Is it any surprise that the United States Postal Service is closing mail processing plants and considering dropping Saturday delivery?
Nope.
When was the last time you sat down, wrote a letter and mailed it? Do you still sit down with a pile of bills each month and handwrite checks and lick stamps?
Let’s face it. Mail is dead.
Technology has pretty much replaced the postal carrier with the introduction of email, text messaging, electronic greeting cards, ebills and electronic banking.
I remember a time in the not-so-distant past when I would get excited as the mailman would walk up the street with his bag of goodies.
Now, I grumble as I open the mailbox and find postcards, coupon books, lingerie catalogs and the “official” looking junk mailings that swiftly make their way into the garbage can before being hauled out to the curb to spend eternity in a landfill.
God speed, Mr. Pitney. Nice to have known you Mr. Bowes.
I have a friend in the business of leasing postage meters.
He’s on Prozac now.
Once the staple of every office, the lowly meter has been replaced with PC postage that prints out on a $69 label printer. I remember signing a lease a few years ago for a new mailing machine that is several hundred dollars a month. Now that invoices are sent electronically, the machine sits idle and someone in accounts payable curses me every month.
My friend, the meter guy, calls occasionally wondering if we’re ready for a new machine.
I’m nice, but not that nice. Or stupid.
It won’t be long before the mail carrier will go the way of the typewriter, phonograph, CD player and Cher. Until then, smile when he hands you the mail, give him a tip on Christmas and don’t make fun of his polyester pants.