Some poor mail carrier in Maryland was murdered while on his rounds last night, working after dark as too many mail carriers do these days. What a thing to die for: stuffing junk mail into people’s mailboxes.
Mail carriers are no longer mail carriers, alas. They’re trash carriers.
Maybe it’s time to think more seriously about closing the U.S. Postal Service. It’s now performing so poorly that workers are regularly sent out after dark to deliver advertising that no one asks for and few people want.
All the coupons and advertising are freely available on the Internet. There’s no need to pay a staff and put their safety at risk to dump the stuff on our doorsteps and make us haul it to the garbage. No need to chop down more trees, burn more energy processing paper and ink, contaminate more water with ink and other chemical run-off. Why do we continue to do this?
We all enjoy seeing a piece of real correspondence land in the mailbox. But how often does that happen anymore? The only real mail I get consists of bills and bank statements. Those things can be delivered electronically for one heck of a lot less than it costs merchants, utilities, and municipalities to send them by USPS. Documents that are important enough to be physically hand delivered in paper form can be sent by UPS or FedEx — yes, it’s expensive, but there are so few of them these days that the cost should be bearable.
As for the magazines and paper catalogues a few of us still subscribe to, couldn’t those be delivered to a central place — say, at the nearest grocery store or corner shopping mall — for people to pick up in person? If you want The New Yorker delivered, you’ll have to go on down to the local store with your ID and evidence that you subscribe to get the thing. It would be hard on publishers, but since they’re on their way out anyway, the net result would only be to speed the day when these publications appear online, on Kindle, or not at all.
Dunno about you, but I get mighty tired of pulling fistfuls of paper out of the mailbox, having to sift through it — usually fruitlessly — looking for something that matters, and then throwing the whole wad into the recycling bin. I’ve actually thought of rolling the recycling bin out to the curb and sticking a sign on it asking the mail carrier to toss the junk directly in there himself. Why should I have to haul that trash around? At least he’s being paid for the chore.
But paid or no paid, why should anyone have to risk his life to deliver junk advertising to people’s doors?
Image: First U.S. Postage Stamps, 1847. Public Domain.
This article is written from the position of someone of privilege. Someone who has a computer and can pay for Internet access to get their bills and important documents online. Someone who is computer literate enough to be able to do so. Someone who has a bank account rather than having to live on a cash basis. Someone who has the time and the transportation to get to a “central postal location” to pick up their mail.
I won’t even get into the bit about “send it via FedEx .. sure it’s expensive, but …”
Also blaming the shooting on the fact that someone had to work “after dark” to get the job done is a non-starter. Aside from the fact that “after dark” is arbitrary (In the NE it gets dark long before the work day is over in the winter. Are we going to say that no one should work (or be commuting) after dark because of the danger?), you’ve basically just said that no one should have to work shift work that puts them in contact with the general public after dark becuase of the danger. So let’s close all service stations (those are even more dangerous than delivering mail) after dark. Let’s close all hotels (and especially the cheap motels on the freeways) after dark. Let’s make sure that all late night bus drivers and taxi drivers are told they can only work during the daylight hours. Etc.
And, finally, aside from all of that, the USPS employs over half a million people in the US. What do you think is going to happen to the majority of those people if we just shut it down and flood the market with more unemployed folks?
The shooting of a postal worker is tragic, but closing the post office is no more the answer to the problem than closing all elementary schools because of what happened at Sandy Hook.
My suggestion would be to make junk mail the most expensive form of mail; there’s so much of it because it’s cheap. Instead, penalize companies for sending out dead tree junk. Unsolicited mail should be charged a “nuisance” fee rate of postage. You’d see the volume of it decrease sharply, and those companies that would be willing to pay a greater amount of money will be helping increase the bottom line of the office so that they can hire more people to deliver what will probably a hugely reduced volume of mail.
Getting rid of the post office, however, is not the answer.
🙂 Well argued. Yours is a MUCH better suggestion! I love it.
Now all we need to do is get it past the lobbyists.
In the after dark department, you’re right — in more northerly climes it can be dark by 4 p.m. Here, though, we often don’t get our mail until after 7 at night. In the summertime, in particular, even though we’ve evaded daylight saving time (horrors!), it can be light until after 8 o’clock, and the poor guys are STILL dragging junkmail around. From what I’ve heard, both from mail carriers and news reports, many postal workers are having to work overtime because the USPS has shucked off so many employees that the company is seriously understaffed.
Not only should junk mail be charged a “nuisance” fee, how’s about consumers be required to opt IN to receiving the stuff? This would provide a much more targeted mailing list for the advertisers — people who like to get coupons in the mail, for example, would show up promptly at the senders’ doors, and that might make the increased cost worth it.
In fact, folks who like receiving this stuff in hard copy might be persuaded to pay a subscription fee. Given that advertisers are already paying something, this subscription wouldn’t have to be enough to cover all the cost of shipping the junk to keep costs at or near their present level even if the mailers had to pay the USPS more.
It’s brilliant, Kara!
