The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

It's official:

http://www.ktul.com/story/17002846/its-official-usps-closing-tulsa-processing-center (http://www.ktul.com/story/17002846/its-official-usps-closing-tulsa-processing-center)

Good for OKC

again. I just wonder where the choice was made on which to close and which to keep.

Fairly new facility.  I don't think it's much older than 10 years.

My dad and I were just discussing that. They had just started moving dirt when my parents moved from Tulsa in '99 so 10 or 11 years sounds about right.

The OKC facility was finished in 2008 and is massive, replacing a smaller facility that was just south of downtown where a new park will be located.  It was designed to be more of a regional distribution center.  It sucks for Tulsa and those jobs though, many of which will be transferred to OKC.  USPS is such a mess and hopefully these closings and consolidations will help them in the long run, similar to what the military has been accomplishing with BRAC.

Pretty soon it'll take four days to get first class mail from Fayetteville to Tulsa. However, the people who want to see the post office fail are slowly getting their wish. As they reduce service levels, mail volume will only drop further.

So if I mailed a card to someone who lives in Tulsa, it will go to OKC then back to Tulsa?

Yep.

Worse service at a higher cost is usually not a successful strategy for a business under siege by its competitors.  My use of USPS for both work and personal matters will be further reduced as a result of this decision.

Could eventually go the same route as passenger rail here in OK.  From Dallas, to OKC, to Kansas, skipping Tulsa all together.

I guess all the bills I can't get online will be a day or two later than normal.

Online Billpay via your bank will allow you to make a payment to anyone whether or not they accept electronic payments...
If the biller doesn't accept electronic payments, the payment system will send a check and compensate for how long it will take to get delivered.

no writing checks or buying stamps here.

Doesn't sound like it will affect my Netflix (by mail) turnaround then.
 ;D

I mean the ones I still get in the mail.  I pay electronically but I receive CoT and ONG in the mail.

Screw writing checks and buying stamps.

I wondered that too.  Will there be a delay since it all has to be sorted in OKC and will Tulsa take a back seat now?

I'll start the rumor:  I hear that all Tulsa mail will be taken out and stacked.  Once all of OKC's mail is sent out, they will look through Tulsa's.  Those bastards.

Welcome to the provinces...  one of the few centers of significant government jobs in Tulsa goes buy buy.  Oklahoma City gains a few hundred more government jobs to add to their "top ten employers" list.  Yes, I'm bitter.

The infuriating thing is that the USPS leadership is playing directly into the hands of those who most want to see them disappear for good. Congress listened to the detractors when they were writing the bill that is forcing the USPS to prefund all retirement benefits over only 10 years or so, and it is having the intended effect of forcing them to make service cuts that will drive their customers elsewhere.

Tulsa is just one casualty in the quietly ongoing war on the USPS.

How many non-government jobs does it take to support 1 government job?

So with most of the jobs moving to OKC, the biggest cost isn't going away, how on earth will extra miles on the road and just a few less jobs save $11,000,000, it doesn't add up.Then again the mail service in Soper OK costs 50 a year (PO Box, yet rural users outside of Soper get curb side service for free. The USPS is all sorts of bleeped up.

At the most simplistic level, if the average tax rate is 20%, the average job would take 5 people working outside government to support it.

How many pizzas do I have to buy to support the counter guy at Hideaway?

Are you their only customer?

The Hideaway guy in-turn pays taxes to help pay for government guy's job.

Actually, I think the answer may be 4..   Government guy turns around and gives 20% back
But we also have to consider that government jobs are increasingly paying more that the equivalent private sector job..
Regardless, government jobs are sucking tax-dollars that could otherwise be going towards schools, bridges, the American Airlines union, etc.

Then you also have to consider that not all the government income goes to salaries and benefits.  Some is for materials, overhead like buildings and utilities, and whatever.  I would consider 5 to be the minimum on an order of magnitude check.

I can get COT still being on a stone tablet, but ONG?  Only two I get paper on.

It's either fund it now while you have the cash (or at least have the credit line) or bankrupt it later and skate away from the contractual obligations so many other companies seek to avoid.

I am thinking of dropping AT&T for my cell phone because they won't send a check image to my bank for my monthly statement.  The last I read, they have to make an image and keep it for a certain period of time anyway.  It's not that I don't trust computers (except for identity theft).  I don't trust the people running them.  Oh gee, I'm sorry Mr. Arrow.  We will try to rectify that we put an extra zero in that number ahead of the decimal point.

Real story: 
Before AT&T "merged" with Cingular, they were changing to electronic transfer.  They sent the electronic transfer AND my cancelled check (or image, I forget which) to my bank and my bank honored BOTH of them.  Fortunately it was only about $30 and I had more than enough balance to cover it.  Needless to say I was unhappy.  I told them I wanted either an image or my cancelled check.  For several years they sent my cancelled check, then an image.  Now they are back to a transfer number that doesn't even include my check number.

