdotal.
So tell us about your experience at the post office versus commercial organizations in essentially the same business; enough of those "anecdotes" is what lets us do real-world statistics in the first place.
My USPS experience has always been either good or great. Every commercial courier I've used has failed to provide the service I paid for. Also the Kinkos near me (FedEx/Kinkos) totally sucks. They are rude and expensive.
Nate,
The Fulton Street (10027) post office is notoriously bad. They lose packages and are singularly unhelpful at the window. You have to make friends with Rey (if you're on his route) and he will look out for you. For sending things, go to the Atlantic Avenue PO, which is no further away. A much better experience.
- a neighbor
Wow! I'm agreeing with Mike in Maryland. That's a first. I've had similar awful experiences with UPS in receiving packages. Maybe it's because we both live in Maryland (I'm in fells Point Mike). On the flip side, I have good expereinces with FedEx (I've never had a problem at my work and we use them all the time, but only had a little experience with them at home). I don't use the Postal Service much anymore, since I rarely mail a letter (Why would anyone have much use for the postal service with the advent of the internet?), but the two offices that I have used (Fells Point and Towson) have always been pleasant experiences.
Antecdotally what does this all mean? I guess, it says that when it comes to delivering mail or packages, the government system, which has been in the business forever, is just as good as the upstarts, but I see less and less reason to use the government service all the time. This is because when I have to choose which service best meets my needs, the government service rarely comes into play. Not because of any philosophical distinction, but because the service they had originally been designed to provide has become obsolete/displaced by the internet.
A challenge for libertarians:
Okay, so my mom's birthday is in a few weeks. (Happy B-day, mom!!!!) I live in the suburbs of Charleston, SC. She lives in a rural area of Pennsylvania (about 5 miles from exit 298 of the PA Turnpike) I'll be sending her a nice card, with a 44 cent first class stamp attached. The nice mail-lady, who I give brownies to every Christmas, will see the little flag up on my mailbox and pick it up. She will do whatever magic the USPS does, and my mom will be cursing me for getting her the wrong gift certificate approximately 72 hours later.
Can you do that for me for that money in that amount of time? No fair using the federally funded interstate highway system to get there. No fair using federally funded AMTRAK. You can't convert into an e-mail and then have a friend in PA print it and hand deliver it. (The gift certificate must be the original, besides, the internet was largely government funded in the early days.) FedEx or UPS would be allowed, as long as they follow the same no interstate rule.
Can anyone but the government do that for that money?
Yeah, I didn't think so. It's called an economy of scale. Go look it up.
Can anyone but the government do that for that money?
No, because the government has a legal monopoly on first class mail.
@Nosimplehiway:
Although I am sympathetic to your intent; the actual reason the USPS it is cheap is not so much economy of scale. That contributes, but contributes the same to FedEx or USPS, even though they do use the IH system.
The real reason USPS is efficient is for the same reasons any business is efficient; the workers get pressure from above to get more done with less money. I have worked extensively with the USPS as both a consultant and a client on behalf of mass mailers, and they work like any other business in this respect. Even if the government can just "print money," they certainly don't just hand it over to the USPS; they have to earn it off postage, they have to handle complaints, and all of the stuff you would expect in any business.
The big difference between the USPS and other businesses is they are a non-profit; they aren't expected to produce a surplus, and this surplus is not expected to grow every year, and the USPS is not expected to find new business every year.
The modern corporate culture is focused on earnings and growth. They want more 10% more earnings this quarter versus the same quarter last year (to allow for any seasonal effects) and 10% more annual sales and 5% less annual costs, and more return on investment, and more return on equity, and on and on.
The USPS (and government agencies in general) avoid this mindset. They don't look for "sales" so they don't have to market. They don't need "earnings." Their salaries are capped at about $150K from the CEO on down. They pay no bonuses, or stock options, or crazy perks like gigantic penthouse offices in prime real estate.
The result is that the 44c you spend to mail a letter is actually pretty close to the actual cost of mailing the letter.
The same thing is true for the IH system: Abuses are a small percentage of the IH budget, for the most part, we get the IH system for within a percent or two of actual cost.
It is the demands of growth and profit and massive compensation for "leaders" that inflates the prices of non-governmental agencies wildly.
It is the mistake of free market theorists that businesses become more efficient solely for the purpose of increasing profit and solely to survive against competition. This is a lie. The vast majority of people work fairly efficiently because they do what they are told and don't want to lose their jobs; this is just as true in the post office as elsewhere. Most people in the private sector are either hourly or salaried with COL increases, they get no share of any corporate profits and are not burdened with any corporate losses. They aren't working for a profit motive, they work to keep their job. Their managers do the same; they are given a budget and a mission and need to accomplish it or lose their job.
The idea that at some level you need some kind of corporate royalty at the top driven by growth and profit motives is just nonsense.
Maybe I'm missing something, but wasn't the post office turned into a private business some years back? (as in NOT government funded - NOT government employed, for profit business?)
-James
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