It’s easy to take for granted sending or receiving a letter in the mail. If the USPS didn’t have such a high success rate then we wouldn’t have such basic expectations that our letter would arrive unharmed and in a timely matter. Of course, not all of them do…arrive safely and unharmed.
I have heard others state that their mail is slow or unreliable, so maybe I’m just lucky. Or I don’t know what I didn’t get but should have received.
Certainly there is always a story that makes the news about a letter arriving at its destination years after being sent. Most of the time -these days anyway- the news in the letter isn’t monumental or life changing, but there is always the exception. Imagine these letters not being received- death in the family, marriage proposal, job offer, business proposal.
In this case my letter came delivered in a plastic USPS envelope telling me that my letter had been damaged in transit and that they did the best they could to deliver it. It appears that the envelope contained some information that the letter writer had included but that must have been lost in the postal mishap. I’ve informed the sender of what happened and am waiting to her from her on what is missing.
We can complain all we want and listen to the masses wail, “Letter writing is dead. Who needs mail anyway?” But in the end, we’re not quite ready to be free from mail and I, for one, am glad.
Look at what’s going on in Canada with the Canadian Postal strike. A complete shutdown. No mail. It could be us in the US too, as we know something has to change. The inefficient and outdated behemoth that is the USPS needs to reinvent itself. I’m sure this will come with a price.
Yes, the USPS lost $8.5 BILLION in 2010. But do you know how much they made? According to Postal News, they had revenue of $67.1 BILLION (sorry for the caps, but that is a lot of money!) Granted, they can’t continue with this percentage and rate of loss, which is why they’ve made a lot of changes already and will need to continue to make more. Maybe it does need to be privatized. I would imagine they’re looking at all of their options.
I’m still amazed that for the price of a .44 postage stamp we can send a letter across the country to arrive at its destination in less than a week. When you consider all that letters carry with them- the history, the emotion, the tenderness and thought, the care and the potential to brighten someone’s day like few other things can.
3 Responses to Letter Damage
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The USPS is not allowed to make a profit, so, yes, they lost a lot, but they can’t make more than they lose.
Privatizing the USPS is not really something to speak lightly of. Should the USPS go away, the other carriers aren’t going to offer prices anything like the USPS. Goodbye, letters sent for under a dollar, hello letters sent for $20 a pop!
I have many penpals in other countries. They all think we are lucky to have the USPS. My pal in Russia dreams of a mail service that gets you your mail in under 20 days. In writing letters aboard I have learned to be patient. When a letter does arrive from far away lands or near it is held dear and read over and over savorying every word. Like a vapor the words in a phone call fade from memory almost within the hour. I love to return to someones thoughts and hear their words time and again if I chose. I love the USPS…and love the written word.
Katherine
Today I received a postcard that was sent to me from Illinois but had the wrong zip code and was postmarked in Florida. Despite all of that, it arrived in less than ten days from when it was sent. I’m pretty impressed with the service of the USPS. I’m still a little amazed that this little piece of mail managed to find its way to me!