I'm still the old guy that writes check's. It gives me a few extra day's to play with the money in my account if I need to before the check's hit.
I wouldn't mind paying my bills online, but I am not going to pay the extra two to four dollars for a transaction fee when they are literally doing nothing to get my money. And if you pay by phone Fuh-get-about it ! That is ten to twelve dollars.
No thanks. My pay delay is good enough for em. Some paid slob has to go down to their ol P.O. Box and get my check. Even if it has went from a full duffle bag to a few envelopes.
That's my way of sticking it to the corporate man. Well at least it makes me happy.
Stamps please. Hey and they even have these new fangled one's you don't lick. Golly gee wiz what a Country.

I haven't paid a fee for online billpay (through Skank of America, mind you) in six years.  Most vendors that offer billpay through their own interface don't charge fees (at least the ones that I use, which include my cable bill - Cox, cell phone - AT&T, electric - AEP, and yes, even OneOk).

   I guess this will make me all the more inclined to use one of the private mail carriers, which will perhaps help them increase jobs here.  Frankly I think at this point the USPS should be privatized. 

I think your premise that many in Congress want to see the USPS disappear is shakey.  Rather, the battle is between thowe who want to see the USPS stand on its own and those who want it back under the government's ambit.  Currently, it is a distorted quasi-government entity combining the inefficiencies of government (led by a "General", no less), with strong employees unions, high pay/benefits, defined pension plans, etc., trying to operate in a highly competive environment.  The monopolistic world of mail and package delivery that existed when the USPS was spun off has not existed for a long time and the USPS has failed to adjust.  Given its directive to take on unprofitable services in unprofitable locations, it may not be possible for it to meet its mission and survive under its current formulation.  It's problems go much deeper than how to account for its pension liabilities.

It's interesting though, UPS pays very well, has Teamster's drivers who make $80K+ and good pensions, I believe, and has no trouble remaining solvent.  Not sure about whether or not Fedex is unionized or not.  I'm pretty sure the pilots for both companies are union as well.

No fees here.  No stamps to buy.  No envelopes.  No concern someone will steal my mail.

Oh nooooo. I drop my mail in the box in front of my post office. I never use my red thief flag anymore.

Ever see the postal worker hoarder stories?

Or that one postal worker who is 1/4 of a counter-clockwise screw turn from going postal?

You mean like Newman when it rained or snowed ?

Fox news.  Must be true.


Mailman on the Lam After Hoarding 20,000 Pieces of Mail


http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/14/mailman-lam-hoarding-pieces-mail/ (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/14/mailman-lam-hoarding-pieces-mail/)

We pay our bills online and don't pay any transtaction fees.  We bank at Arvest and Teachers Credit Union.

Have you shipped anything lately?   I had a few airplane gaskets shipped from Newton, KS in what amounted to a CD mailer.  It was about $12 by UPS.  I've asked them to use Priority Mail since then for about 1/2 the shipping cost.

How about hacking your computer?   Seeing what my employer does to keep our computers secure is mind boggling.  Makes them slower than gear oil in the winter.

I've been taking care of my dads bills through his banks online bill pay. No fees, no muss, and those that don't take EFT are fine with the bank generated check. Plus you can pick the day you want the payments to be made so he can plan accordingly. He prefers to get the bill in the mail, and then when I make the payments I print out the confirmation and attach it to the bills for record keeping.

No.  I have no worries about hacking.  I understand risks and what to do about them.

You say that the USPS has failed to adjust, yet their operations are profitable even at presently reduced mail volumes and with the continual cash drain that is Rural Free Delivery. There are a lot of places where UPS and FedEx refuse to deliver. USPS' financial woes are almost entirely of Congress' making. If UPS had to prefund all retirement benefits in a decade they would also be deeply in the red, as would almost any company short of Apple. The double standard makes it pretty clear what's going on here.

I guess they do have one thing to be thankful about, though. They're not Amtrak, which was created out of an almost dead commercial passenger rail system, given the worst equipment, a tiny budget relative to the expected size of operations, and forced to wait behind slow cargo trains. Hobbled at every turn, essentially. And people wonder why they lose money so much. Give 'em some freakin' capex dollars and lean on the freight roads to give Amtrak priority and you might actually see people more willing to take the train outside of the NEC.

Government fails when it is set up to fail and run by people who (quite realistically, many times) expect it to fail. Why on Earth would anyone think it's a good idea to put people who hate the idea of government in charge of government? That seems to me to make as much sense as putting an anti-capitalist hippie in charge of GE.

Like what you did there, tied the Tea Party and OWS into your statement.

This is an in-depth look at the USPS that makes a number of interesting points.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_23/b4231060885070.htm

Most all the shipping I do for my side business is USPS.  Their international flat rate stuff just took a decent increase.  Any of the larger stuff I ship out must go UPS.