Neither sleet, nor snow, nor rain or wind.
Or apparently Saturdays.
In a historic announcement that marks the beginning of the end, the U.S. Postal Service announced Wednesday that it will stop delivering letters and other mail on Saturdays. It is yet another signal of a changing time in American history, where technology and cost efficiency are intersecting and making standards of the past, well, the past.
The Postal Service made the decision in order to save about $2 billion annually, following the net loss of $15.6 billion last year, and after defaulting on $11 billion of debt last summer. It’s losing $36 million a day right now, and tracking to lose $21 billion a year by 2016.
USPS spokesman George Maffett said the agency must re-evaluate its fiscal plan moving forward in order to survive.
You think?
Somehow, I don’t think cutting Saturdays is going to cut enough. There will be more cuts, restructure and organization of this federally owned and operated entity. And this has been going on for years, as e-mail and other technology has surged in popularity.
Moreover, what’s not being said is obvious: This is the beginning of the end of an era.
In the modern age, it’s more out of habit that we use mailbox and buy stamps than anything else. It’s more efficient and less costly to pay our bills online, where we can choose when to pay and how. Birthday cards and Christmas cards can all be sent electronically now, with greater flash, pop and for much less money.
Yet I can’t help finding myself just a bit wistful in the decline of the Post Office, which can trace its roots to 1775 and the Second Continental Congress, when Benjamin Franklin served as the first Postmaster General. And there’s something quite American in the very obligation the USPS has to serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at a set price and quality of service.
That means mail is delivered to mailboxes in the shapes of roosters, cows, guns, microwaves, simulated orifices of the human and animal body, movie characters and machines. No, really. Just Google “weird mailboxes” and look at the images. It’s fascinating.
And did you know that the United States Postal Service employs over a half-million workers and operates the largest vehicle fleet in the world? This wasn’t always the case – before roads existed, the Post Office used steamboats to travel waterways between towns, then walked to deliver the mail. USPS has grown as the country has grown, using horses, boats, planes, trains and automobiles to deliver the mail.
The cost of a stamp has certainly gone up, but with good reason: for every penny increase in the price of gasoline, the USPS spends $8 million more to fuel their fleet.
Yet for over 200 years, the Post Office has been a fabric of Americana. Cliff Clavin of Cheers and Newman of Seinfeldwere Postmen. Elvis had a hit song about returned mail, the Marvelettes begged the Postman to stop and check his bag again, and Stevie Wonder signed, sealed and delivered himself with a song. Kevin Costner played a post-apocalyptic, mail-carrying hero in “The Postman” (which probably lost more money than the USPS did last year).
As a boy, I remember running to the end of our gravel driveway, where it met our Rural Route Road, and excitedly checking the mail to see if anything had come. A letter from someone, a special package, a Sports Illustrated.
But this is life in the 21st century, not the 1800s. We don’t get our water from a well anymore. The milkman doesn’t drop off at our door. And now we e-mail, FedEx delivers our special packages and I can read Sports Illustrated on an iPad for less money.
In the end, nostalgia can’t keep something relevant. The fact remains the USPS is bleeding money, somewhat needlessly with the advanced technology of the current world, and with all our country faces, most notably a massive deficit, the federal government simply cannot justify losing $21 billion by 2016 over letters, junk advertising and bills that can be paid online, even if the majority of funds don’t come directly from taxpayer dollars.
It just doesn’t make sense for them to take 50 cents to deliver something 3,000 miles. Noble, but not logical.
So soon, very soon, after wasting time and money debating its future, how to fix it, cutting costs, employees and days, the Postal Office will seek to exist.
Where’s Kevin Costner now?
Until that time comes, we can hang on to our habit, keep the mailboxes out front and feel our tie with history, with Ben Franklin, and give a brief nod to the Post Office’s place in American and world history.
But just not on Saturdays.
worldbetweenlines.com 