71. You've Got Mail...Why? Postal Service Loses, Camping Out For Tickets, Walmart Delivery Failure, Robert Plant, And More

A grocery delivery goes sideways when Walmart drops the order at the neighbor’s place, and that everyday annoyance turns into a bigger rant about junk mail, political flyers, and why the Postal Service still runs like it’s 1995. We trade nostalgia about concerts and cereal box toys while we dig into USPS numbers, losses, and what mail service could look like if it finally got rebuilt for a mostly digital world. 
• Walmart delivery marked complete at the wrong house and what the photo revealed 
• Using a delivery code option to force a handoff 
• Tip decisions when the job is done wrong 
• The neighbor’s dog cameo and the unplanned exercise 
• Easter decorations still up and what “counts” as seasonal 
• A music detour into Robert Plant and Alison Krauss 
• Waiting in line for concert tickets versus modern ticketing 
• Ticket prices, fees, and why going out costs more than expected 
• Junk mail overload and spam calls that never stop 
• Questioning six day USPS delivery in a paperless era 
• How bulk delivery or fewer delivery days might work 
• Political mailers, campaign talking points, and why most get trashed 
• USPS scale and stats on employees, vehicles, facilities, and volume 
• USPS finances, yearly deficits, and cumulative losses since 2007 
• Why first class mail declined and why packages do not fully replace it 
• The legal mandate to deliver to every address 
• Kellogg’s bringing toys back to cereal boxes and why that hits nostalgia 
If anybody ever wants to sit in on this podcast and talk politics with Jody,  please let Amanda know. 

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-Thank you so much for listening 

If you are interested in the nails or any of Amanda's social media, she talks about here is her link.
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Transcript

Cold Open And What’s Coming

SPEAKER_03 0:01

On this episode, we talk about junk mail, and that leads to politics.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Oh, I got him started on one.

SPEAKER_03 0:08

What's the tie-in with junk mail and politics? Well, you'll have to listen to find out.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

What else, Amanda? And Walmart delivery finally failed me.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

Yeah, and I got exercise out of it. Find out. Anything else? Oh, the Postal Service. We give you the ins and outs, the stats, everything you need to know about this service that makes no money, costs us nothing.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

All right, all right. Enough. Check it out. We ain't starting again.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Welcome back, episode 71. That would be Amanda. For some reason, before we start every podcast now, she's doing a pterodactyl sound. If we knew what a pterodactyl sounds like.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Sounds like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

We're just assuming. Well, Amanda's happy today.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Once again, if you've been here a hot minute, if you've listened to us for we've talked about it several times. I do not go to Walmart and I do not buy groceries. I either pick them up or have them delivered now since my car's been torn torn up and I don't know when a truck's gonna be here that I can use.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

So I've been having them to You mean a vehicle at your disposal.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

We got all trucks out there. So I called them trucks.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Well people don't understand what that means, a truck. One of our vehicles. Other vehicles that we drive is available for you to use. Okay. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

So I've had them delivered for the last this third one? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. To the house. And I used to really not even like deliver it to the house because I don't want somebody to know where I live. Well, apparently they don't know where I live today because I got my notification, they're on their way, they're on their way, and then I'm sitting back there waiting to hear the car drive down the driveway, and I never hear it. And I'm like, well, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 2:18

And I was actually outside. I fished a little bit. I know.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

I thought, well, Jody'll hear them too. He'll see them.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

You gave me a heads up, you said they're one stop away. So whatever that means. I don't know if that's 20 minutes away.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

It said like 10 minutes or whatever. So I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna go on the app and check. Well, it says delivered. And it had a picture. And I'm like, here we go. I get on that picture and I'm like, not our house. I don't even know where it's at. Because it took me a minute to realize what the picture was of to where the groceries were. And then I figured it out. And they delivered it to the neighbor's house. All of it. On the ground, and the neighbor has a dog. You're talking bread, you're talking meats, you're talking all the stuff. You're talking tissue paper, paper scale.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

They didn't even take it to the front door.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

No, it wasn't even at the front door. It was in his little pull-in garage thing.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Yeah, that's away from the house.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Yeah. But it's but it's not included.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

It's just got a decorative top. It's not even in the garage. Yeah, it's not like a garage.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

I mean it is, but it's it's not. I don't know, whatever. So you know what I did?

SPEAKER_03 3:40

I probably Well if there's a dog, you see a dog, why would you put all this stuff? Yeah, like you said, frozen stuff. We had milk, you had all the bread.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

But what some of it was on his golf cart.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

The bread was on the golf cart and then sparkle paper towels. Which we didn't see. We went up there to get it all.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Yeah, I thought half I thought we didn't even get half of it because I'm like, well, where's this, this, and this? And they're like, not here. And I I'm about to do a big old refund and write a bad review and everything. So lesson learned. I usually put in there that I have to give them a code. And I didn't this time because last two times it's been what does that mean?

