posted December 1, 2008
The United States Post Office here in Ooltewah does a great job and the employees there are terrific. However, I know that cost cutting actions are coming that will affect the quality of service in our area.
I have a suggestion that will cut costs and have little effect on postal customers. Cut out Saturday mail delivery.
Why do we need the mail on Saturday?
Steve Ray
Ooltewah
steveray@comcast.net
* * *
Steve Ray's impractical cost cutting suggestion to cut Saturday mail delivery would be quite detrimental to most residents and especially most businesses open on weekends; then, what would happen? Friday deliveries cut too? Then maybe Thursdays?
In fact, the Post Office is seriously considering re-instituting twice a day mail deliveries in some parts of the country.
Harold Shalett
Chattanooga
skilett@bellsouth.net
* * *
Then, what? No mail at all?
I think this is a fairly practical approach suggested by Mr. Ray. And I think for businesses open during the weekends, the post office should continue to service those businesses. I think it's surprising how much small changes can save millions nationwide.
Northwest Airlines saved $2 million in 2005 by discontinuing to serve passengers a half-ounce bag of pretzel sticks. Maybe this sticks out for me because I really don't eat pretzels. But when you look at the big picture, I think we have to realize that we have it pretty good here in America and we should be willing to make temporary sacrifices to make some economic progress.
Matt Davis
Chattanooga
* * *
I would applaud Mr. Ray's comments, except would suggest we go a step further. The post office is increasingly becoming an obsolete, but still necessary, mode of communication. Once the mail was the only medium for long-distance communication, but that function has been largely supplanted by telephone and email use.
While it is still the only way for many Americans to receive and pay bills and otherwise conduct commerce, this, too, is going away quickly. The ability to receive and pay bills online is rapidly growing in both corporate and consumer commerce and will soon eclipse the post. Increasingly, "snail mail" is primarily becoming a purveyor of mail-order catalogs and Christmas cards from Aunt Suzie.
I would suggest cutting all mail deliveries in half, to where every address receives mail three days per week: half receiving it on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and half on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. While you would still have to have the same staff and equipment necessary to move the mail on a daily basis between cities and post offices, you could do the post-office-to-address deliveries with about half of the fleet of delivery equipment and half of the personnel (the equipment and drivers would alternate routes each day). For those businesses that need daily mail, they could simply use post office boxes and go collect their own mail every morning (that is what my company does and is the only way we can get the checks soon enough to get them into that day's deposit).
But like letting GM go bankrupt so they can break agreements and cut costs to market levels, this will never happen. The postal unions and their legislative allies would never allow such a thing to occur.
Rick Morrison
Signal Mountain
* * *
Mr. Shalett must not be aware of the current state of the economy nor of the new areas of technology such as texting, emailing and online bill pay. The postal service reported billion dollar losses in fiscal year 2008.
Two weeks ago, the postal service announced the closing of the Remote Encoding Center in Chattanooga. This means that several hundred citizens of Chattanooga and the surrounding area will be without jobs. Because of a contractual agreement, 145 career employees will be placed in jobs.
What is not mentioned is that there are very few open jobs for careers in this area. For several employees this means quitting the postal service altogether because they cannot, due to age, economics or other factors, uproot their families to move hundreds of miles away. Others worry about the dismal outlook of being able to sell their homes in this market. Mr. Shalett, this is occurring to postal employees in postal facilities all across the U. S.
There have been several rumors floating around the post office about possible layoffs. I'm sure that eliminating Saturday service would not cause severe and traumatic distress to your daily life. However, it could help keep thousands of postal employees employed, thus helping the economy and not placing them on the unemployment rolls.
V. Elisabeth Myers
* * *
I don't know what you get for mail delivery on Saturday's but I get junk which I recycle. Cost cutting is necessary to avoid or mitigate a further price increase from the post office.
As for me, I could get along with every other day mail service. My mail delivery person is looking forward to retirement because, as he says, he has had numerous arm and hand operations from delivering too much mail.
In fact, even better, why don't we raise postal rates to one dollar per letter? That would help rather than giving up Saturday delivery.
Bob Brooks
| Dining Out | Business | Movies | Focus | About Us |
| Church | Living Well | Memories | Outdoors | Real Estate | Student Scene | Travel |