In praise of the mail ladies

The Post Office is a pretty big target when people want to talk about how government doesn't work, or can't do things efficiently. I submit that they fall into that same category as so many of the great things that make our modern life so awesome - flushing toilets, paved roads, the inability to go two and a half miles without finding a Big Mac. By that I mean, they work SO well, that we don't notice the 99.9% of good work they do, and blow the occasional failure way the hell out of proportion.

Consider that the post office is mandated to bring mail to anyone who lives within this country's borders, six days a week. They HAVE to. All those grouchy rural conservatives who like to yell about gub'mint tyranny? It costs ten times more to mail a letter to their farmhouse than to my big-city house, but the post office charges the same for both. The fact that these people get curbside mail at all -- including life-saving prescriptions by mail, and such -- is subsidized by the rest of us.

Much has been made of the postal service's deficit. They're required by law to sock away an obscene amount of money into pension funds - ratchet that down to a reasonable level, and presto, things are more even.

I'm not opposed to cutting Saturday delivery, if it'd save money. But it seems to me that when you start cutting customer services on the front end of your business, it doesn't stop, and it's an admission of defeat. How many small businesses have you seen suddenly start closing two or three days a week, or reducing their hours to weird and inconvenient times, shortly before going under completely? I'd rather see the postal service go all-out, campaign hard to win business from FedEx and UPS, and get the word out that their service is pretty damn world-class.

Obviously, I interact with the post office more than a lot of people. But it's no exaggeration at all to say that, if not for easy access to post offices and helpful, speedy service once there, I would not be able to do what I do for a living. The post office is a business grower, a two-century-old economic stimulus plan that works, and in real numbers, pays its own way. And it's made quite a bit of our civilized modern life possible.

Big thanks to Beth and Connie, the front-counter clerks at my post office, and to everyone who busts their asses to get the mail out.