SPEAKER_03 4:25

Explain that.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

So you can either mark deliver and leave at your door, or you can mark has to be signed for. And what that means is Walmart gives you a code and you have to give that code to the driver before they can deliver your groceries. So that's what I will be doing from now.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

So does that mean they pull in your drive, they shoot that code to you?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Or what No, Walmart gives you that code and you're supposed to tell it to the driver. And it's supposed to match the driver's code.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

Okay, so there you have to have an interaction. Yes, yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Um so I might have been a little bit mean. And that was not me hitting the wall. I might have been a little bit mean. I went in there, you know.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

Can you go in and take the tip away in a situation? Wait a minute. Oh, sorry. I'll be over here if you need me.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Okay. Okay, let me talk. I went in. You got three hours to decide your tip. I went in and half their tip. I took half their tip away. That's probably mean.

SPEAKER_03 5:30

But Well, if you check the mark to where they're supposed to deliver it to your door, is that what the other option was you said? Yeah. Deliver it. They didn't even do that.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Right. It wasn't even at my door.

SPEAKER_03 5:41

I mean if that was if it was if it's this was your house and they deliver it, it's in the garage. You would physically have to go out of there, which I said, this is what, like four uh I mean it's I don't know how you explain the garage, but anyway. You go out of the garage, steps going down, a walkway to the front porch, steps going up, you're on the porch, five steps, you're at that front door of that house. So you're not even close to the front door if you think this is the house that's gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

And I get it. People think when you pull in our driveway that the first house is ours. There's two mailboxes right there, one on each side of the driveway.

SPEAKER_03 6:23

But if you see the driveway keeps going, you can see the house. It's not like it's hidden.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

So I think I would check it, you know, or something.

SPEAKER_03 6:32

I don't know, but maybe I was a little mean, but I But aren't you assuming if you're a driver that the people's gonna be there, hey, I'm delivering code stuff, milk and all that, and they you know, you're not just gonna leave it at the front door with nobody there.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Well, they don't know that nobody's there. I mean, your your teenager could be there and supposed to get 'em in and no car's there.

SPEAKER_03 6:54

I mean, you know, so Well you'd think they would show up, but they would come out. That's my point. Because we come out and get it out of their car.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

We do, but everybody don't.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

I don't know what the rules are. I don't know what you can and can't do and what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Yeah, everybody don't. They just let them deliver at their door and then they go out and get it.

SPEAKER_03 7:13

See, I don't like this whole thing because you get some evil person that decides to be one of these delivery persons, which this can happen anywhere. Whatever job you're in, but then like now that you've made this person mad, I mean, the next time they get our won't pick us.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Well, you could write you could write in there. So I did.

SPEAKER_03 7:36

I mean I wrote Tell us exactly what you did.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

Maybe not word for word. I blacked out. What did you expect?

SPEAKER_00 7:42

I put she didn't deliver it to the right house.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

And that's it?

SPEAKER_00 7:45

That's all. Short and sweet.

unknown 7:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

We'll see if I get any kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

And that's supposed to be mean?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 7:52

But they should do hey, if you don't if you don't deliver to the right house, you're not getting a tip. That's yeah, exactly. Why am I giving you a tip? You did not perform your task. Especially when I had to walk up the hill three times.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Oh I know.

SPEAKER_03 8:06

They need to pay me.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Well, you should have took the truck to start with.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

Well, we did the second goal round. And then when we came to the room. And then you said there was stuff on the guy's golf cart too, the neighbor's golf cart.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Then we're like, Because I could see that picture. I could see when it took me a minute to figure out what it was.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

So But we did get to feed the neighbor's dog, so while we're over there.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

So Jody thinks he's gotta take care of the neighbor's dog.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

Well I do, since his ribs are showing. He's in dire need of food, so bless his heart. I know. Great dog. Absolutely great dog. About knocked us both down. He was so excited. We he thought we were coming to see him. We're like, hey, UK, you've come further in the yard than you normally do. Oh, you're up in the garage. Now we can play. He's jumping around and has some sharp claws, by the way. So you gotta watch if he ever like well, I know you're not gonna be involved in him jumping on you because you don't go up there, but I don't go up there unless my packages are delivered to the wrong house.

Decorations Staying Up And Music

SPEAKER_00 9:03

So that was my day. And I got another thing for you. What you got? Go. My Easter decorations are still up.

SPEAKER_03 9:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

You ain't even noticed.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

I have not.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

But let me ask you, let me ask you this.

SPEAKER_03 9:18

Hold on before you go any further. You can't keep bringing this up because then this goes back on me all the episodes that I've marked on other people and they're decorations, and now you're making me look bad.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

This is spring decorations, except for the ones that say Easter.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

I did see a Christmas reef on a house this week, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

I thought you was about to say here. I was about to say, uh uh. Um, okay, so let me ask you this. I don't know. No, no, one more thing.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

You always get on to me for saying, Let me ask you this. And what comes out of your mouth? Let me ask you that. You know what you say, I always say let me ask you this.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

You do.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

So now you've rubbed off on me, don't you? Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Let me ask you this. I have a what are they called? I can't remember what they call.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

Couldn't tell you.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

The little things that um the little figurines used to buy me, but we ran out of them.

SPEAKER_03 10:09

Willow tree.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Yeah, willow tree. So I have a a willow tree that's kind of Christmas. It's uh Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus, and I leave it out year round.

SPEAKER_03 10:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Am I okay with that?

SPEAKER_03 10:23

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Okay. It looks nothing like Christmas. And it's Mary.

