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Thread: Mailboxes

  1. #1
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    Mar 2003
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    Mailboxes

    At the local Post Office, for 15 years there used to be a drive through area with half a dozen mailboxes. A couple weeks ago, they were just gone, and we had to park and go in the lobby to mail letters.

    Is this happening elsewhere, or is it just a local manifestation?? Wonder why?

    No politics please.
    Rick Potter

    DIY journeyman,
    FWW wannabe.
    AKA Village Idiot.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    Waterford, PA
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    Our local post office never had a mailbox you could drive up to. We do have a walk up one located outside the post office and it is still there. Since they've opened the lobby portion of our PO to 24/7, it wouldn't surprise me to see the box outside go.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Rick Potter View Post
    At the local Post Office, for 15 years there used to be a drive through area with half a dozen mailboxes. A couple weeks ago, they were just gone, and we had to park and go in the lobby to mail letters.

    Is this happening elsewhere, or is it just a local manifestation?? Wonder why?

    No politics please.
    it’s all about politics, so we can’t discuss it here.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
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    N. Central Texas
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    Nothing to do with politics. People don't mail letters/bills like they did before. The post office has been operating in the red for decades so removing or relocation boxes has been an ongoing effort to save your tax dollars.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Barkelew View Post
    Nothing to do with politics. People don't mail letters/bills like they did before. The post office has been operating in the red for decades so removing or relocation boxes has been an ongoing effort to save your tax dollars.
    You might be right, but in a service industry making your service less convenient is not usually the path to success.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Barkelew View Post
    Nothing to do with politics. People don't mail letters/bills like they did before. The post office has been operating in the red for decades so removing or relocation boxes has been an ongoing effort to save your tax dollars.
    The USPS posted something like a $2 Billion gross profit in the last measurable period. The "loss" is because of enforced fully funding of retirement obligations out 75 years or something like that. They are not generally funded by tax dollars, either.

    Unfortunately, the likely reasons for so many drop boxes disappearing really are things that cannot be discussed here at SMC...and if they are, this will be yet another thread that moves behind the curtain.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
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    Kansas City
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    All our post offices still have drive up boxes. But most of the stand alone ones around town have disappeared. We had lots of vandalism and theft going on with them.

  8. #8
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    Oct 2006
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    Minneapolis, MN
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Becker View Post
    The USPS posted something like a $2 Billion gross profit in the last measurable period. The "loss" is because of enforced fully funding of retirement obligations out 75 years or something like that. They are not generally funded by tax dollars, either.
    The USPS has not made any of the required payments to their retiree healthcare fund since 2012 so retiree healthcare is not causing their losses for the past number of years. I find it interesting that there are an equal number of current employees and retirees getting healthcare from the USPS. That doesn't seem very sustainable.

    Congress passed the Postal Reorganization Act in 1970. The USPS is required by law to maintain the same level of employee benefits that employees got in 1970. They can't eliminate retiree healthcare without adding another benefit worth the same amount of money.

  9. #9
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    Oct 2006
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    It makes sense to remove some of the collection boxes located on street corners and such. It makes zero sense to remove mail collection boxes at Post Offices. It can't save more than $1,000 a year per Post Office to get rid of them. There is very little labor cost and a little bit of cost to maintain the boxes.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Barkelew View Post
    Nothing to do with politics. People don't mail letters/bills like they did before. The post office has been operating in the red for decades so removing or relocation boxes has been an ongoing effort to save your tax dollars.

    Locally here, drive up drop boxes are often over flowing with mail. Mail looks like a tongue sticking out of box. Then you have to go into PO and request that someone come empty the box, which they usually do. PO really needs some kind of camera to monitor the boxes. But the bottom line is it's about politics. FYI, it has been reported, that the Postmaster General is under criminal investigation here in NC for political contributions scheme.

  11. #11
    P.O. General has always been a political plumb job....they don't even wear the uniforms. That shows they don't take the
    job seriously!

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Barkelew View Post
    The post office has been operating in the red for decades so removing or relocation boxes has been an ongoing effort to save your tax dollars.
    The "savings" amounts to what, one employee walking across the parking lot to empty it twice a day?!?
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  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick Potter View Post
    At the local Post Office, for 15 years there used to be a drive through area with half a dozen mailboxes. A couple weeks ago, they were just gone, and we had to park and go in the lobby to mail letters.

    Is this happening elsewhere, or is it just a local manifestation?? Wonder why?

    No politics please.
    GHG reduction strategy?

    If they already exist at the Post Office, I don’t think there would be much of a saving in removing them, unless someone is interested in hobbling the postal system....Rod

  14. #14
    There is no monetary, or rational, or logical reason to remove near zero maintenance free-standing mail drop boxes. That pretty much leaves only one other reason...
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
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    ONE - vinyl cutter
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  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lee DeRaud View Post
    The "savings" amounts to what, one employee walking across the parking lot to empty it twice a day?!?
    How much would the cost be since someone inside the post office is getting paid to be there anyway?

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

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