Neither Rain, Nor Sleet.. But Maybe the Economy

Tuesday evening before going into work to work a little overtime I stopped into the new Dollar Tree located in the plaza at the intersection of Lima and Dupont roads. In this store a conversation was struck up with a postman who was also in there shopping. I don't know his name, never got it; however we were discussing the economy and technology and it's affects on the local post offices. Seems that the mail that goes through the United States Postal services has somewhat deteriorated over the past year. Economy is probably one of the major reasons for this; however, it also has to do with the fact that people are more and more paying their bills on line and having companies email them their bills rather than mail it. It also has to do with new ways that people can stop the junk mail from coming to their homes. The very things we are doing to make our lives a little more pleasant may be putting our postal service workers at risk of unemployment. When the mail is light at your home, your postman doesn't necessarily get as much work as what is required to make the numbers look good somewhere up the working food chain. This of course causes them to rethink "routes" and whether or not all the bodies are needed. From what this postman said they even want to find a way to do away with Saturday delivery, but they have not found a way to do this without upsetting the business that they so desperately need to keep the flow of cash running. As if this isn't enough new technologies of machines that can read our mail and sort it and bundle it are also causing job cuts. And to top it all off.. when the mail loads get light, your stamp costs go up to cover the cost that the post office has. Along with the price of gas going up impacting it as well. I guess that means it's all just one vicious cycle. Either way I have family and friends that work in the postal industry, but rarely talk business with them so I found my conversation with this man enlightening and found myself thinking junk mail can come and I'll just throw it away. Far be it from me to help slow the mail that once was stopped by nothing.