SPEAKER_03 10:28

But we're going with Santa Claus type stuff. Anything like that is. So I'm good with that, right? Yeah, like the Christmas reef I saw. Take it down. It's distinct.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Are you sure it didn't have some spring flowers?

SPEAKER_03 10:43

I know what it is. No, it's it's the Christmas colors, if that's such a thing. Well, maybe green with the reef.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Maybe they like Christmas colors for spring. Well oh, they're leaving it up for Christmas in July. They already decorated for Christmas in July. You heard of that before?

SPEAKER_03 10:57

Yes, I've heard of Christmas in July, and that makes no sense, but whatever.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Well, they're they're getting ready for Christmas in July early. Okay. They got so much to put out, they just start.

SPEAKER_03 11:07

I mean, I have been stuck you was about to do it. No, I was not. I was gonna tell you, I've been stuck on some different music. Music that you would hate, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Well, that's not very nice.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Robert Planton and Alison Krause. Do you know Robert Plant and Alison Krause?

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

You know who Alison Krause is? Yes. Who? Tell me.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Alison Krause. She plays the violin.

SPEAKER_03 11:33

With Union Station.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

Used to be. I don't guess she was a part of that anymore. Anyway, they did it in Robert Plant. You know who that is? Tell me who that is.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Somebody you like.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Be more specific.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Somebody that sings.

SPEAKER_03 11:45

Be more specific.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Somebody that sings songs that I don't really listen to.

SPEAKER_03 11:49

He was the lead singer for Led Zeppelin.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

Anyway, they've they've done Stop trying to trap me. Yeah, two studio albums. One like 2007 and one was 2021. Right during the pandemic. So they've spread them out pretty pretty much. But they've won Grammys, all kinds of stuff for these. Well, I've really gotten into these albums and I've been listening to them hot and heavy. And they're just I'm just saying they're really good. If you like folky type music, kind of folky. Folky.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

What the heck's folky?

SPEAKER_03 12:22

Bluegrass.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

I need a definition of that.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

Folk. It's folk music. I just said folky.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

I need definition for folky.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

So really some of them, I mean, she sings so good.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

I do like her.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

And uh you know, he's got a kind of a raspy, which he's oh my goodness, he's he's 90, ain't he? Probably 78, something like that. I mean Led Zeppelin, I mean, is the late 60s, all of the seventies.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

He wasn't a spring chicken then, was he?

SPEAKER_03 12:51

No, I saw him in concert, by the way. In Birmingham. Of course she did.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Of course she did.

SPEAKER_03 12:54

I think I looked back, it was 1993. At Oak Mountain Amphitheater in Birmingham.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

You wanna know how old I was in ninety-three?

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Were you born yet? Let's see, in ninety-three you'd have been twelve? Is that right? Yeah. I just threw that number out there. Yeah, you did get it. Yeah. Well, that's why I didn't take you. First of all, I didn't know you, and second of all, you'd have been twelve or thirteen, and I'm not taking it.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

You were 11th grader.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Something like that.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

I bought a Led Zeppelin t-shirt at that concert. I do remember that. And then once I got it home, it was like a size too small. It really bothered me. You know when you got a shirt if it's just a little bit too tight and you don't feel comfortable wearing it? Well, that's what it was with that shirt. So as I wear a shirt with no sleeves right now.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

As you're showing the guns right now in your farmer's tan.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

I'm showing my tan. No, I don't have much of a farmer. Yeah, you do. No.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Look at that white right there. It's as white as your shirt.

SPEAKER_03 13:57

The tan has moved up my arm to my shoulders now.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

You're looking at the wrong one. Look at that one right there. Woo! Look at that gun right there. It's pure white.

SPEAKER_03 14:07

That's the inside of my arm. Now, if I laid out on my back and put arms over my head to get sun, yes, I could get sun on the inside of my arms, but I don't do that, so. Leave my mic alone.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

You know what I miss? You're talking about constantly.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

You know what I mean? We need to rearrange so I can like face you because it does it doesn't work out for me trying to turn to look at you since my own.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah, we we need to.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

So a lot of it's funny.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

We'll ask chat how to rearrange our room in here.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

It's funny when you're talking and stuff, huh? And you sniff into the mic all the time. I always do. That's my secret. I just don't think you realize it. Because you don't wear headphones.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

I do realize it. You don't realize that I do it.

SPEAKER_03 14:47

Well, if you wore headphones, you'd realize how loud it is. And you would stop doing it.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

I'm not gonna stop.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

I wish you would. I'm just saying is when you're talking, I'm looking straight ahead. I'm not looking nowhere at you as we're talking. So we're addressing each other and I'm hardly ever looking at you.

Concert Tickets Then Versus Now

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Because I'm gonna laugh at you. Anyway, speaking of concerts, what happened to going and waiting in line for concert tickets? And waiting on the phone, trying to call in and best tickets. I mean, you used to have to be in line at like one or two o'clock in the morning around here where we were. It was Brunos and Sound Shop.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

They're trying to change all that now. Ticketmaster, what's the ones that you call it that that handle that now? No. I think they've got like a monopoly on it. From my understanding, it's a lot of people. It's like these companies can gobble up, say, the front rows, so many seats, and then hold on to them and then get more money when they sell them later on. Instead of stub hub. Just dub hub one? Yeah, that's one of them. Instead of the good old days, like when you actually fought for them by either being in line, camping out, because we camped out for tickets all the time.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

I wouldn't I would not camp out for anybody. And that's like Black Friday now.

