Boston - The Postal Service is considering closing more than 1 in 10 of its retail outlets. The financially troubled agency announced Tuesday that it will study 3,653 local offices, branches and stations for possible closing. But many of those may be replaced by what the service is calling Village Post Offices in which postal services are offered in local stores, libraries or government offices. "It's no secret that the Postal Service is looking to change the way we do a lot of things," Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said at a briefing. "We do feel that we are still relevant to the American public and the economy, but we have to make some tough choices." Currently the post office operates 31,871 retail outlets across the country, down from 38,000 a decade ago, but in recent years business has declined sharply as first-class mail moved to the Internet. In addition, the recession resulted in a decline in advertising mail, and the agency lost $8 billion last year.
You’d think after seeing the outpouring of grief and lament on twitter after these closures were announced that the City had just announced the closing of 10% of its Dunks locations…At least then the whining would have made sense, I mean everyone uses dunks, no one (or no one that has a handle on twitter) uses the post office more than 2-3 times per year, max. But you’d think from reading all the commentary that business is booming and they should be opening locations, not closing them.
I’m willing to bet when the average person thinks of the mail, they think of three things: Junk mail/credit card offers, cards from grandma’s, and Bed Bath & Beyond coupons…That’s it. Sure some people still get bills via mail, but really if you’re under the age of 50 and not paying bills online you’re just wasting time.
What exactly are we supposed to be sad about here? A failing business shuttering its doors? Sure I could see maybe feeling sad if that business had been a big part of the community, or defined a neighborhood in some way…but this is the post office. No one has sentimental feelings for the post office, in fact, most people hate their post office experience. Furthermore, this is a business that has cost tax payers literally billions of dollars over the past few years. Frankly, you should be glad to have these offices off your payroll.
