Musings

You some times hear the mantra that the Postal Service needs to be privatized. They claim that it will be better organized and cutomers will get better service at a better price. That sounds really good. You'd think they'd hurry to do this if customers will get better service at a better price.

But in the real world, theories don't always hold water. Take for instance the Fedex Smart Post. That's a nice name but how does it compare to the USPS Priority Service? Well on November 3rd, I sent my girlfriend a package by Priotity mail at the cost of $11. It was delivered on November 5th. I was pretty pleased with that service.

On November 8th I bought my girlfriend three things and they shipped directly from stores on the 9th. One sent USPS and the others sent FedEx smart post. The USPS delivered on the 14th and I know she likes the contents of the package. Federal Express smartpost is still getting it there. One's in Utah and the other's in Denver on the 15th. That's 6 days and counting.

And they aren't scheduled to be delivered until the 19th..

I don't know. I'm not seeing that better organzation nor am I seeing the better better service at a better price.

Why? Because I care about delivery time more then anything else. The USPS is beating them by a mile.

Another issue is with service. The USPS delivers a lot of mail and sometimes it ends up in the wrong box. That's the nature of the beast. However, I've never received or had a large package misdelivered by the USPS. In contrast, we had a Dell Desktop computer a few years ago delivered to the neighbors by UPS. And they tried to deliver it to the neighbors for three days before the neighbors were home. They kept telling us they attempted delivery on the website and we never saw them... Finally our neighbors let us know they have our computer... And it was addressed appropriately.

Another package sent by Federal Express was our directv receiver. It was shipped by Directv and then was sent out for delivery for several days before it finally was actually delivered. Why wasn't it delivered? Because the federal express driver was quitting and he wasn't making deliveries. He was simply driving around...

I'm simply not seeing the benefits of privatizing the USPS.