SPEAKER_03 16:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

It ain't fun like it used to be.

SPEAKER_03 16:14

Nothing's funny. You would be in line and then once it got and I don't remember, was it 10 o'clock they go on sale, I think?

SPEAKER_00 16:20

But you in line at one or two o'clock in the morning.

SPEAKER_03 16:22

If not eight or eight o'clock the night before.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 16:25

But once it gets ten o'clock and say you're tenth in line or whatever, you're on the phone.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

This is seeing which way you can get them faster.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

Yeah. Or or I'm getting tickets for somebody else that's in line that's further back. However, it were whoever gets through the I mean, yeah, it's it's totally different. You're right. Totally different. And I don't even know what ticket prices are for anybody. You know, we were talking twenty, thirty dollars when I used to go.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Yeah. I'm I'm pretty sure it's not that.

SPEAKER_03 16:58

Oh, I know it's a lot more now, but I don't I mean, is is your average ticket gonna be eighty bucks a ticket?

unknown 17:03

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

Or a hundred? Seventy-five? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

No clue.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

It's not something Nate Burghetsey is coming to Birmingham, and I can't remember now how much the tickets were because I thought because it was gonna be when I looked at him, it was like, hey, we've got eight, nine, ten months before he's coming. You could actually get some good tickets right now. But I think they're like, a little bit more than I wanted to pay. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like 65 bucks or something.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

No, I think they were more than that. Cause I kind of remember you telling me and I said, Well, do you want to go? And then you looked him up and you'd already said, No, I ain't going. I'm pretty sure it was over$80.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

Might be. You gotta think if you're gonna go.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

And if you know Jody, he ain't paying.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

Well, if you've got say if you've got three people going, if you got uh a a teenage uh any kind of kid, you know, because he's clean.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Well it's just like Monster Jam we used to go to.

SPEAKER_03 17:53

I know, but since he's a clean, you know, you could have any age kid go to that. So if there's three of you, you know, I can't see spending almost two hundred. Yeah, so two hundred and fifty dollars on tickets, and then you've got to get something to eat before, or you're getting something while you're there, you get something while you're there. There's another fifty bucks just on just a little bit some there's probably more than that. French fries and a couple of waters.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

I don't I don't know. I don't know how you do it. Just like it means if you go to a ball game, same thing. I mean you're spending so much more than you want to. And you sure can't buy like merch, like a shirt. Because it will be like forty bucks, forty, fifty, sixty bucks for a shirt. That is crazy. That is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

How do we get on that?

SPEAKER_03 18:42

I don't know, because I wanted to talk about Do you remember you've got mail?

Why Mail Still Runs Six Days

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:47

But not email. We're talking about the United States Postal Service.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

The US PS Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:55

And I thought about this today because we saw several. And they've got that little I'll call it a wing. It's on the outside of their window. It's like a almost like a what would you call it? A curtain. A deflector, a vi outside the visor. Something that keeps the water if it's raining or anything like that, that keeps them dry, keeps them from getting us wet. It is smart. I'm surprised. I've seen it for a while now, but I'm just thinking if they'd have came out that a long time ago, there'd be a lot more happier male people, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

So what what are we talking about the mail for?

SPEAKER_03 19:30

Well, why not? Why would we not talk about them?

SPEAKER_00 19:34

I want to talk about these stupid spam calls that I keep getting that I've been approved for the$90,000 loan. Spam calls are getting so, so bad. And you can put them on the do not call or and the block list, and you can block them and you can do that, but they're gonna call you with another number and back to the United States Postal Service. I know, sorry. You wanted me to kill time and I had that call on my phone.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

Not necessarily right in the middle of when I was gonna start my my rant.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

You looked at me like kill sometime, I gotta look something up.

SPEAKER_03 20:08

Not either.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah, you did.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

Oh my goodness. No, my my point being is that the why are we getting six day a week service through the post office?

unknown 20:20

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Is that a crazy question? It doesn't do every day like it used to.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

Our local paper, I don't even does is it three days a week or two days a week? I don't even know. It might be two days a week.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

I don't. Which that has nothing to do with the Oh I know, right, but I'm just saying it was something that we got every day. Right, right. I mean we didn't, we never got the paper, but our parents didn't for a little while. Yeah. Our parents did.

SPEAKER_03 20:45

Yeah, look, two, three, four o'clock in the morning you had, you know, uh I can remember living back at home. I I remember a certain time of night you heard the car come down our road, it was the newspaper guy delivering papers early in the morning. You know. So now my question to about this is postal service is not profitable at all, hadn't been profitable in a long time. Why are we just sitting on this throwing money at it? And I'll get into a little bit of it here in a minute, but why if you're running a business, and that's why I think government should be run like a business. So why are we to and they work on Sundays sometimes too?

SPEAKER_00 21:24

I've seen DePa it's just packages on Sundays.

SPEAKER_03 21:27

Yes, I understand.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah. They didn't always do that though.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

No. Why can't we not bring it down to four days a week? If you're coming down, if we get mail, what do we get? How much mail do we get? How much mail do we get?

