Danny McBride, 885 words
Post Haste
By Danny McBride
IPS Features
While I was standing in line at the Post Office the other day the rates went up. I have no idea what they may be by now, but they have probably gone up again. And for what? Certainly not to hire help.
At our local “main” Post Office it is axiomatic that the busier the hour, the fewer the staff. For example if you go in at, say, eight-forty-five in the morning before the business day has really gotten rolling, there are usually five clerks manning the available seven windows. You can walk right up to any one of them and transact business. Two or three of them will be idle the whole time you and a couple of other customers are in there. You’ll get to hear about weekend plans or last evening’s TV fodder.
But if you should have to go at, say, five-forty-five in the afternoon just as absolutely EVERYONE is trying to make the Express Mail deadline of six P M, there will be forty people in line and only two available clerks, one of whom is secretly on a break, having walked to the back room on the excuse of finding out some piece of information for a customer left waiting at the window during an entire coffee break.
Is it that more of us are sending more stuff to more people? Perhaps. But also there are definitely fewer people at the service windows. I realize that these people lead stressful lives- -making change, counting out stamps, weighing parcels- -but most of it is done on little computers that tell exactly how much things weigh and how much things cost. So basically these people are reading little computer screens, sort of like you are now. Is this hard? If I asked you for change for a quarter right now while you were reading this, could you do it? Good. Then send it to me.
The Post Office was started on July 26, 1775 by Benjamin Franklin who thought that a penny saved was a penny earned. What he didn’t know was that anyone who saved a penny as a penny stamp was soon to be a day late and a dollar short- -or maybe it was penny wise and pound foolish- -who knows? (A penny for your thoughts.)
Franklin fought for his idea of a nationwide postal service at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia and said that anyone who didn’t like it could go fly a kite. Of course in those days the concept of “nationwide” meant only as wide as the east coast inland for nine miles- -not actually all that wide. His idea was that with lightning speed mail could be delivered from Boston to Philadelphia. Of course in those days that meant about a week or about the same as it is now.
Recently I saw a notice in the Post Office bragging how postal rates hadn’t risen at all if you took inflation, depreciation, amortization and rent stabilization into account, not to mention the cost-of-living, which of course is more than anyone can afford.
So what we have is a two-hundred year old postal system giving us the same quality service it has for two hundred years- -the price is the same- -the delivery time is the same. The only thing different is the number of people waiting in line at the post office trying to mail a letter from Boston to Philadelphia which is ridiculous if you live in Los Angeles or Des Moines. Just mail the letter directly to Philadelphia.
Mail in the olden days was delivered by horseback along what were called “post roads”. These are the same roads we know today as “Freeways” or Thruways”, depending on where you live in America. Not only was the mail placed on the back of a horse to gallop from city to city, but a rider as well, which slowed things down considerably. The horse alone would have been much faster, even with the “olde tyme junk mail”, such as notices for great deals on wooden teeth whiteners and carpet weaving. The rider and horse stopped for the night to sleep, the rider using the saddle to cradle his head, which is where we get the expression “from pillow to post”. This led to the “Pony Express” which was originally designed as a way to express-ship ponies for pony rides but turned out to be more useful for Gene Autry movies.
Of course nowadays the mail travels by air, train and semi truck. It’s supposed to be more efficient- -wink, wink. We would be better off still using the old horse-and-rider system, especially if we could get them to work the post office service windows together.
It won’t happen. The horse counting with his foot might be faster.
So we have what we have- -history in the making and re-making. A philatelic foot-drag. If you really need to get something somewhere on time you go to one of the specialty companies that guarantees overnight delivery. Their lines are always shorter and move at the speed of lightning. That’s the key.
I suppose I shouldn’t complain. Stuff gets there when it gets there. Does any of this really matter?
Franklin, my dear, I don’t give a damn.
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