LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The postman always rings twice, eventually
By BLAST BY SETH BARNES (Seth Barnes barnes-)
When I moved to Los Angeles from the East Coast last summer, I knew the transition wouldn’t be easy. I was leaving a lot of family and friends behind. The day I moved into my new apartment I made a promise: I would be vigilant — possibly to the point of being annoying — about staying in touch.
So how’s it going? Well, thankfully, I haven’t depended on the United States Postal Service to keep my lines of communications open. On the Westside, it has become an accepted fact that the postal service is completely incompetent and untrustworthy when it comes to delivering mail on time. It’s a way of life. At this point, I’m better off stuffing my homeward-bound mail into a soda bottle and tossing it into the Pacific. Maybe it would float through the Panama Canal and up the Gulf of Mexico towards the Eastern seaboard. Perhaps some beachgoer would stumble upon the package and deliver it to its final destination.
As has been reported in this newspaper, the postal service has acknowledged sporadic delays in the area and attributes the problem to the shutdown of a major distribution facility and layoffs. The USPS may have their back against a wall, but a report in the Los Angeles Times several months ago indicates that the carriers are still giving it their all. The story described a startled resident who discovered a burglar rattling around on their porch well after 10 p.m. Except, well, it wasn’t a burglar — it was the mailman making his belated rounds.
Undoubtedly, the local USPS faces obstacles that it isn’t directly responsible for. When it comes to funding and technology it’s a step behind its for-profit brethren. And there’s no doubt that thousands of fine men and women go to work each day giving their all in the name of delivering letters and packages. The fact that you can place an item outside your door and have it (hopefully) end up on the other side of the country for a handful of change is still a marvel of sorts. But I still think it’s a marvel that you can get a newspaper, with dozens and dozens of stories and the day’s news, for 50 cents — or if you’re holding this newspaper, for free. And the newspaper industry isn’t exactly the toast of the economy right now.
It really is about competition. Besides the direct competition the USPS faces from shipping services like UPS and Fed Ex, consumers have a litany of options to communicate with each other that are free or cost mere pennies. Instant messaging, e-mail, Internet phone connections … the list goes on. If the USPS can’t deliver on the most basic level of service, there’s no doubt that the consumers will continue to flow to the more efficient and effective mediums. And those new age options are especially attractive when Valentine’s cards get ripped in half and are delivered to the recipient in a Ziploc bag. This happened to my girlfriend this past February. Nothing says “I love you” like some scattered pieces of pink cardboard neatly tucked into a sandwich baggie.
Even before I moved to Santa Monica, the USPS had it in for me. Last May, we were very lucky to find the perfect apartment online. After talking to the landlord and having a friend scope the place out, I went to the bank and walked out with a certified check. I sent it along with the highest level of security and tracking. I paid to have it delivered as quickly as possible. The check didn’t arrive for over a week and a half after being declared “lost.”
Maybe that should have been a lesson. But then again, there’s a certain rush to sending what is essentially $2,000 in cold hard cash into postal purgatory and having the letter come through on the other side.
Who needs to drive all the way to Vegas when you have that?
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 27, 2006. Read the original PDF.