Lately I’ve been browsing the reddit section for Post Office employees. Mostly inscrutable tech talk about PTMA and Form 3517B and Amended RMD2. Some interesting stories about good or bad customers, some encouraging advice from oldtimers to newbies, and occasional inputs from non-employees.
One of the latter is a smart idea, and it’s the sort of thing that the pre-digital Post Office would have done. The ‘Informed Delivery’ emails are a useful and valuable service. PO should be charging a small subscription for them. 100 million small subscriptions add up to real money.
I’d gladly pay. It gives me an advance warning of nasty stuff like jury service, and pleasant anticipation of nice stuff like annual royalty checks.
Government should work like a business, not like Twitter or Facebook. The New Deal always found ways to provide services for a profit, and the old PO did the same. The new PO is under lethal attack by Demon Elon, so it SHOULD be trying to recover expenses as much as it can.
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The reddit section also provides some So that’s why! explanations. One item showed a supervisor trailing behind a carrier, who was walking on the sidewalk up to a house. Commenters said the supervisor was probably getting ready to write up the postman for NOT cutting across the lawn. AHA! I’d wondered why some carriers always took the diagonal, even when it meant trudging through deep snow instead of my shoveled and deiced sidewalk. The present carrier is more oriented toward serving the customer than obeying regulations. He knows who I am and hands me the mail in the street when I happen to pass him while walking. He also sticks to the sidewalk all the time.
Another that’s why. Recently I had to sign for a package. A neighborhood cat casually jumped into the postal truck while the carrier was focused on the computer signature. I told him what happened, and he didn’t seem surprised at all. Apparently cats jump into postal vehicles all the time!
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