Better it be privatized than have no mail service at all.
I was unemployed for 7 months after separating from the military. USPS was hiring at $16 an hour in my area to deliver mail working full time and you had to use your own vehicle since our area is considered rural (thankfully it looks like our office finally got an old nissan pathfinder for deliveries). Sadly, I would’ve made more on unemployment after taxes were taken out than working full time with the USPS delivering mail in my own vehicle. I ended up getting a position with the FAA making $8 over that an hour as an administrator. The USPS already has cut services and apparently pays their workers pretty low wages as it is. Privatizing it may honestly not change the structure or the pay of the USPS much, other than make people upset it was privatized. If it was something that the current administration was worried about it would have been put at the forefront of internal things to address as a mail system is important. A secondary thing to think of is money. Privatization does put money in someone’s pocket. If the current administration is not addressing these issues everyone says we are having- who currently in office would be benefitting from privatizing the mail system? How do the vast majority of politicians become millionaires by serving the people? -okay, my thought spewing is over.
I’m thinking one way to reduce the chances of expired cards is increase the travel time allowed for postcards. It won’t take longer than it already is, but it gives the cards a chance to make it to their destinations before expiring. This would work especially well around the holidays when mail tends to slow internationally due to an influx of travelling mail.
I have the opposite problem, actually. Cards I send abroad are arriving eventually (most even in 30-60 days), but for the last month I got none postcards myself and suspected that my mail carrier abandoned me lol… Now I have 46 send and only 27 received which is very frustrating.
We’ve been experiencing extremely long travel times and/or the cards not getting delivered at all. We’ve started sending a 2nd card at the 60 day mark, a 3rd at the 100 day mark.
Typically, one of the three will make it, or, sometimes, the second will arrive, then the third, then the first. We’re not sure why.
We do know re-sending them is not a requirement of Postcrossing, but perhaps if yours are not arriving or are taking too long, perhaps sending again will fix your issue?
The answer isn’t to send multiple cards but to improve postal services.
I’ve occasionally sent a 2nd card to a place like Germany, but otherwise, I accept they are lost & move on. It’s part of the process of Postcrossing that we have to live with our postal systems as they are - imperfect systems.
You should know that rural postal service workers are the least paid in many countries & often not unionized. Pay is much better in urban settings & usually unionized but again those are political decisions made by elected leaders & administrators not to provide equal service & well paid jobs to rural residents which is unfair.
We are 30 minutes out of Denver. $16 an hour before taxes is not a livable wage in this area regardless if they’re considered rural or not. Someone shouldn’t have to live in an urban area to make a livable wage. Again, privatizing isn’t going to change much in regard to current pay especially when leaders that were elected to better things don’t. Seems like even though it’s not privatized now, in reality it’s privatized by those elected leaders and administrators that make those decisions as they seem to have the only say in wages, services, etc. The only difference is, we currently don’t see the person/people/group that benefits. People are still losing out. It’s all one big scam.
I think this has been suggested before, but what would this help? (I’m asking seriously, because I don’t understand.)
Now, when the card expires, you can send a new one, which many members want to do, especially in the beginning when they only have few slots. If the travel time before expiration would be changed to longer, they should wait longer to send a card, right?
If the card is expired, and registered after that, it’s just a normal card, and is seen as your sent cards. The travel time is allowed to be one year. Majority of cards arrived in that time.
The card being expired doesn’t mean it’s forever lost or could not be registered anymore.
@Seracker - I was going to suggest the same thing!
Some highlights:
6:00 minute mark - 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act
8:15 - Privatization
8:30 - Privatization hurts rural populations
10:00 - Privatization hurts businesses
11:30 - TFG and DeJoy
14:40 - Some possible solutions (including flexibility of services like Postal Banking)
As far as other ideas proposed here: Postcrossing already keeps track of how many cards are expiring to and from countries. If things get too bad with the US we will see some action like has happened with other countries when postal connections aren’t working. Like we have recently seen with cards to China: Temporary mail suspension to China
If you read that very long thread, you can see that people proposed increasing travel time, but that doesn’t really help matters when a postal system is not functioning properly.
One of the things you might consider is sending your cards in envelopes. If I’m sending to a country that has inconsistent delivery, I do that sometimes because an envelope is a more sturdy item in getting through the postal sorting machines.
I honestly think what it could do is reduce the strain on the USPS by increasing travel times. Yes, some people want to send more cards out, but adding more mail adds more work and more strain. I don’t think suspending Postcrossing mail to the US in general will relieve anything. Increasing travel time will put less strain on the system and it will also reduce the chances of Postcrossing suspending mail to the US. More postcards would be moving internally to its destination from US to US addresses as well. I honestly don’t think it will solve anything other than decrease frustrated members who don’t have patience.
Are you saying Postcrossing mail is that big part of mail in US, that cards sent after 60 days new slot will cause more strain, so that it’s notisable? (Not all of these go to USAn members, so it can be from FI to DE, not adding anything to USPS.)
Is there a real chance in current situation, that Postcrossing would suspend US?
Patience to do what?
