bizarreville

The Post Office, earlier this month, had announced a dismal future outlook for their agency.  Coming off a $3.9 billion loss in 2009, with $10 billion debt on their books, they reported that their old operating paradigm was no longer working.  Even though they had cut 40 thousand employees and planned another 50 thousand in cuts along with drastic scalebacks in retiree health coverage, the future still looks grim.  Unless they change, they could be looking at $238 billion in losses in the next 10 years, Post office officials said.  Earlier they had paid McKinsey & Company $4.8 million to conduct a consulting study to forecast the outlook and suggest a workable scenario.  The big-time consulting company took the money, spent about 14 minutes looking at their books, and gave them a 1-page report saying “You Suck”.

Yesterday, the Post Office finally delivered the news many were expecting.  They are going to totally cease operations.  The venerable Office which was founded over 230 years ago by Ben Franklin has been unable to make a go of it for at least 100 years, but has managed to hold on only through the generosity of the nation’s taxpayers footing the bill.  Officials said that it’s time to fold the tent.

As most know, much of the traditional mail has become obsolete with the advent of electronic mail and information transfer.  Greeting cards can now more effectively be sent to friends and family electronically, and avoid the cumbersome task of going to the gift store to pore through hundeds and hundreds of boring cards, in search of the one card that is least boring.  The only major items being now sent by snail mail are bills and junk mail.  Bill senders have informed their clients that they will be going 100% electronic.  So now, the only issue is the junk mail.

A consortium of waste management companies has banded together to offer a service to continue some form of junk mail delivery.  They reported that junk mail represents about 40% of their trash business by tonnage, and continuing the flow of this volume is critical to their survival.  They have developed some synergies which will help the whole process become more efficient, primarily by placing the junk mail deliveries into a new slot to be added in their customer garbage containers.  By adding this convenient feature, the customer will not even have to read the junk mail, just flip a small lever and the junk will automatically fall right into the canister.  Several large credit card companies have voiced objections to this practice…the consortium has responded that customers can still dig the material out if they wish…but it may be combined with old banana peels, coffee grounds, and dirty diapers…their choice.  

In an olive branch measure, the consortium said that it will consider hiring ex-postal workers to be garbage men, if they can pass the psychological exam.   

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction.  Don’t throw away your 44 cent stamps yet.

The cracker jack Bizarreville Postal Service announced sweeping cost cutting moves in response to their $238 billion projected debt over the next decade.  The strategy will be rolled out in phases over the next 4-5 years to get them from 12-digit deficits down to a manageable 10-digit deficit.  The Postmaster General commented that he has not figured out a way to make money handling/delivering mail, and has suggested they may start delivering pizza if things don’t get better.  Pizza owners quip that a delivered pizza would cost about 38 bucks if the Post Office took charge.

The Post Office will initially start by cutting out Saturday deliveries and Saturday mail pickups to trim $5 billion/year in expenses, and put 49 thousand postal workers on the street.  But within a year or two, they plan to  eliminate Monday and Friday service, then in another two years take it down to just Thursday mail, and to hell with it.  They are considering a new Self-Service concept, whereby customers could just go to the post office and plow through a big pile of mail on the floor to find their stuff…but it’s only at the conceptual stage at this point.

The Office was expecting there to be an outcry about this service cutback, but surveys have shown that citizens could not care less.  Some people surveyed did not even know who the Postal Service was, until it was explained they were the ones who deliver Snail Mail that’s stuffed in that box at the end of their driveway.  “You mean the box that has all the worthless crap mail in it?” asked one surveyed customer, who later remembered getting a birthday card in the box about a year ago.

Supporters point out that the Postal Service is reasonably efficient, given the fact that they are still using a business model honed in the 18th century, and run by a government model honed in the 11th century.  They emphasize that most mail actually makes it to the destination desired, and challenge naysayers to find any other governmental bureaucracy that can get it right over half of the time.

Progressives have proposed bolstering the office with more federal funding, higher stamp prices, and maintaining bloated headcounts with generous wage hikes each year.  “Cuz if they fail, who will deliver our junk mail?” asked a progressive pundit.  “Who?  Fed Ex?  I doubt it.”

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction.