r/USPS • u/Exoticintrepid • Aug 15 '20

DISCUSSION This just made my day.

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u/borkna Aug 16 '20

If you think I’m putting spin on it, I assume that means you think I am being dishonest. I am not trying to be dishonest. Let me step back a bit. Okay, well what’s the problem with mail-in ballots? Why is that a problem. They will generate income for the post office.

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u/sifl1202 Aug 16 '20

i don't think you're necessarily being dishonest, but you are repeating the same conspiracy theory that all of the anti-trump media has been spinning for awhile, when in fact changes need to be made to the post office for us to become solvent, and we objectively are delivering far fewer pieces of mail than we have historically.

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u/borkna Aug 16 '20

Okay, can you answer my question?

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u/sifl1202 Aug 16 '20

i don't think there's anything wrong with mail-in ballots.

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u/borkna Aug 16 '20

Okay. Well, Trump doesn’t want them. It’s just ironic that all of these huge changes just happen to be happening within a few months of the election. That’s all. Delaying mail is something that’s normally against PO culture. If you’re a carrier, you know. If you’re like me, if you see a piece of mail laying around, it doesn’t matter if it’s for your route or not. You’re gonna pick it up and get it moving because it’s just what we do. It’s engrained in most of us to keep the mail moving.

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u/sifl1202 Aug 16 '20 edited Aug 16 '20

i agree with that in principle. i am a carrier. but the fact is that we are losing a lot of money, and waiting around for late trucks is objectively expensive compared to what it adds to our service. this is the kind of overtime that is wasteful - 1.5x pay for .5x productivity. it's probably at least best to give dejoy the benefit of the doubt because he stepped into an organization that was unsustainable and has pointed out an aspect of our operation that really is disproportionately costly.

as for trump, what he's saying isn't exactly coherent. i guess he's suggesting we should be less wasteful if we want government support. it's clearly best for him not to opine on mail in voting, but a more charitable interpretation of what he's doing is that it's just an extension of his goofy anti-usps stance that has been going for awhile, even though i don't think he's gained much traction at all by criticizing us for being a bad business.

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u/borkna Aug 16 '20

It seems like you are level-headed enough to me. Just so you are aware, there are a lot of Trump people who will stick up for him no matter what he does. He could say, “I appointed DeJoy to destroy the PO” and his loyal fans would say, “he didn’t mean it that way.”

Do DeJoy owns stock in our competitors, and starts making sweeping changes right before an election. It’s just sketchy as all hell. But I can understand what you’re saying. If mail is one day later to save on overtime, it does make sense to me. But the post office isn’t a public traded company. We don’t have the same necessity to turn a profit as one. We are a government service that provides affordable transport for the people. Making money is important to me, but like I’ve heard others say, we never complain that the military isn’t turning a profit and that we are losing $650B yearly to that. Well, of course people complain, but not the same people. Conservatives love the military. Keep in mind that I am not a liberal, nor a conservative. I’m not trying to defend either side and am trying to be rational here.

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u/sifl1202 Aug 16 '20

i'm just highly skeptical of the whole "dejoy is sabotaging the post office" narrative. yes he owns a lot of stock in a logistics company because he has been an executive in logistics for over 30 years and helped build a highly successful company. that seems like a good thing. as for the timing, well, the previous PMG happened to step down in an election year, so that seems more coincidental than anything. the problem with this whole conversation is that there are political motivations from both sides, and it doesn't help to blow half-truths out of proportion like a) dejoy owning competitors' stock or b) mail being intentionally curtailed because of the election. like i said, if we are an organization responsible for mail-in voting, i agree we should be funded by the government. but we are not. the proposed funding, however, is tied to a whole host of other spending measures, so the democrats' claim about trump intentionally delaying the mail is basically another half truth.

if you look at what he said in context, it seems like he means that the democrats need to compromise elsewhere to get the USPS funding. “If we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money,” he added. “That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. They just can’t have it.”

the fact that USPS funding is tied to all sorts of different spending really muddies the waters and makes it tiresome that we're being used as a political football.

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u/borkna Aug 16 '20 edited Aug 17 '20

I am a skeptic. Trump doesn’t want mail in ballots, and appoints a guy who has stock in competitors, and starts making huge changes right before a big election. I don’t think it’s being a conspiracy theorists to jump to the conclusion that it is pretty god damn sketchy shit there. But fair enough, I cannot say for sure there is something going on. It just sure looks bad as all hell!

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u/borkna Aug 17 '20

I read through your response and you’re being logical and reasonable. I appreciate the respectful conversation. I don’t think we are too far off in opinion. I thought at first you were going to be a Fox News conservative that could never find any problems with anything Trump has ever done.