I want to share an experience I recently had dealing with a government option known as the Post Office.
I recently rented 2 mail boxes for a business I’m involved with. One was at my neighborhood UPS store, and the other was at my local post office. Comparing the two experiences helped me to understand why I don’t want the federal government to be in charge of my health care.
When I went to the UPS store to rent a mail box it went like this: I entered the store and was greeted by the girl who works there. I’ve been there many times and she knows my name and I know her name and she always greets me as a friend, talks to my five year old, and asks about my business. I told her that I needed to rent a box and she pulled a form out from under the counter and asked me a few questions. She filled the form out for me, took a look at my I.D., and then handed me the form to sign. I needed 2 keys for the box, which she didn’t have. She asked if I’d like to wait while she made the keys or if I’d like to pick them up on my next visit. I didn’t really need to have the keys at that moment, and there were other customers to be helped so I chose the latter. I was in an out in about five minutes.
The Post Office is an entirely different story, and unlike my visit I’ll make it brief. I went in and had to wait in a very long line. I’m in there pretty often and it’s normal. When I was called up to the counter, the postal worker looked and acted irritated to even have to deal with me. When I told him I wanted to rent a P.O. Box, he wanted to see two forms of identification, then grilled me until he was sure that I lived in the zip code and was not going to be sharing the box with anyone other than my wife. He also had to know exactly why I needed the box and what I’d be using it for.
Then he gave me a form, spent about a minute telling me how to fill it out (my name, address and phone number) and told me to fill it out and get back in line. I spent 20 seconds filling out the form and then waited in line for about seven or eight minutes until I got back to the counter. I got the same bitter looking guy.
He wanted to see my two forms of ID again and did nothing with them other than make sure they matched what I had written on the form. After charging me the fee for the box and handing me a receipt he went to get the keys.
Turns out the box he’s rented me was already rented. This prompted a 30 minute ordeal involving a partial refund via money order, then another refund for the balance that he had to call another post office to figure out how to do. Then I had a different box and he went off to get the keys. It took him longer to go back and grab my keys than my entire visit to the UPS store had lasted. I don’t know if he stopped to use the bathroom, or had lunch or what. When he was done he handed me my keys, gave a vague gesture toward where the P.O. Boxes were, and called out “NEXT!”.
No acknowledgement of the problem, no apology for having taken so long. Just “NEXT!”. He didn’t even tell me what my box number was. It was on the receipt though, so I didn’t have to bother him again. I was in the post office for about an hour to get this done. The postal worker who “helped” me was sour, surly, and didn’t seem to see me as anything more than a problem to be dealt with before moving on to the next one.
In the world of mail and package delivery, this is our “public option”. Thank God there actually are other options besides the public one.
On the delivery end of things, when I greet my postman he kind of grunts when I say “Thank you.” When there is a package delivery, the postman puts it in front of my door in plain sight of the street and walks away.
By contrast, when the UPS guy comes, he always gives a short honk as he pulls up, is friendly if I meet him at the door or the curb, and if I don’t meet him, he puts the package behind a bush where it’s not visible from the street, and he always rings the doorbell.
So when our so-called representatives in Washington talk about a “public option” for health care, I cringe because I know the post office is a public option for mail and package delivery and I know that it sucks. When they talk about a public option for health care, they don’t really want us to have any other option than the government one. Not only does the public option suck, but it’s really not optional at all.
UPDATE: Even the post office doesn’t trust mail to the post office.
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And to think, the USPS is still ONLY a quasi-government entity! One tied directly to the government at every turn could be much worse.
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You left out one part. When the USPS does poorly and encourages people to stop using them, they do not go out of business, they get more tax dollars to stay open and remain inefficient. I am reminded of Russia, after the fall of the USSR, when people trained to work at McDonald’s had to be taught how to be friendly and smile while working in a private customer service industry. I wonder how other services would operate without the incentive of profit?
I also noticed that government jobs which “serve” the people, are the only jobs without some kind of dorky mission statement talking about how they value customers.
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I didn’t even go into package tracking, what happens if your package is damaged, or what happens if an employee acts like an asshole toward customers. In the Post Office, they don’t track your stuff. I don’t know what would happen if they broke the stuff in your package, but I have a feeling it would be a load of paperwork and a less than peachy outcome. And the postal employees are pretty much all surly dickheads (at least around here) and they have no fear of losing their job.
Across the street from the Post Office at the UPS store, they give me a tracking number every time. If my stuff gets broken they make it right. And they’re nice to customers. If someone who works at the UPS store is a douchebag, they’re going to get fired. Chances are, they’re not going to hire a jerk anyway because it’s really a customer service business.
I had a doctor when we first moved here to Phoenix that I wasn’t happy with. She was nice, but I didn’t feel like she was really paying attention on the rare occasion when I went to see her. So I got another doctor and I’m happy.
Every year, we have the option to change our insurance plan through my wife’s work if we want to. If we were really unhappy with it, we could shop for our own insurance. Yes, it would be more expensive, but we at least have the option and the insurance companies know that. Insurance companies spend a lot of time and energy to win and keep customers because that’s the only way they stay in business and make money for the shareholders. When you look at the post office, or the DMV, or pretty much any government run office that deals with the public, you’ll find that they don’t give a shit and they don’t have to give a shit. You’re stuck with them.
I don’t want to be stuck with Obamacare.
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Look at the difference between public and private school, public and private housing, public and private roads, public and private rail roads. I just wish there was a private version of the dept of motor vehicles!
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This is an excellent microcosm. All government programs are just new names for the post office.
I earlier this year had a horrible experience at the Social Security office. I got into the elevator on the ground floor, pressed 3 and was surprised to see that I had literally ascended into hell.
It was a large, bland, square room with folding chairs strewn about the center of it. There was a strange machine to the left of the elevator, a table with some papers strewn about it. The front of the room was lined with thick bullet proof glass, with circles cut out for intercoms that only emitted guttural hisses of garbled english – commands being barked by bitter, middle aged and over weight government employees.
I went to the machine, which was fashioned like an arcade game, it assigned me a number.. That was the only function of this five foot -nine inch by three foot monstrosity. I sat down awkwardly beside a grown man and what appeared to be his mother. As I looked around warily he asked me why I was there, “I lost my card.” “Oh, you’ll have to fill these forms out..” The office hadn’t been kind enough to post instructions on the walls with what to pertaining to your visit, luckily this man was. I would have been incredibly pissed if I had waited an hour to make it to the window only to be turned away to fill out a form and then be made to wait again.
There are constructive and more frivolous ways to address the grievances you have with your government. From calling your local congressmen, to organizing protests to playing a game. I found this novelty today, a military strategy. 2011: Obama’s Coup Fails, http://www.usofearth.com/2011-obamas-coup-fails.php
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