SPEAKER_00 21:40

We get more junk mail than we get any kind of mail. Okay. Because I get all my stuff.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

Everything is digital, yeah, electronic.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Or you got apps for your stuff that you I get emails.

SPEAKER_03 21:52

So I don't have to send somebody a letter. You can send them an email. That's how everything uh special occasions I get.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

Weddings, anniversaries, baby showers, whatever it is. Yes, you're invited. Got it. What I'm saying is bills no longer have to come to the mail.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

No, most of them they want you to choose uh no paper. What's paperless?

SPEAKER_03 22:18

Because it's so expensive to send. And I don't know how much a stamp is now, but you know, it goes up every couple of years. That is outrageous.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

I was still thinking of 40s on that.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

We have a uh meter thing at work, and I think we pay 71 cents. We get a little bit of a discount. And a stamp might be 75 or 74. Um, but we have so at church where I work.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

How does that help y'all out?

unknown 22:50

Doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 22:50

We don't have to go to the post office. We can we don't have to buy stamps, we just run it through the stamp machine, the meter.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

How do you save money?

SPEAKER_00 22:58

It gives you a little bit of a break like that.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

So have you paid that in advance or are you paying it how often?

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Uh we load our postage machine with like$300 every so often. And we have to pay, so we send out a monthly let a monthly letter, and we have we don't it's called book mailing or whatever I can't remember what it's called. So we pay for a a permit and that gives us the number and it's like printed. We don't run it through the postage machine. It's a permit. We pay so much a year, but then and we get a pretty good discount on the um on the mailings. So you pay for that permit, but you're still paying for every piece of mail I mail with that permit number on it.

SPEAKER_03 23:49

And you're saving money. Is that what you're telling me?

SPEAKER_00 23:52

No.

SPEAKER_03 23:53

I mean that's how you started off with the permit.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

So we pay, so I'm sending out over 200 and something pieces of mail every month in in just my little thing that I do. In in this little one little mailing thing that that I do. And we're we're paying like$48 for it. So what's that?

SPEAKER_03 24:13

$48 for the$200?

SPEAKER_00 24:15

For the$200, but that's on top of the permit that we paid for to have for the whole year.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

I don't understand the permit.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

It's it's the it's a mailing permit. You gotta have it. That's just what it's called. It's called you forget to have it? Yeah. If you mail it this way, you do. If you mail it this way the way we do. We've we've we've done it out, and this is the cheapest way to go. So yeah, we've already done all the math on it.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

That's how they get you. That's a permit. We're gonna, yeah, gotta have a permit. Yeah. Stupid.

unknown 24:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:45

Stupid. That's our permit number. It's on everything. So let me go back to what I was saying. What can we let's just drop to four days a week. Four days a week. All right. You've got that junk mail you've got to get to my house on Monday. Tuesday, I'd be getting more junk mail. Wednesday, I get, let's just say the water bill, once a month. Right? So I'm getting it Wednesday. Thursday, I'm just getting some junk mail, credit card stuff, all this kind of stuff. All right, well, I realistically, I only need you to come once a week. Bring me all that stuff at once. Rubber rubber band.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Just save it.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Rubber band it. Bulk it up.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Do mail carriers get their gas paid for or do they have to pay it?

SPEAKER_03 25:32

They get some kind of something. I should have looked that up. Some kind of to pay, but I don't know. I don't know if it's not mileage, but it's like a an allowance, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Because that's some wear and tear on your car. Yeah, that's that's the way they want it.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

That's like most of them, that's why they want you to drive your car because we'll give you an allowance. That way we're not buying a vehicle for you to drive. And then we're in charge of the city. If you're around here and you're in town, they give you the little Yeah, those are different when it's the in-city type routes. I get all that. So back to my four-day a week thing. See, realistically, once a week for us, just because and that's what they ought to do. They could look at it and you know what?

SPEAKER_00 26:13

The water bill is probably the only bill that you cannot get paperless. Yeah. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

That's why I mentioned water bill.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Um the only one we don't get, I think.

SPEAKER_03 26:22

So i even four days a week for us is a lot. But I'm just saying, so you come down this road right here, right? Um, our stretch seven-tenths of a mile is how much it is from there's a certain sign where the road forks, and it's a dead end. So why are you coming down here to deliver to three houses when you could come instead of five days a week come down this road? I get that, but she's not stopping at every mailbox. That's my point. So that's what I'm saying. Look, it could be revamped. The problem is they're not revamping it.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Yeah, yeah, it could totally be revamped. But I thought I'd heard one time that they were thinking about cutting the mail service down. I hate that for people because that's their job. And you hate that for people for the workers. That's the same thing as like Walmart. They're knocking jobs out too because they do self-checkouts.

SPEAKER_03 27:20

All they've got to do is attrition. When somebody quits, they don't, you know, hire somebody back.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

But then it gets put on somebody else. Because somebody have to do it.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

Ooh. I hate that.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

The mail, that's a What are we doing?

