US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail" • Hacker News Board

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#11

Post by faitswulff » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #2

> DeJoy instructed USPS employees to leave mail behind if it delayed carriers from their routes I mean, this does make sense. The more time you can spend doing the route itself, instead of waiting or coming back mid-way for whatever couldn’t be sorted in time in the morning is more “lean” efficient. While some mail would take an extra day, it results in more mail delivered per carrier-hour.

It makes sense in isolation except that it’s illegal and leads to delays in delivering or attempting to deliver, say, first class mail.

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#12

Post by prions » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #5

> Trump himself has admitted to wanting to starve the postal service of funds so that mail-in voting will become difficult, as tens of millions of Americans are expected to vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic. This is why I can't help but admire Trump, the fact he remains untouched proves how cunning him and his team are. Either that or how fragile the checks and balances system truly is.

How is anything about his hamfisted (publicly admitted) attempt to disenfranchise voters even close to cunning?

Maybe it’s because his party and half of America is also on board with it?

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#13

Post by rectang » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #8

stingraycharles wrote: post #3

Genuine question: seems like this is mostly a political post without much relation to the typical content one would expect on HN. Is there some kind of “off-topic” policy at HN for these things, or is it fair game given that enough people upvote it? Edit: article seems to be flagged now, guess I have my answer.

It's all fair game until the mods bump it off the frontpage.

That's not an accurate summary. HN users flagging an article is the primary reason articles go missing from the front page.

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#14

Post by ffpip » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

dokka wrote: post #9

stingraycharles wrote: post #3

Genuine question: seems like this is mostly a political post without much relation to the typical content one would expect on HN. Is there some kind of “off-topic” policy at HN for these things, or is it fair game given that enough people upvote it? Edit: article seems to be flagged now, guess I have my answer.

Yeah, why was this posted?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#15

Post by Lendal » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

jorblumesea wrote: post #4

It's interesting to see that in America, some government services can run at a loss but others are expected to be solvent. No one complains that the military doesn't pay back the 700 billion a year it takes but if public transportation goes over budget or the post office, suddenly it's a big deal. I honestly don't get it. Most services in most countries run at a loss but they provide huge public benefits so it's wort…

Even if there was some sort of budgetary problem, it seems logical that services that are explicitly required by the Constitution, such as mail and census, would have precedence over those that are not.

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#16

Post by convery » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

badwolf wrote: post #7

jorblumesea wrote: post #4

It's interesting to see that in America, some government services can run at a loss but others are expected to be solvent. No one complains that the military doesn't pay back the 700 billion a year it takes but if public transportation goes over budget or the post office, suddenly it's a big deal. I honestly don't get it. Most services in most countries run at a loss but they provide huge public benefits so it's wort…

Possibly due to those services charging fees and generating income tends people to envision them as a business instead of a service.

A service is just a specialized business though.

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#17

Post by avmich » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #5

> Trump himself has admitted to wanting to starve the postal service of funds so that mail-in voting will become difficult, as tens of millions of Americans are expected to vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic. This is why I can't help but admire Trump, the fact he remains untouched proves how cunning him and his team are. Either that or how fragile the checks and balances system truly is.

I think checks and balances system was built for different condition, and sort of past due to get updated.

It's like the Web... which was built for academic document exchange, and now we're in a hurry to bolt on zero-trust features on top.

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#18

Post by kube-system » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #2

> DeJoy instructed USPS employees to leave mail behind if it delayed carriers from their routes I mean, this does make sense. The more time you can spend doing the route itself, instead of waiting or coming back mid-way for whatever couldn’t be sorted in time in the morning is more “lean” efficient. While some mail would take an extra day, it results in more mail delivered per carrier-hour.

But should the USPS operate that way? The purpose of a government-operated mail service arguably is to guarantee the quality and types of services that free-market competitors can’t or don’t want to offer.

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#19

Post by alextheparrot » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:53 PM UTC

avmich wrote: post #10

stingraycharles wrote: post #3

Genuine question: seems like this is mostly a political post without much relation to the typical content one would expect on HN. Is there some kind of “off-topic” policy at HN for these things, or is it fair game given that enough people upvote it? Edit: article seems to be flagged now, guess I have my answer.

If I remember correctly, HN is supposed to have information interesting and useful for thinking people. This example doesn't qualify as off-topic then.

> If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic

This is part of the framing from the guidelines, this type of article would very much be covered.

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#20

Post by HumblyTossed » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:55 PM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #5

> Trump himself has admitted to wanting to starve the postal service of funds so that mail-in voting will become difficult, as tens of millions of Americans are expected to vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic. This is why I can't help but admire Trump, the fact he remains untouched proves how cunning him and his team are. Either that or how fragile the checks and balances system truly is.

Nothing "cunning" about this. He simply knows that his supporters are okay with it.

What he is doing, though, is setting the bar lower and other politicians will do similar in the future. His supporters will then be all up in arms when a Dem does it.