Oxymoronic

The term postal service has become an oxymoron along the lines of military intelligence, congressional ethics, rap music, and Microsoft Works.

Recently, the U.S. Postal Service announced that it would cut Saturday delivery beginning in the first half of next year (2011). I say, Why stop there? I accept that businesses might require more frequent delivery than residential customers, but I would not mind if home delivery were reduced to three days per week (Monday-Wednesday-Friday or Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday) or even two days per week (Monday-Thursday or Tuesday-Friday).

In fact, I am trying to eliminate the post office from my life altogether. A few years ago, my magazine subscriptions were arriving ridiculously late every week. I confirmed that the magazine publishers were sending their periodicals out in a timely manner: I would stop by our local library to verify that they had the current issue, but days—and sometimes a full week or more—would pass before I would receive my copy. It turns out that our local mail carrier was sorting mail by house number only, completely ignoring the street, neighborhood, and family names. As a result, our mail was frequently misdelivered to another house with the same street number but with totally different street and family names in a completely different neighborhood. And of course, several times a week we would receive mail that was intended for that family.

When I originally reported my problems to our local post office, the supervisor told me that the postal service would take action only if I failed to receive my subscriptions for four consecutive weeks! Late delivery was not worth investigating, nor apparently was non-receipt for one, two, or three weeks.

In response to that inept delivery service and unresponsive management, I eventually allowed all of my periodical subscriptions to expire. In addition, I now pay almost all of my bills electronically via the internet so that I no longer have to rely on home postal delivery. I still occasionally have to mail bill payments to some of the smaller companies we deal with who do not have an internet presence (e.g., family physician, dentist, and trash collector), but I am able to pay the vast majority of regular, recurring bills on-line (water, gas, electricity, local telephone, long distance telephone, and credit cards).

Furthermore, to save additional money, I encourage the postal service to close as many facilities as they want. I cannot even remember the last time I visited a post office. I now buy a book of stamps about once every 18 months or so, and even then I buy it at Wal-Mart along with my groceries, not at a post office. And, of course, to mail packages, there is always Federal Express or UPS.

And all of that still does not go far enough. I heartily favor do-not-mail legislation that would prohibit delivery of unwanted second class (read "junk") mail to everyone who registers just like the current do-not-call law prohibits unsolicited marketing telephone calls. Yes, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) offers a similar service, but that applies only to DMA members who voluntarily comply, does not carry the force of law, and is therefore just not good enough. Amazingly, only about 12 states have even attempted to pass such legislation, and none have succeeded.

On its web site, the DMA pleads, We need your...commitment to this fight to keep the mail channel open. Gag me with the proverbial spoon!

[Postscript: In fairness to the post office, I should note that our old mail carrier has died, and our new carrier sorts mail by family name, not street number. Our family name is uncommon enough that I am confident that we are the only family with that surname on our mail carrier's entire route. Indeed, the occurrence of misdelivered letters to our house has virtually stopped altogether. On the other hand, we have families named Edwards and Williams living further down the street who might not be so enamored with the new system.]