3 Problems with the United States Postal Service

I really have respect for our country. It's a place of great opportunities and freedom. But I have to say, our United States Postal Service, is not my favorite government entity. With the Internet age making things so much easier, working with the US Postal Service is getting more difficult.

Long Lines:
I live in a rather busy town and no matter what time of day I go in to my local post office there is a line out the door. The guys and gals behind the counter have been working there since I was a child (I am 33 now!) and they are wonderful people. They believe in good customer service and truly take their time when waiting on each person. I am all for that and that's great for customer service, but not great when you have a million chores to do and just want to get in and out. You could waste 10-15 minutes just going there. Why not go to another post office near by? I live in Southern New Jersey, in a fairly populated area. There really isn't any town you can go to where you don't experience a similar situation, particularly during the holidays.

Never ending increases
I think I was beside myself when I read that the cost of a measly little stamp was going to go up one cent AGAIN this May 2008. An increase just happened last year and I can hardly believe it's going on again this year. Don't get me wrong - so much of what I do is on the Internet now including emailing others, paying my bills, making purchases, etc. But there is the occasional time when I need to mail an official document and send things to church members who do not have email and never will. I just had to send out 50 envelopes and I cringed when the US Postal employee told me the price. And the rate didn't even increase yet! I am well aware that a big part of the population is going the same route that I am by using the Internet as much as possible which is probably driving the increase at the post office. But I am really concerned - it's almost going to be cheaper to just deliver the piece of mail myself!

Battered mail
Since there is so much of what I like to junk mail showing up in our mail boxes, the important stuff either gets lost in the heaping mound of useless stuff or it all gets tattered. I have a locking mail box and the slot to slid the mail through is rather thin. Our poor postal gal has to jam something almost as large as the Sunday paper through that slot. In the mean time, it gets frayed and tattered. It's partially her fault because she should put it through a little at a time, and it's partially the post offices fault for allowing so much junk mail to be delivered! And we keep getting more because more and more stores are popping up in our area and they want to advertise to us. Never mind the time I have to spend sorting through all this stuff. It's really not worth the aggravation!

I am concerned about job security for US Postal Service employees. None of the items above are their fault, but can create havoc for them since more and more people are turning to the Internet to conduct business. I hope that there will be online jobs at the US Postal Service in the future that these employees can transition to and still have a job.