Interesting subject. From a strictly personal perspective, I appreciate the junk mail because it keeps delivery coming. I love getting personal letters from my grandchildren. I like their e-mails, too, but there’s nothing that tickles my soul like a letter from a 6 year old – lousy spelling (oops, interesting spelling) and all.
I think neighborhood lock boxes will become more common than home delivery before too long.
Well, that’s what they tell us. Yet they’re still laying people off and cutting services. E-mail and electronic banking seem to be doing the post office in, alas.
But it IS so much better to get a real letter from the kidlet, isn’t it? 😀
I will not be happy if I have to walk a block or more to get into a lock-box that tempts every thief in the surrounding slums, only to haul out great wads of trash that now has to be carried or driven back to my house and dumped into recycling. If they do this lock-box thing they’re threatening, they’re gonna have to park recycling barrels next to ’em! grrrrrr!
This happened not to far from where I live…and it is a sad commentary that in this day and age the mailman isn’t even safe. What could possibly have been gained by shooting a mailman? They carry no money…most checks (ie. SS checks) are deposited into accounts electronically so no checks in the mail to speak of…so what could have gained by shooting a mailman? Nothing…And when these folks are caught, if I’m not mistaken, this is Federal and from what I understand plenty of man power is being put to work to bring these folks to justice.
I like the U.S. Postal Service and do not want to have it go!!!
If our politicians kept their greedy mitts off it, it would be paying for itself.
Most of these people work very hard and are pleasant – find me anywhere that that is not the case. I am even old enough to remember when the mailman was invited in for a cup of tea and a snack, or to warm up on a cold day/night.
I went to work in the dark and came home in the dark for many years every winter, so the fact that this poor person was shot at night has no bearing that I can see. How about the children who have been shot in Chicago or Minneapolis or wherever at night in their own homes?
If you do not like junk mail there is a place you can find on the internet that allows you to enter your info and most junk mail will no longer be delivered – I like junk mail and being from Maine I see it as keeping loggers employed.
I am rambling – can I chalk it up to old age??
So, I respectively, disagree with letting the USPS die out.
Ah, those were the good old days, weren’t they?
We used to have this wonderful postman in our neighborhood, a retired Air Force colonel. Everyone called him “The Colonel” and everyone loved him. The staff at the PO loved him, too. He would stop and chat…just the nicest person you can imagine, and very excellent and accurate with the mail delivery.
He got hit while driving his truck on the homicidal streets of Phoenix (as everyone who lives and drives here eventually does). They blamed him and the PO fired him — at the time he was either the oldest or second oldest mail carrier in the country…must have been a grand excuse to get rid of a guy who was costing them a lot in salary and benefits! He fought it, but they threw him out anyway.
Now all the mail carriers are on the run, and none of them acts like he could ever be accused of loving his job. It’s too bad…the USPS used to be an integral part of our community, and now it’s given over to delivering trash.
Yes, I am registered at the DMA site. It doesn’t do one whit of good. Registering at optoutprescreen.com seems to help…but then I’ve asked the credit bureaus not to approve credit without informing me, and that may be discouraging some of the credit-card offers, too.
Ha ha! Keeping the local loggers employed…if that’s old age, carry on! 😀
To JestJack
My mother was a nurse at the Veteran’s Hospital in Maine – I’m not sure you can truly picture the lectures we received from our parents on the perils of breaking the law including speeding on FEDERAL property!!
My sister and I heard and obeyed [I must be really old – we obeyed -mostly- our parents LOL] under threat of incarceration in a federal prison, our lives ruined forever, never being allowed the car in our lifetimes, which would be short because we would jump out the upstairs window after the first year of being grounded.
Once grown up and married we had a friend who worked for the Post Office for a while and he added DO NOT hit a mail truck – also a Federal crime. And proof that my memory has not totally misfired LOL
The poor old buzzard was hit in an intersection. Apparently the officer on the scene thought it was his fault, so that’s the excuse they gave for letting him go. Never did hear what, if anything, happened to the driver of the vehicle…that’s interesting, though, about it being a federal crime to wallop a mail truck.
That makes it almost as disastrous as running into a cop car!!
The point I was trying to make….and didn’t make very well…is that “resources” will become available. I had dinner with a DF who is a cop and he explained how it works. If that was an ordinary citizen the police would certainly try to find out what happened . But after “the first 48 hours” if there are no credible leads…on the pile it goes. The man-power is just not available. As this was high profile AND a postman under the the protection of the FED …money and resources are not going to be a problem. Now getting the Judicial Branch to put these folks away…that’s another matter. Another “fun fact” mail carriers are “special” and have special rights and privledges. For example you can not subpoena a postal employee for actions or things they have witnessed while performing their duties. I learned this the HARD way…another story…which is ‘funny” now but wasn’t at the time.
I hope you’re right…and it sounds like it. If, as tiredofthemall says, it’s a federal crime to merrily crash a mail truck, then presumably murdering a postal carrier is also a federal crime.
Trouble is, the feds aren’t likely to hang the creep high. Oh well. If they could just put him away forever, that would be nice.
You know, I wrote an answer to one of your comments, and the darn thing didn’t post! Hm. It must be on the other machine. Pending… (?)