POD Changed to USPS in 1971

And, yet, mail today is STILL miss sorted & miss directed ALL the time...because there are STILL people in the loop...called deliverers, who stuff prepackaged bundles into community mail (literally) BOXES incorrectly.

The USPS delivers over 500 million first class mail pieces every day.

Nothing is perfect,but the % error rate is very low.

Yet the squeaky wheel gets all of the press,as usual.

I agree. They do a great job, most all of the time. The insults being hurled at USPS in the last year are unfounded and childish.

I have found the desk agents are patient and helpful.

The mistakes are made by substitutes usually. The machines are almost always correct.

Think about it. For $.50 USD someone will deliver your letter almost anywhere in the USA.

You are correct about the substitutes.

They must learn a new route in one pass,and some rural routes are many miles apart,requiring many twists and turns.

I have had mis-routed mail,and it has always been a substitute carrier.

"Ignorance consists not of what one does not know,but what one knows that just isn't so." -Abe Lincoln

Check your information sources to defend your statement.

Have you even been inside of a modern postal sorting facility?

Ever seen the machines they used in the 1970's?

A friend of mine,now in his 80's was there for 40 years,and saw it all.

He has photos of the old machines and the operators keying at 12 consoles.

And they did run at one letter per second,per console,and they had to input the zip code from memory.

Tis better to say nothing than to reveal one's own ignorance by accusing another of the same fault without facts.

Here is a link to some of the 1960-1970's MPLSM machines.

The early models only sorted 30,000 letters per minute,the later ones sorted 40,000 letters per minute.

https://postalmuseum.si.edu/systemsatwork/1968.html

And here is another one,with video.:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/p8sTsfUJAK8?rel=0

CORRECTION:

The early models only sorted 30,000 letters per minute HOUR,the later ones sorted 40,000 letters per minute HOUR per machine.

Here is a link to a more modern sorting system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX16-52bHvg

6 days a week, at about 9:00 AM we get an e-mail with digital images of every piece of mail that will be delivered to our mailbox later that same day. No charge for this.

What? How do you sign up for this big-brother service?

So, the USPS now has a permanent record of you receiving being delivered a letter from Ed McMahon regarding your very likely financial future?

As I consider further, this scan and record technique must already be done on every delivery address whether you requested the email or not, is this so?

What happens if the Mail is stolen? Am I still on the hook?

This is, at first blush, disturbing. Can someone tell me to just go with the flow, have a sip of KoolAde and just trust the gubbumint, please.

Silly goose!

Actually they have a record of the piece being scanned by the OCR that routes it to your local post office.

Just like many most towns have traffic surveillance cameras on major intersections (not photo radar), license plate readers on police cars and the NSA/CIA/FBI/ Soviet KGB/GRU know what you bought yesterday.

If you have Windoze 10, Facebook. instagram, Ad nauseam you already have no secrets.

It'll get progressively worse now that a new regime is in power here.

Informed Delivery | You are now leaving USPS .com.

I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.

"... It'll get progressively worse now that...."

>>>. "... the " regime " that is now not in power, are the progressive ones ..."

.

Substitution using antonyms of 'progressive' doesn't really improve the outlook. Consider:

"... It'll get strictly worse now that...."

"... It'll get retardedly worse now that...."

"... It'll get dogmatically worse now that...."

"... It'll get stodgily worse now that...."

"... It'll get bigotedly worse now that...."

"... It'll get reactionarily worse now that...."

"... It'll get rigidly worse now that...."

It is even worse than you can imagine:

The ID Code,which is the orange fluorescent code on the back of the envelope tracks every image to it's final address.

The ID code records the machine number that processed it, month,day,time,and sequential mail piece.

All images are lifted and processed by computers,and non-readable images are sent to a central processing center where operators key-what-they see,with no zip code memorization required.They have whatever time it takes to process the letter.

However,they must achieve a standard number of letters per hour or face retraining at a lower rate of pay.

The info that they enter is processed by another computer,and the data is bound to the letter image data and sent back to the plant for second pass processing.

The images are deleted after 30 days....or are they?

Could they be stored forever in a giant data base that could be searched by name,address,etc?Or

Or a relational data base that could trace connections between any two people or group of people on the planet?

Can they read through envelopes layer by layer with laser without opening the letter?

The technology is available,and the question is:Are they using it yet?If not,you can bet that it is coming soon to a postal facility near you.

A little paranoia

Is good for ya'

It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you!

My girlfriend works there,

USPS is really pushing for automation, along with that are also problems.

Another item, the USPS it's technically not an government agency, and yet it is. There is a lot of confusion with this.

The only way the USPS can raise the price of a postage stamp is through an act of congress.

When you hear that the USPS service is losing money, that's is not really true. It actually is a profitable organization, if you can keep the politicians hands out of it.

I don't agree with the union organizational inefficiency, with the use of its employee resources. As an example, to cut costs the USPS will offer an cash buy-out to employees eligible some to retire early. Basically to get rid of the high priced seniority. What this does, people that were going to retire anyways, will sign up for it, and extend their employment and stay on for another 6 months to cash in.

Some interesting things about the automation of the USPS.

The USPS started a program about 2-3 years ago where they did a test where they will take a picture of every letter and with OCR, and if you what to know where it is, you could search for it if you know the address, they will tell you where its at... almost a tracking system.

An off shoot of that, you can know what's coming in the mail by signing up to have the USPS email what you'll be receiving with a picture of each letter, (they don't do packages yet, but they will let you know your getting a package).

This is great, if you expecting a important letter, and your gone for the day, you can manage you mail better and let someone know in your household??? to get the mail. (Also more importantly,... wondering if your get it in the mail today).

here's the link for that.

According to my friend who worked at a processing facility,it had only 2 of the LSM's,sorting 40,00 pieces per hour,required 17 people per machine,and total output per shift was 640,000 pieces.

10 Years later, the output was 40,00 pieces per hour and only required 2 people to run it,and 1 supervisor for all of the machines.

They had 15 machines when he retired,and less than 1/5 of the number of former employees.

So now they could run 600,000X8hours =4,800,000 pieces per 8 hour shift at less cost than they had been running .

How can they be losing money?

Gross mismanagement,politics,who really knows?

IMHO,it is propaganda fueled by certain businesses that want to get their hands on first class mail.

If they privatize,the low hanging fruit will be picked;places with high populations densities,and the suburbs and country customers will suffer.

The less populated areas will be contracted out to the lowest bidder,and mail will be delivered by the Avon lady or the Fuller Brush company salesman,or even Uber drivers(a real possibility).

No sanctity of first class mail, no postal inspectors,no way to know if your mail has been opened.

Once privatization becomes a done deal,there will be no turning back.

There will much B+G about the deliveries,and those who complain the most now will be the first to wish it was back the way it was.

Semantics,semantics,semantics.

When a person has nothing pertinent to add to the conversation,they revert to semantics.

My grandpa used to say." When you throw a rock into a pack of dogs,the one you hit will be the one that hollers"