....those scrolls of paper that are needed to print receipts.
How exciting! RU srs this is a diary?
The employee working the desk was able to send an e-receipt, which -- thankfully -- worked. I'm not fond of adding to an already cluttered inbox, but at least there is a record if needed.
And your point???
Read down, please, about the management of the postal system. Thx.
Word is that local employees have been warning and then scrounging and begging for resupply of receipt paper for literally months. No one has any extras to share. No one knows where they are stocked. If anywhere. Is USPS ending paper receipts? If so, evidently no one's been told.
During the holiday period our post office ran out of another very routine item, Priority One Rate envelopes. They were out of stock for several days. Luckily I had a manila envelope. Not the only recent time customers have been told they need to drive to another branch for similar standard items. You can walk in and find the post office shelves well-stocked or nearly bare, no predicting.
Lately our local post office several times has been out, or very nearly out, of regular stamps. The clerk has done their best to warn people coming in, so they don't stand in line for nothing. The other day I got the last, or nearly, sheet of stamps in the place. (The style left was LOVE, with pups and kittens.)
A USPS employee drives from post office to post office at intervals delivering stamps. Not too many.
Stamps are rationed; a customer can only purchase so many at once. Unfortunately, there are customers who drive from post office to post office, buying the maximum allowed quantity of stamps at each location. Possibly collectors or brokers. Therefore the post offices run out.
Regular postage recently went up to 68 cents.
You'd think that if demand predictably exceeds supply, it wouldn't hurt to increase supply. And adjust the distribution system so people who want large quantities can obtain them efficiently at some central location. Maybe even order in advance. Instead of being stingy.
Btw, our P.O. has always been one of the good ones, and these supply problems are pretty novel.
Also novel is this post office having only one employee, where there used to be two and a supervisor. The line and wait can stretch quite a ways now. There seems to be a lot of business in money orders, sometimes many of them at once, a bottleneck factor. Others are perfectly expectable complications involving such things as less than adequate packaging, international shipments, and customers who need to discuss options or who make various mistakes. The one employee does a pretty fine job of keeping a cool head and remaining polite to all, but the pressure on them is obvious.
All this reminds me that now, three years since the change of administration, Trump appointee Louis DeJoy is still postmaster general. I'll always remember his smirking after President Biden's election, when some people were expecting an end to his reign, that we could expect to be dealing with him for a long time. This character who was touting efficiency while destroying mail sorting machines, at a time when voting by mail was critical to democracy.
There was some room then for an argument from helplessness, in that the postmaster general is selected by an independent board of governors, and it would take some time for enough of the board's Trump appointees to be termed out. That has happened. And still.
Now the postal workers' union (who along with teachers, have been a target of R union-busters for decades) has been warning for years that this postmaster general's plans are not about good management. And it looks like things are due to get worse in several dimensions:
A week ago, to almost zero news coverage (Common Dreams):
As the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors on Thursday held a meeting in Washington, D.C., frustrated USPS workers, customers, and union officials rallied outside to protest a new limit on public comment and the agency's austerity plan…
We won't be silenced!" read signs held by protesters on Thursday that urged the board to allow public testimony.
As a former professional in public communications, shutting down public comment really sticks in my craw.
For details please read the whole.
While in general I'm more impressed with President Biden than I ever expected to be, and of course support his re-election, the continuation of this USPS leadership promising efficiency and delivering what looks more like monkeywrenching is one of a handful of things I just don't understand.
Especially given this President's very welcome support of unions in general.
Does this administration not care? Agree with DeJoy? Is this the cost of some deal? Are they just too busy with other matters?
I also don't understand why Ds didn't do something when IIRC it might have been possible, to end the poison-pill budget requirement of prefunding USPS pensions for 50 years, which no organization did ever, and is one cause of the austerity demands that go on and on, and are the excuse for "efficiencies" that so far as I can see are just the reverse. The R/libertarian poison pill was only ever intended to sink the USPS and dismantle its functions for private profit. Ds could at least point that out consistently, if not YELL about it.
Yes, the USPS needs some reform and updating. In my limited observation, serious problems exist in some regions, of long standing. Some of which probably call for systems solutions and others potentially for investigation into possible malfeasance. DeJoy's plans do not seem headed in that direction. But that our local post offices here are still pretty good, despite everything, also suggests strongly that system-wide upending may not be needed.
Once again, I totally support President Biden for multiple reasons.
The choice in November is stark: democracy? Or dictatorship.
If we have to scuttle the venerable USPS and let private greedheads get control of our physical mail, as they already have of our electronic communications, so be it.
But is that really necessary?
OK, I'm not an expert in this area. Maybe I misunderstand something. Perspectives?