"General Mail Facility. That's where all these courier packages go and then they're all stacked up" and she made a motion like this big mountain at the GMF of boxes and letters and plants and stuff. "Your carrier will get you a notice when he tries to deliver the package."
"But my plants are going to be dead," I said a bit deflated.
"Sir, we don't do email and it's at the GMF" and then she sort of snorted.
I was sitting at my desk the other day and our company mailroom person bopped in. Tricia is energetic and seemingly happy with anything we ask her to do. She's been in the mailroom as long as I can remember. "William, here ya go," she said "this came for you."
"Oh, good." I had started a "coaching" training for some of my team leads and I had ordered a book from Amazon.com a couple of days before. We have a couple of the big bookseller stores here in town and I even have one of those discount cards that you take to the register and you get 15% off and maybe something else, but you have to have the card and everywhere now seems to have one of these and I don't know, why the heck don't they give you a pin number, or implant a microchip in your head, or give you a decoder ring (which would be way cool), or something because carrying all those cards requires a little suitcase and I don't even like carrying a billfold?
I went out to the big bookseller website and I was happy I could use my discount card there and I checked the price on the "coaching" book there and the price at Amazon and Amazon was cheaper even without the discount card. "Or," I thought, "why don't they just do like Amazon.com and sell the crap cheap and not have the silly plastic card?"
But I ordered the "coaching" book a couple of days before at Amazon.com and it took about 5 minutes to place the order because I didn't use my "leave me alone and order this now" button and a couple of days later Tricia bopped into my office with the book. It came UPS to my office and I didn't have to get out of my chair and no one snorted at me.
After the lady behind the counter had snorted, I wondered if the US Post Office trains for that, I looked at her and said, and this is where the crotchety part comes back in, "you're going to lose your job because you all are going to close and you deserve to" and I walked out.
The United States Postal Service is looking at some drastic cost savings measures. Here's the problem: they're looking at the wrong thing. The reason the US Postal Service is hurting is "yes, the Internet has negatively impacted letter writing, postage and what have you," but the real reason is I cannot remember a time ever going to any post office and wanting to go back. I cannot remember a time ever going to any post office and having a Southwest Airlines customer service experience. I dread going to the US Post Office and the vast majority of folks who are reading this are saying "no kidding""and some who are reading are saying this and they work for the US Post Office.
Businesses like this don't survive forever especially when there are choices and they shouldn't and this one shouldn't.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).