Timber

Why not just raise the rates? I can't imagine it only costs $.44 or whatever it is to deliver an envelope. You'd still be getting a bargin at $2.00

dvd-4-life

If Saturday deliveries stopped then Saturday's mail would be added to Monday's deliveries,so the post office would be getting two days work in only one day. They should make them stop deliveries on other days then,if they can do two days work in one day.

Barth

Agreed. Maybe deliver mail M-W-F? Of course, with only working 3 days a week instead of 6, postal workers salaries should get cut at least 25%. With the average pay of 50k a year that would mean about 40k instead. Not bad for a three day work week. Seems like savings all around...delivery costs, salaries, etc.
I'm sure there would be complaining about the pay cut, but you could be like Hostess and just lose your job, since your company is bankrupt also.

zyzzle

Back and forth... and back .. which way will the pendulum swing next?

printerati

Update: Uncut!

Dan

Thanks OBAMA Yeesh!

Spottedfeather

I couldn't care less if the post office shut down all together. It wouldn't really affect me in any way. I don't use the post office for anything and it's very rarely that anything I order online comes through the post office.

DVD Polizei

^^^Terrorist

Pizza

Cool. You're all set then.

Jon2

Good for you then.

Unfortunately, that doesn't work for everyone. Almost everything I order online (mostly Amazon) gets delivered via mail... probably because I always go for Super Saver shipping.

mike1977

If Friday or Monday was a holiday...then that would mean 3 days of no delivery.

Xiroteus

I don't care about a stamp going up a couple cents I care about package costs jumping up a dollar or two as that just scared buyers away. Shipping is expensive enough as it is and cutting Saturday would not be helpful at all, three days off on a Holiday? Nope, things need to get done.

PenguinJoe

What's going on with the post office nowadays, they eliminated self service kiosks at my branch and I went to buy Christmas stamps and was told they were sold out. How do you run out of Christmas stamps over the holidays, it's the one thing they need to have in stock. It's getting ridiculous.

fuzzbox

My town's post office used to have the self-service kiosks. They were amazing for mailing small packages inside the US (which I did frequently). If I waited in line there, it easily was a half-hour every time, but the kiosks were so simple and fast.

Unfortunately, for some reason, people seemed to enjoy waiting in line, because the machines were removed "because nobody used them". I have no clue how this happened. I'm baffled beyond belief.

Canis Firebrand

I blame the elderly. Seriously.. whenever I have the need to go to the post office and couldn't use one of those self-service machines, I'd go to wait in line and it was all elderly people. They'd be mailing packages, mailing letters.. oh.. and they can't forget their metric ton of stamps.

andicus

You guys think you have it bad, losing Saturday delivery? The brilliance that is Canada Post has decided to remove home delivery over the next 5 years.

Currently, when a new subdivision is built, they don't get home delivery. Instead they use 'superboxes' which are groups of 20 or 25 mailboxes. Each each resident has a key for their own box. Existing neighbourhoods still receive home delivery. With this new proposal, superboxes will be added for all residential delivery.

To add insult to injury, they're also raising the price of our stamps to $1 for a regular letter.

RichC2

Yeah, some neighborhoods are like that here in the US, a carry over from Apartment/Town House complexes. But no real wide plan to enforce it.

Timber

My neighborhood, in fact my whole city doesn't have "home delivery" we have a cluster of mailboxes every couple of blocks that have 15-20 mailboxes. They still drop of packages at the door. It's not a big deal.

Obi-Wanma

My brother lives in a neighborhood with those mailbox clusters. I live in an old neighborhood where the mailboxes are still on your porch and the mailman has to go door to door. All the newer neighborhoods have curbside mailboxes or the clusters.

klemsaba

I prefer the 'superboxes'. Nothing like trashy mail boxes leaning over to bring down the look of the neighborhood.

bunkaroo

I think you probably only have trashy mailboxes leaning over if you have trashy homeowners. Not too hard to fix a mailbox.

bunkaroo

The kiosks still seem to be fine in my area, but it's a pretty populous suburbs. I do postage at home anyway so I just like the drop boxes being available.

Tracer Bullet

How is that going to work in urban areas?

andicus

Reading more, we'll be the first country in the G7 with no home delivery.

I was also surprised to read that only Canada and Italy do not have Saturday delivery.

Regarding 'trashy' mailboxes, we don't usually have mailboxes at the curb for urban addresses. They're usually hanging on the house, or a slot in the door. And as bunkaroo posted, if it looks trashy, you fix it.

As for parcels, the superboxes have a couple larger receptacles. If you have a parcel that will fit, you get a key in your normal box to retrieve the parcel from the larger receptacle, then leave the key in same.

I realize it's not a big deal, but consider the decline in service and huge increase in the price of postage, it is pretty annoying. It'll also mean the loss of between 6000 and 8000 jobs.

Tracer, these changes are in urban areas. I believe rural areas will still have the same service, i.e. delivery to a mailbox at the end of the driveway.

kvrdave

Holy shit, priority mail has gone through the roof in price. The flat rate boxes are high, and if you accidentally use a non flat rate one, you have to take out a second mortgage. I've switched all packages to UPS.