A Sure Thing: No Longer Postal

Time was there were few things as reliable and solid as the post office; they brought it rain, shine, snow, gloom of night -- and for those looking for a lifetime of stability the U.S. Postal Service was the gold standard of getting a job for life.

My, how times have changed.

Across the newsdesk comes this note:

"The Postal Service now projects a loss of more than $6 billion this fiscal year. The losses are the result of dramatic mail volume declines caused primarily by the economic downturn but also reflective of electronic diversion '“ online bill paying and electronic correspondence.

In Fiscal year 2008, these factors resulted in a mail volume decline of 9.5 billion pieces, or 4.5 percent, the largest in Postal history. Projections for this year are no more encouraging; it now appears volume decline for this year may exceed 20 billion pieces. From a peak of 213 billion pieces in 2006, the Postal Service may handle only 180 billion pieces this year.

To improve efficiencies, the Postal Service has offered early retirements, adjusted delivery routes, adjusted Post Office hours of operation, reduced hours of operation in mail processing facilities, suspended new post office construction, consolidated mail processing operations, removed underused blue collection boxes, cut travel budgets, and reduced administrative staffing by 15%, among many actions taken.

Because the options and choices customers have been given to conduct their postal business has increased exponentially '” many of those choices and options do not involve physical post offices '“ the Postal Service is now reviewing its retail network to determine if operations in some branch offices could be consolidated with other offices. Nationally, more than 3,000 stations and branches are being reviewed.

In the greater Akron area, the following offices will be reviewed:

Chapel Hill Station, 2000 Brittain Rd.
Downtown Akron Station, 209 S. Main St.
Maple Valley Station, 1518 Copley Rd.
East Akron Branch, 1763 Goodyear Blvd.

'No determination has been made to close any stations or branch office,' stresses Akron Postmaster Rose Spraggins, 'but we have an obligation to pursue strategies and solutions that will mitigate the impact of the economy and electronic diversion.' Factors such as impact on employees, service standards, cost savings, customer access, environmental impact, real estate values and long-term Post Service needs will be taken into account during the review process, said Spraggins."

Never thought I'd see something like this, but then again I never would have imagined the postal service advertising "if it fits, it ships" in my lifetime. Then again, my lifetime has seen the rise of UPS, FedEx and a host of other delivery services taking away from the people's mail service followed by the explosion of email, texting and other social networking replacing social mail.