Mailing a letter is a great deal.

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: Tom

Originally posted by: GeekDrew

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats

Originally posted by: GeekDrew

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats

Originally posted by: vegetation
They lose money on consumers who use regular stamps and mail them with hand printed addresses. Just the cost of printing stamps and distributing them is probably a fourth of the face value itself. And then handprinted envelopes have to be pecked in by a human, adding to labor costs. Metered mail (electronic stamps) has no such issues; no printing costs, no distribution, all addresses are typewritten so OCR readers can process quickly, etc.

wrong. mail is sorted by optical scanners. Some needs to be resorted by hand, but most does not.

Not necessarily. The majority of mail is sorted automatically, but there is a significant quantity that is not. I know that all of the carriers at a particular post office spend several hours a day doing nothing but hand-sorting mail, because DPS was unable to do so.

Even the poorest handwriting can usually be deciphered by computer

Your point? I don't care what they have the ability to do -- I've seen, and have heard, about what they actually do.

I don't know why your arguing with each other, you're both right. I'm sure there's a lot of mail that gets sorted by hand, but percentage-wise I bet it's a very small number. But even a fraction of a percent of 10s of millions of pieces a day, is a big number.

we're fighting because we're argumentative

also, rural locations don't have access to mail sorting equipment, so tha majority of it is done by hand. fun fun.

 

[zanieladie]

Originally posted by: gsethi
39 cents is still pretty cheap. I have a cousin who works in the USPS as a branch manager for one of the branches. He was telling me the other day on how each penny increase in gas prices costs them millions every day. He was also telling me that in few years, USPS will be reduced to 5 days instead of 6 days presently (maybe b/c of increased labor costs for the 6th day).

Also, he was explaining me on how mail is delivered in rural areas in Nevada, Arizona etc and those carriers are on contract earning ~60-70k/yr just for delivering mail in remote places couple of times a week. He was telling me that they have to deliver it on horsebacks etc b/c apparently some people have build their houses in remote corners of the country not accessible by any motor vehicle. Same goes for houses in marshy areas etc etc and rural delivery costs a lot.

My mother works for USPS and she said that they get a LOT of mail from other carriers (such as DHL, FedEx, UPS, etc.) because it is cheaper for those companies to simply pay the postage to drop it into the US mail than for them to actually deliver it. (I'm referring to remote locations)

 

[gsethi]

Originally posted by: zanieladie

Originally posted by: gsethi
39 cents is still pretty cheap. I have a cousin who works in the USPS as a branch manager for one of the branches. He was telling me the other day on how each penny increase in gas prices costs them millions every day. He was also telling me that in few years, USPS will be reduced to 5 days instead of 6 days presently (maybe b/c of increased labor costs for the 6th day).

Also, he was explaining me on how mail is delivered in rural areas in Nevada, Arizona etc and those carriers are on contract earning ~60-70k/yr just for delivering mail in remote places couple of times a week. He was telling me that they have to deliver it on horsebacks etc b/c apparently some people have build their houses in remote corners of the country not accessible by any motor vehicle. Same goes for houses in marshy areas etc etc and rural delivery costs a lot.

My mother works for USPS and she said that they get a LOT of mail from other carriers (such as DHL, FedEx, UPS, etc.) because it is cheaper for those companies to simply pay the postage to drop it into the US mail than for them to actually deliver it. (I'm referring to remote locations)

I think that is true..I can confirm it with my cousin next time i meet him.

I do know that USPS has a contract with Fedex nowadays. FedEx allows USPS to use FedEx planes. USPS has allowed FedEx to install their self-drop boxes at Post Offices and USPS also handles the rural routes for FedEx nowadays as outlined in the contract in return.