SPEAKER_03 27:36

I just said we're cutting back on days a week that they're delivering. So now we're doing away with. So we've got Mary Jane over here that retired. We're not filling her spot, and then we've got somebody else that put in their two weeks' notice, so we're getting to the point now, hey, we can start implementing these uh programs that we these changes we want to do. You see what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 28:11

I do.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

So that way I'm not cutting people across the board and looking like a bad guy. We're just letting it, yeah, letting everything work out the way it is. That's how you that's how you do it. And this would have already been implemented if they'd have done that. Instead of let's let's think about doing something. No.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

I don't know. I wonder what the big holdup is.

SPEAKER_03 28:31

When you're losing billions of dollars, it's the federal stinking government. That's the holdup. I got you.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

But what if I need to mail a letter? So you're not saying take it away totally.

SPEAKER_03 28:42

No, don't take it away totally.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

You're just not gonna get it every day.

SPEAKER_03 28:47

What's the big deal?

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Because what if I have an uncle up here and that's fine.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

Listen, that I need to send it to you. We know we're not doing seven, six-day a week delivery. I know now that I can't send my letter and it gets somewhere at a certain time. It's gonna take five.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

It's gonna take forever.

SPEAKER_03 29:02

It's gonna take five days longer. We know that. That's part of it now, so you know, hey, we need to mail this out earlier instead of waiting. You know, it it we can do this. Make it work. Yes. It's not that hard. It shouldn't be we mailing, oh my it took eleven days to get there? Well, yes, because we've talked about this. We know this because they're not picking up our mail and delivering it as often as they they used to.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

I got you.

SPEAKER_03 29:28

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 29:29

It makes total sense.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

Okay. Then how come me sitting here just in Alabama that don't know nothing ain't got a clue? No education can figure out how to run the postal service. But you'll have the postal people that'll be listening to this, like, well, you don't understand how this works. Well, you're right, and I know stuff that you don't know how it works, too.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

So you can't hide over there.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

We'll figure it out. You can't tell, look, it's all it's all changed between yeah, between everything electronic and all that. Everything has changed. Their workload has decreased, but if they're not hiring, and maybe they've done this. People still have a workload because they don't have as many people. I get it. I understand, but there's ways to do that.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

I will have to say at work, we have tried other ways besides mailing because we think people don't. Number one, it takes them, it seems like it takes them longer to get their stuff now. And number two, we think they just don't open it because they think it's junk. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_03 30:38

I never checked the mail.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Right.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

I would never check the mail. Because I I don't want to know what's coming in the mail.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

It's junk.

Political Flyers And Junk Mail

SPEAKER_03 30:46

Well, I don't know. A bill that I wasn't expecting. That's why I'm not opening up the mail, and that's why I'm not checking the mailbox. Uh uh, hold on. Election political stuff.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

It's been why don't they take that money that they spent on that and they spend on that melon and they put it into some kind of charity or something? It's is somebody else paying for all that?

SPEAKER_03 31:12

It's part of their campaign funds. They are trying to get your vote. They're not putting that money into it. That is their money. They are not giving it to the children that need it. Or you've lost your mind.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

I'm not even looking at those flyers. They go in the garbage if they don't sit. Well, they don't sit in the car right now because I'm in between trucks. Well, there's so I've actually been better and it goes to the garbage.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

Amanda, you don't understand. There's people that study this. And it might be 22% of people actually look at those flyers, and the rest of them throw it away.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Almost every day.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

I just deleted one, something about 78% throw them away. 22 look at it. We need those, and out of those 22, you might get 10% of them, and that's a certain amount of votes. That's the way they look at it.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

And you think I'm gonna believe what's on that flyer?

SPEAKER_03 32:00

It's the same thing. It's all that they stand with Trump. They're not gonna take your guns away. I won't let them. I don't care. Your first amendment is important to me.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

I don't care.

SPEAKER_03 32:13

I go to church every Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Stop.

SPEAKER_03 32:17

That's a they have to put that out there. It's look, it is. Look, every one of them, they've got to put it out there. No, I'm just telling you, it's like a game thing. So when they do when they're doing their commercials and stuff, it's the person the produ that's producing at the company or whatever, they're like, all right, make sure you've got like a if it's a woman, make sure you've got a cross visible on a necklace so they can see it. So they know that you're a believer. And then you're gonna have to say something about that. All right, next thing you're gonna know, you're gonna say is we can't let the federal government get any bigger because people like that. They give them these all these, it's the same thing. And then they've got to stand with the president. You know, we backed the president because of he did this, he did that, the border, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you got me out.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

We're not talking politics. I know.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

I know, but I you were talking about.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

We were talking mail, and I just explained to you how this works what we've been getting for the past two years.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

Trying to explain to you how this works.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

I I understand how it works. I understand. I understand how.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

Then I'm not trying to throw anybody under the bus. I'm just saying that's their talking points, every one of them. That's what they think.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

If anybody ever wants to sit in on this podcast and talk politics with people, they have to please let me know. Put that out there to let you know. I will let you, because I'm not a politics person.

SPEAKER_03 33:32

Yeah. But he will sit with you. I'm just saying, if if you're a Republican and you're a candidate and you put a commercial out there, why are you telling me that I'm gonna be there to stand up for your gun rights?

SPEAKER_00 33:49

I know. Sorry I brought this up. I know you're going to.

SPEAKER_03 33:54

I know you are. You don't have to tell me.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

Now back to our program.

