Holy crap does USPS suck

[M1IRONMIKE]

St. Joe is like an hour away from here. Seems awfully silly and counterproductive to not at least be able to pull out the local mail from the outgoing pile. I know there's been a lot of emphasis on staff reductions but I would think keeping local mail local would be more cost effective.

i agree but most all processing is automated now so those machines arent available in the places that have closed and it is simply too much mail to process manually. As I said earlier Postal Armageddon is coming and it will get worse.

[IMADreamer]

still no package.

[cardsfantx]

But what about your mail?

[IMADreamer]

I get my mail, bills, and junk usually. Sometimes I get my neighbors mail too.

[pioneer98]

St. Joe is like an hour away from here. Seems awfully silly and counterproductive to not at least be able to pull out the local mail from the outgoing pile. I know there's been a lot of emphasis on staff reductions but I would think keeping local mail local would be more cost effective.

i agree but most all processing is automated now so those machines arent available in the places that have closed and it is simply too much mail to process manually. As I said earlier Postal Armageddon is coming and it will get worse.

It's another instance where we are cutting costs to the bone, and you end up getting what you pay for. This is from April 2012, but it gives you an idea of stamp prices from around the world:

United States: $0.45
Canada: $0.57
Japan: $0.90
Ireland: $0.75
France: $0.82
Australia: $0.55
Germany: $0.75

The only stamps that cost less than the USA's are countries that are small geographically (but not even all of them all are cheaper) or developing countries that have very cheap labor, like China, South Korea, etc.

[IMADreamer]

The package came! It looks like it was run over a few times and maybe sat on. For good measure the mail man just left it sitting out by the mail box in the rain instead of putting it up under my porch. The item is of course broken but it is simple enough I can fix it.

[Diddy]

A coworker of mine lives in St. Joseph and swears that every piece of mail there is routed through KC even if it is addressed to someone across town.

Probably does our local mail use to get sorted off at the post office now it all goes through KC. Next town east of us mail goes through STL. So literally if I mail a letter to my neighbor 100 yards east it'll go to KC, to STL and back before he gets it.