I'd like to thank the president for giving me the opportunity to go on a little rant reminding everyone that the US Postal Service is a fricking marvel, and people's complaints about it are largely bogus. Strap in... /1
They will come to your house, take a letter you wrote, transport it thousands of miles over land and air and water if necessary, and deliver it to the door of your recipient, in just a few days. /2
And how much do they charge for this amazing service? Fifty dollars? A hundred dollars? Nope. Forty-nine goddamn cents. /3
They do it 500 million times a day (not counting Sundays and holidays). They handle just under half of all the mail in the world. And unlike UPS or FedEx who get to choose their customers, the USPS is required by law to deliver to every American, no matter how far-flung. /4
They have to maintain post offices where they aren't profitable (over 30,000 of them), and they have to prepay retiree health and pension costs, which no private company or gov't agency has to do, because Congress mandates it. /5
So yeah, the postal service loses money. But it also provides an invaluable service to every American. Nobody asks why the Defense Department isn't turning a profit. /6
"I had to wait on line for 20 minutes to mail a package!" you whine. Yeah, it happens. But every time I've had to wait on line at the PO, it was because of the CUSTOMERS. /7
"Oh, I can't just mail this blanket to my mom? I actually need to put it in a box? And I need the correct address? And I can't just give you this jar of pennies as payment, without counting them?" People are idiots. /8
The post office isn't perfect; neither is any government agency or private company. But they do a pretty incredible job, for which they charge you next to nothing. Appreciate it. /end