USPS Stats Losses And Mandates

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Well, let's end on the fun though.

SPEAKER_03 34:04

I ain't even close to being done.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Holy crap! What in the world?

SPEAKER_03 34:08

I was gonna explain.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Oh, you're gonna give st statistics.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

Well, I'm not gonna go through any of it now. I was gonna tell you when the when it started, when it was founded, how it slowly progressed. Um, but I'm not gonna do any of that. The Pony Express, I was gonna talk about that for a minute. You know, the first uh So now you're mad at me because I got you off on another tangent. Well, you're making it sound like we are well, we're about to wrap this thing up before we do.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Let me get my I forgot you. I forgot you.

SPEAKER_03 34:39

I mean, they had dog sleds to, you know, to carry the mail. Pigeons. Um I don't know about the pigeons. Maybe I didn't read that part. The whole thing about, you know, rain, snow, nothing can keep the mail person from being, you know, we got all that. Um you're making me leave a lot of stuff out. But I'll tell you, I will skip all that and I will go tell you the stats. Total employees. There's about six hundred and thirty-nine thousand people employed with the Postal Service. 533 career employees. You know what that is? I'll tell you what non-career are. 106,000 non-career, which is temporary or part-time. So basically full-time people is a career employee. That's kind of crazy how they put it like that.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Why they just um why they single them out?

SPEAKER_03 35:30

I know by job type, mail carriers, 319,400. This is just a slight estimate, pretty close. Mail sorters or processors are 106,000. Clerks, which is retail or customer service, 74,000.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

I used to deliver mail.

SPEAKER_03 35:47

Did you? Oh, you did, didn't you? On the golf cart, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 35:50

On a golf cart.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

That sounds exciting. Was it pretty fun?

SPEAKER_00 35:54

No, absolutely not. That's where I was on 9-11. On the golf cart. Yeah. What else you got?

SPEAKER_03 36:01

All right, vehicles and infrastructure. Vehicles, there is about 257,894 vehicles. It's one of the largest fleets in the world. So when we're talking about that, we're talking about the from the 18-wheelers all the way down to the small. What are those the little vans? The the mail carrier vans. I don't even know what they're called. I don't even know who makes them. If you look on them, there's no Ford. There's no shaving. Oh, there's no, there's nothing like that. So I don't know what chassis it is, but the body is especially made. Uh facilities, eighty, five hundred plus owned buildings and twenty-two thousand plus leased buildings.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

So we're talking over So you're leasing buildings, so that's another expense.

SPEAKER_03 36:47

Yeah. So um, you know, so 30,000 buildings total. So the annual operating cost and the revenue. Revenue is uh 2025 was eighty point five billion. Expenses for the same year was eighty-nine point eight billion. You know what that means? That's nine billion dollars in the hole. Nine billion b with a B billion in one year. Billion. Nine billion Do I need to say it again? Nine billion dollars.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Because the only money they're bringing in is what we pay for stamps and what businesses.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

Well that's how they're yeah, they're trying to their revenue. They they're trying to generate revenue, but guess what? When that doesn't make it, that's when our tax dollars kick in. Actually, what you could say is our tax dollars kick in and pay for all this, and then the money that they make off the stamps and stuff still don't help support it. Either way. Either way. 2024 revenue was 79.5 billion, and the expenses was eighty-nine point five billion. That's ten billion dollars we lost the year before last. So nine billion last year, ten billion the year before that. 2023, 78 billion in revenue, 85 billion in expenses. So that's 7 billion we lost then. Do you see a trend?

SPEAKER_02 38:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:13

Not making any money. Let's see. So the cumulative losses since 2007, somebody give me a drum roll. It's about 120 billion with a B dollars. 120 billion dollars since 2007. Do you understand? That's 19 years. All right, let's go to salaries. All right, as of this is 2024 data. So all postal workers,$57,870 a year. That's the average. Clerks,$61,63. Mail carriers,$57,490. Sorters slash processors,$56,530.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

I'd rather sort it than carry it, then. If I'm not if a carrier's not making any more than a sorter.

SPEAKER_03 39:06

Yeah, so a low-end range is$42,000 and your high end is$75,000 plus.$75,000 plus. So not a bad job.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

No, it's not bad.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

Um, it's just a federal job.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

I bet they got good benefits, though. What the heck would they do?

SPEAKER_03 39:24

They uh they get there's a pension. It's defined defined benefit pension after retirement based on salary plus years of service, thrift savings plan that's government version of a 401k, includes employer matching, retiree health benefits, asset ac excuse me, access to federal health insurance, often coordinated with Medicare. All right, this is important now. The USPS has struggled with retirement funding obligations, which has contributed heavily to their financial losses. When you have pensions, when these companies have pensions, you'll find a lot of cities, city workers, federal workers, all that, when it comes to pensions, that's where a lot of the downfall, a lot of the debt is because they have to keep up with these big pensions when these people retire. In 2026, they even paused some pension contribu contributions temporarily to conserve cash. Now we're talking this year.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

2020. That's why I thought that's the same. So we're not far in which you just said 2026.

SPEAKER_03 40:29

So that tells you right now, here we go again. We're we're uh not gonna make any money. Alright, uh key takeaways. Um, I'm not gonna get into all that. How about that? Let's talk about the last thing we'll talk about is their deliveries. How much do they deliver? What's their volume? What do you think? Daily a year. Crazy numbers, you think? I don't know. Daily volume, total mail, which is everything, 371 million pieces per day. Packages only, 23.9 million per day. So that means 4,300 pieces of mail every second. Packages are only 6 to 8% of total volume, but they bring in a big chunk of revenue. So that's where they make their money is off packages. Their yearly totals? Total mail per year, 112.5 billion pieces. Packages per year, 7 plus billion packages. USPS is still the largest delivery network in the U.S., handling more total pieces than UPS and FedEx combined in many categories. Would you not think that's different? Who does uh Amazon? That comes through the mail, does it not?

