Congress ultimate week began hearings approximately whether or not to discontinue Saturday mail shipping, close local branches and different measures to try and stability the postal service’s price range. at the national news closing night time became a tale approximately how a small city in Maine fought to preserve its lone street mailbox. I say determined instances name for an awful lot bigger measures, and my inspiration is to sell the complete USPS outfit to Netflix, lock, stock, and … well, you don’t need to say positive words around postal employees – at least until they end up Netflix staffers. more on that during a moment.
It is not thus far-fetched while you begin to reflect onconsideration on the possibilities. after all, Netflix is maintaining the USPS afloat with extra mailings of DVDs than McDonalds sells burgers. they’ve more than 50 distribution centers across the country, they all in places which might be greater secret than Dick Cheney’s bunker. They surely recognize how to run a distribution network, they have got the equipment and the personnel. Plus, something that might heat the cockles of my Republican spouse’s heart, I cannot trust that i’m saying this but having a clearly non-public mail provider would possibly clearly deliver a few financial feel to our mail gadget. How would this appearance? right here are my hints: First all, all mail might be one size and ought to be despatched in the ones familiar crimson mailers. that would imply that some thing large would ought to use some different carrier, which include Fedex or UPS. global mail? equal thing. Magazines? properly, that is hard for an vintage magazine editor like myself, but they’ll should change to the Netflix shape component if they nonetheless need to be mailed. direct mail? equal deal.
Standardization is prime. No extra put up playing cards. If it would not match in a mailer, you cannot mail it. subsequent, we remove potage stamps. because we all could be the use of the usual mailers, we’ve popular postage. You purchase the mailer and pay for the postage right then and there. neglect about metering based totally on weight: anything you may cram into one of these envelopes is what you get to send. This obviates the want to run nearby submit workplaces: in case you want to mail something larger, you may pass on down to Kinkos or the local u.s.keep. They give better customer service there anyway. No more postage meters, however Pitney Bowes has been on the decline for years besides. And even as we are at, we need to dispose of business delivery of postal mail. do not need it. You need to ship some thing, use one of the different personal vendors and get it there overnight. I take into account a funny tale a few years ago, whilst i used to be doing some paintings for a publishing firm and mailed in my signed settlement. My editor saved saying that he never obtained the contract, due to the fact he by no means thought to invite in which his real postal mailbox changed into – there has been little factor due to the fact he never were given anything via USPS that he cared approximately. The most effective thing that i am getting these days are checks, and we’d as well pass towards electronic bills anyway.
a number of my clients now do direct deposit to my bank account, and that i wish greater did. Netflix is a great preference to run the USPS for a further cause: it has an amazing worker base. You couldn’t pick something that was extra the polar contrary of the feather-bedded, anti-consumer orientated, especially unmotivated, hyper regulated Postal Uniforms if you attempted. How so? there’s no vacation or hourly time card monitoring policy at Netflix. there is additionally no exact uniforms or other dress code policy there but nobody has come to paintings naked currently. Their complete T&E coverage is “Act in Netflix’s nice hobbies” and no longer a lot extra than that. I think that says lots approximately how a whole lot a organization can believe its employees, not like many firms that make you take extraordinary flights to store some dollars that devour hours of some time, or jigger your cost document so you can get almost reimbursed to your real out-of-pocket fees. The lesson is that you don’t need particular policies for the entirety.