Unfettered Letters

Slipping service at post office

I agree wholeheartedly with C.W. Gusewelle on the declining service at the post office (3/8, Local, “Service shouldn’t slip with the higher cost of a stamp”).
I, too, stood in line for 30 minutes to mail a package at a local branch and was appalled at the level of service. There was only one person working at the time, and while she tried to deal with all of us, another woman was walking slowly from one end of the room to the other, ignoring us. The message was, “We don’t care how long you wait or how frustrated you become.”
I decided then to go to UPS or FedEx to send my packages. If the post office doesn’t want our business, they need to realize there are others out there who do. And in this time of high unemployment, can the post office not select workers who are energetic and willing to serve the customers?
It is no wonder that our mailboxes are full of junk mail and catalogs as we all turn to the computer for more timely, less frustrating communications with our friends and family.
Elizabeth Innis Barnes
Kansas City

Billing statements slow to arrive

There should be a movement in the legislature to require health-insurance and credit-card companies to have postal cancellation marks on their statement envelopes.

I have had several instances where I received the payment statements two or three days before the due date. When I called the respective companies, all their telephone operators could do was parrot that their billing-statement cycle indicated it was sent 10 to 12 days previously, which is not the same as it being actually placed in the mail. It does not take seven or eight days for a statement to arrive in Kansas City from a billing center in St. Louis.

Further, the name of the billing company should be on the envelope in case of a dispute over late fees or whatever.

H. Jonathan Pratt
Kansas City

Don’t cut back mail delivery

Harry Poynter (11/23, Letters), suggests that the U.S. Postal Service cut back mail delivery to three days a week. Are you serious? There’s nothing that we need on a daily basis? What about those millions of people who rely on their Social Security check to make ends meet every month, or those for whom that is their only income? These checks are delivered on the first and third of each month. What if those days fall on a Tuesday or a Thursday? Will those people have to go hungry because the mail didn’t come that day? And with the shortage of letter carriers nationwide, it’s likely that the mail won’t be there until after the banks have closed anyway.

You may think of the Postal Service as delivering only “junk mail,” but in reality it delivers everything under the sun. I hope that you think about that the next time you receive anything of value on a Tuesday or Thursday, whether it be any kind of check, a greeting card from a loved one or perhaps a medication that you need to remain healthy. Be careful what you wish for.

Bill Bracken
Platte City

How about 7-day-a-week mail?

Harry Poynter (11/23, Letters, “How about 3-day-a-week mail?”) may not receive any valuable mail every day, but some do.

I, for one, require mail six days per week and would like to see it go to seven days per week. I think most people would rather not have mail only three days per week. This is not the department to cut back on.

So either leave the mail alone or expand it to seven days per week.

Dave Bigard

Blue Springs

How about 3-day-a-week mail?

The “Go to five-day mail delivery” letter (11/17) by Barry Johnson is correct, but it needs some extension.

We have a new president whose administration stands for change. Let us join in that effort by proposing real change, change that you and I can live with, change that benefits the environment, change that lowers the expenditure of our tax dollars. It just requires each of us to quit saying “That’s not how we have been doing it” and ask ourselves “How should we be doing it?”

Let’s try Monday, Wednesday and Friday mail delivery. Is there really anything that we need on a daily basis? Do the same with local post offices. Businesses may object, but they generally use FedEx or UPS for fast service.

Harry Poynter
Warrensburg, Mo.

Go to five-day mail delivery

I hear the U.S. Postal Service is contemplating layoffs. They are basing this on lower

revenues due to factors such as high fuel costs and lower mail volumes.

Well, I have an idea that could save them some money real quick: Go to five-day delivery.

They have already said they don’t have the mail volume they used to, so handling the mail

shouldn’t be a problem.

Also, in the age of going green, think of the fuel and energy that would be saved by running

routes only five days a week and keeping offices closed an extra day.
With the money they save, maybe they could keep a few more people working, and that would

help the economy.

Barry Johnson

Kansas City

Thank you, post office

I have an amazing thing to share, and kudos go to the Shawnee Mission main post office.

A few weeks ago I got a call from Orlando Woods, employee of the Shawnee Mission Post Office, telling me that he had something he thought was mine. I went out the next morning to pick it up, and it was a check from my brother in New Jersey.

The amazing thing was that it was dated March 13, 2005. It was not in an envelope, so he had to go to the phone book and find me. He said a carrier brought it in. I live in Wyandotte County, so that adds to the mix.

Anyway I wanted to share this and reaffirm that there are honest people out there doing their job and going beyond.

Kathy Cross
Kansas City, Kan.

Mail delivery issues

A few weeks ago The Star printed a story about problems with mail delivery and possible solutions.

I would have no problem with reducing frequency of delivery, such as Monday, Wednesday and Friday only.

Regarding cluster mailboxes, some wrote to say that it was nice to walk and get the mail, since you could get a little exercise and say “hi” to the neighbors. Well, that’s not so good for someone working long hours or with physical handicaps.

We have never had a problem with someone knocking down our mailbox, as one writer said, and do not know anyone who has experienced this.

Another letter writer suggested driving to get the mail, yet this would take gasoline and we are supposed to be conserving.

We live in back of an inclined circle and, when ice and snow come, we couldn’t walk out without risk of falling, hip fracture, etc. To drive out, we would need all-wheel drive, traction control and, again, this would require gasoline.

M. Witt
Kansas City

Postal Service frustrates

The US Postal Service: Too big. Too small. Too square. They don’t want to take it unless it suits them. They’d like to reduce their work week to four days. They don’t want to deliver to your house, just somewhere close. Recipients can hobble down to a cluster box on some distant corner — in rain, in snow, in gloom of night.

E-mail is stealing their business, so they remove convenient drop boxes. Call your local post office? Sorry, the phone book only gives an 800 number. Support their hard-working employees? They’d rather contract out their work.

The problem, it appears, is that the Postal Service is being run by people who simply don’t want to be in the mail-delivery business. Oh, they like their salaries, but the mail? It just keeps getting in their way. Luckily, the solution is simple. Put the job in the hands of someone who actually wants it. Someone who’ll work harder at figuring ways to deliver the mail than at ways not to deliver it. Maybe then the oxymoron “Postal Service” can be laid to rest. Perhaps someone who actually wants the job may find a way to serve the customers. 

Steven Pierce
Kansas City

Cluster mailboxes

Concerning "cluster mailboxes," I found many benefits to having a group mailbox when I lived in Olathe. No one could steal my mail, since a key was required. When I received a package that wouldn't fit in my mailbox, it was left in a larger, locked one, and not on my doorstep for someone to steal or at the mercy of the weather.

Mary Ann Grodowitz
De Soto