Wouldn’t it increase the amount of frustrated members who don’t get he free slot after 60 days?
What are you suggesting would be the expired travel time?
I don’t really agree with some of the highlights from the video.
Currently, the USPS is underpaying people in rural areas as it is- the job I applied for was paying $16 an hour before taxes and you needed to use your own vehicle to deliver mail at the time. This is 30 minutes east of Denver. McDonald’s right down the street is hiring starting at $18 an hour.
I had a small business that I shut down because I couldn’t afford to keep it when covid hit. Prior to- the USPS was hurting my small business. People didn’t want to pay the shipping costs which was reducing sales. I had someone buy from my business who lived in Finland. The item was so small it fit into a ring box in a small bubble envelope. As crazy as it sounds, shipping was $82. The item purchased was $80. I shipped it because I felt bad when she was upset the international shipping fee I charged initially wouldn’t cover. I didn’t even make a cent in profit; I lost close to $120 because of what the item was and shipping I paid out of pocket. Because of that I no longer shipped to anywhere but the US.
I personally think if the travel time is increased, we have a reduced chance of a temporary mail suspension. As soon as a card is expired, people are sending another one somewhere else which adds another piece of mail into the system. Simply suspending mail to the US won’t fix an internal issue other than having the cards catch up…The issue will just happen again. I send quite a few cards to the US and haven’t personally had any delays. Even with cards I am receiving, the travel times have been quite reasonable with little to no delay. The biggest delay I am seeing are with cards going to Germany. I sent 5 to Germany on world postcard day, and 4 are still showing as expired. I’m wondering if the issues we are seeing are because of the holidays? Typically travel times are always increased around this time of the year.
It seems like people think Postcrossing is so big in the US that it might need a suspension to catch up if you read the other comments. So my theory is if we start small by increasing the travel time, it may ease some of the strain. Not necessarily a lot, but a little goes a long way.
Patience of waiting to receive their cards. It is snail mail.
If people get so frustrated because they don’t have a free slot to send out a card maybe they shouldn’t be doing this? The delivery time isn’t instant. Technically speaking, they could just do a swap with someone if they want to send out a card that bad.
I’m not proposing a ton of time be added to travel time, maybe 10-20 days. I have sent over 400 postcards and out of my 25 expired cards which is 6% of the total I have sent, only 0.48% of the expired cards have been to the US which is what seems to be the issue other people are talking about above.
Where? I only see @Izzy2018 thinking about suggesting it.
Now:
x sends card, it expires after 60 days. x gets new slot. original card can be still be registered.
Your suggestion (?):
x sends card, it expires after 70-80 days, x gets new slot, original card can still be registered.
And you think this reduces the amount of frustrated members who wait their mail how? The mail doesn’t turn faster.
What…?
I meant, if they need to wait more to get free slot, they could be frustrated. I thought you saw it as a positive effect when your suggestion (?) would lessen the amount of some frustrated members (who wait their cards), so why is other frustrated better, I don’t know.
Can’t this negative thought be towards to the ones who wait too…if they get frustrated in waiting, why do this. But, I think people are frustrated with all hobbies at some point and to me it doesn’t mean to stop it.
Also I don’t see “other people” talking having an issue, maybe the travel times are longer than sometimes, but I looked at few USAn profiles, cards to them seem to arrive in 2-4 weeks, so increasing the travel time before expiring wouldn’t affect many cards.
My opinion:
I don’t see it happening that travel time before expiration would be increased.
I don’t see Postcrossing is suspending US with this current situation.
All is good, only slower at some parts?
(I’m thinking did you read the China-related thread and thought it’s about US or what am I missing maybe there appeared some messages here and for some reason they didn’t come as unread to me…? I did try to look again.)
Never mind, I feel like I’ve explained the same thing twice.
All I was doing was offering an alternative to postcrossing suspending mail to the US by reducing the amount of mail jammed up in the system with increasing travel time.
Here are my recent cards, which don’t seem so unusual to me to say that all hope is lost because of USPS. The 55 day Finland card had been misdelivered by USPS, possibly more than once because of a faulty barcode, but it didn’t expire. The recipient of my 56 day outgoing domestic card admitted she had misplaced it after arriving on time.
Right now, I have had three expired cards out of 140 sent via USPS: one to a Russian ghost crosser just as service there was shut off, but before Postcrossing could stop the address; one to Portugal, where I resent the card, with the second promptly registered; recently, one to Belgium - cards get lost. The other 137/140 have gone through in time.
I understand that others have had different experiences, but mine is equally valid. It’s my opinion that this thread has become a forum for political opinions.
This is off topic, but there are already privatized shipping companies in the US that ship internationally. Businesses can use those if they wish, but they tend to be more expensive than the USPS. If you watch the John Oliver segment, Trump (who appointed his friend DeJoy) suggests increasing prices to 4x what the USPS charges for packages now. I’m not sure how that’s better than the $82 you spent to ship USPS to Finland.
maybe there appeared some messages here and for some reason they didn’t come as unread to me…? I did try to look again.)