SPEAKER_00 41:50

Or is it some of it depends? Okay, but sometimes it comes to the mail, sometimes it comes from Amazon.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

I thought they were contracted out with somebody. I don't know. So why is the Postal Service, why are they not profitable? So mail is collapsing, it says. We understand that, right? From their original business model. Uh first-class mail, letters, bills, etc., has dropped massively since the 2000s. Email, online billing, and digital ads replaced it. Uh problem letters used to be high profit. Packages grew, but not enough. Packages are increasing due to e-commerce, but they're more expensive to deliver and more competitive since you got UPS, FedEx, and Amazon. So they don't fully replace their lost letter profits. They're talking about packages are profitable, but as the packages have gotten bigger and bigger, it's not as profitable. Uh deliver to everyone mandate. Did you know that? The post office is required by law to deliver to every address in America, including rural and nonprofit non-profitable areas at uniform pricing. Private companies don't do this, they skip low profit routes. I don't know about that. Do you think? If I got something from UPS that's coming, I guess if I live too far out of town, they're gonna be like, you gotta come meet us. We're not going out there.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 43:24

Maybe in the Midwest, places like that where there's a house every 32 miles. That's not factual. I'm just throwing it up right there. Okay. So that's pretty much it.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Is that all you got?

SPEAKER_03 43:39

So now you know.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

Now you know. Well, you know what?

SPEAKER_03 43:43

What's that?

SPEAKER_00 43:45

The United States Postal Service doesn't deliver Chuck Norris's mail. It asks permission.

SPEAKER_03 43:53

I heard that.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

So there you go.

SPEAKER_03 43:57

So we're back to Chuck Norris memes.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

I had to do it. I had to do it.

Toys Coming Back In Cereal

SPEAKER_03 44:05

Alright. Well, uh I didn't mean to get on the uh No, we still got something else. Oh, do we? Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

I don't remember when we talked about it.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

It doesn't matter just to tell us. We gotta go. We had a certain amount of time. You know, we have to pay if it goes over. Oh, does it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Well we'll talk about it next time.

SPEAKER_03 44:22

No, I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

So maybe it was last week's episode. It's in it's been within the last couple of episodes, I think. When we talked about um cereal and toys. Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

Three episodes ago we did. Yeah, we were talking about the what happened to the toys that used to be in cereal and we discussed all that. Check it out. I don't remember what episode. I'll tell you in a minute. Go ahead, Meta.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Um, so yesterday, as I was scrolling Facebook, I seen Fruit Loops. The picture drew my attention with a Toy Story toy. And I'm like, what? And it says, this is from ABC News. If you've missed rooting around in the cereal box for a toy, you're in luck. WK Kellogg Company announced it's including toys in some of its breakfast cereal for the first time in more than a decade. Special edition boxes of frosted flakes, fruit loops. Oh, I forgot about Applejacks.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

I like Apple Jacks.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

I like Apple Jacks. And corn pops will have plastic toys shaped like characters from Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 5. Good night. Have we seen all of them?

SPEAKER_03 45:48

Why don't they bring this back? I'm telling you, I really think they're missing it.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Oh, the movie is scheduled to hit in uh June. So Kellogg's is bringing back toys in the cereal for the first time in over a decade.

SPEAKER_03 46:00

You know what I think they need to do? I think like Doritos, Frito Lay, they need to offer some kind of toy inside there. Because you know, they do all the Marvel movies. Any kind of movie that comes out, they've got an advertisement on their bags. Why don't they throw out someone?

SPEAKER_00 46:14

But how crazy is that? We just talked about that, and then that pops up.

SPEAKER_03 46:17

It was episode 68. So it was three episodes ago. Actually, four when this one comes out. So that is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:25

I think they're really missing out. If you advertise a toy inside the box, I mean, cereal is so expensive anyway. I mean, how much? It is. You know?

SPEAKER_00 46:35

It is so expensive.

SPEAKER_03 46:37

What's 15 more cents? Charge us 15 more cents for that box of cereal if you're gonna give us a decent toy. A decent toy now.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

Well, this is supposed to be a I want like a Lego.

SPEAKER_03 46:47

I want something nice. I want a Lego figurine.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

You're gonna get a Woody figurine.

SPEAKER_03 46:52

Well, that's kind of ugly.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

He's weird looking.

SPEAKER_03 46:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

I mean, surely it'll be color, it'll look like woody. It's not gonna be just a gold piece of.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

You know what?

SPEAKER_00 47:01

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 47:02

There's a snake in my boot.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

Peace out.