Question: Is your local post office closing earlier to cut costs?

[marions ghost]

:thumbsdown: ours is....it's annoying to customers and upsetting to postal staff.

When I went to the PO yesterday the postal clerk said this restriction of hours is going into effect immediately. The staff was visibly down about it. They expect it to be permanent. This is NOT good. I can't believe this is one of those "belt-tightening measures" that will do much to help the economy.

I'm curious if this is happening everywhere? :shrug:

[KurtNYC]

1. they have eliminated the stamp machines

bc the post office can't afford to keep them in working order.

Hours seem to be the same so far.

[kirby]

2. You are confusing two things...

The belt-tightening is not to 'help the economy', it is designed to help the profitability of the Postal Service. Running the postal service as a profitable business is one of the requirements the Republicans in their free market zeal has given us.

[marions ghost]

8. thank you I see

and I thought they were just trying to be helpful with all that hard sell on boxes and stamps...

[2Design]

3. people want tax cuts and they have yet to realize this is the result

they cut parks and rec and library and bus and education but not salaries or benefits of congress critters or other high paying government jobs - cut taxes and you cut yourself - people just don't get it

[spinbaby]

4. No, but we had one close

A local teeny post office closed very recently. It was in an old building that seemed to be collapsing on itself, so I rather assumed that was the reason for shutting it down. No great loss, because it was only a couple of miles from another post office.

[marions ghost]

5. In our case

it's a large PO that is always packed with customers. You always have to wait quite awhile in line. I can't figure this out.

The postal clerks implied that the hours cutback was very sudden and arbitrary in their book--and political. One even said, "you can thank Mr. Bush." Then she kind of ran away looking like she was going to cry. They were all depressed.

[Venceremos]

6. Yes but the USPS is mostly self funded

Our post office started closing 1/2 hour early last fall. And they've been closed on Saturday since last spring, although we still get our Saturday mail delivery. (I'm in a rural area with a tiny PO).

The post office generates its own revenues from the sales of stamps and related services without taxpayer support for postal operations since 1982. Taxpayers only fund certain types of mail, such as free mail for the blind, overseas ballots, and the Free Mail privilege extended to the military overseas. Under the Homeland Security Act, the Postal Service received funding to support biohazard related detection and prevention activities. None of the security funding is used to support postal operations.

Source: http://www.usps.com/communications/news/press/2003/pr03_033.pdf

In other words, the post office is mostly self funded, not taxpayer supported. So the belt tightening isn't designed to help the economy as a whole, but to cut their own operating expenses.

[marions ghost]

7. Thank you!

That's very helpful info.

So that's why it's acting more like an independent business with sudden layoffs etc...and why it's only certain branches that seem to be losing hours...

:think: OK the light is dawning