Hacker News Reader

Regarding long lines: that's a common complaint (e.g. Of the DMV), presented as evidence of government inefficiency (not that you were making that argument).

But sizable lines are evidence of government efficiency here; one unskilled employee is able to process a huge number of people.

In return for for the massive taxpayer savings, you have to wait in line for ten minutes 2x a month (or per year in the case of the much-maligned DMV), and occasionally endure employees who are unenthusiastic to be earning very few of your tax dollars per hour.

efficiency. I don't think that word means what you think it means.

In any free market situation, like retail stores, you don't see lines as long, or employees that unhelpful. If there are 40 people in line (not uncommon at my local DMV), their time is actively wasted by one DMV employee who should be making as much as a retail cashier, but isn't because of gov't and union benefits. Opening up one more 'cashier lane' at the DMV would reduce everyone else's wasted time, so they can go back to being productive.

It's not enough to analyze just the DMV's side of the equation, you have to look at both sides to get the whole story.

It's the same story with, e.g. traffic. Minimizing traffic repair costs, at a cost of longer repair times, forcing every single person in town take longer to get to work is a huge net loss.

Efficient for whom?

Most grocery stores I frequent have replaced several lanes of "efficient" cashiers with the much slower (for shoppers) self-checkout systems. Yes, the lines may be shorter, and the store needs fewer checkers (one can cover multiple self-check lanes), so the store is saving money. But I feel a loss in service quality and am not convinced my checkout time (waiting + service) has been shortened.

So, yes, it's more efficient for the _store_, but not for _me_ as a customer.

Maybe that's what you're saying—there are two sides to efficiency. Corporations maximize it for themselves, sometimes at the expense of customers. Every once in a while one is enlightened enough to realized that improved customer efficiency is a long-term win.

Everything is a tradeoff. Your grocer probably feels that customers appreciate lower prices in exchange for that setup.

There may also be an upscale grocer down the street that tends to provide ample staffing at checkout lanes.

The problem due to the monopoly held by the postal service, its system is not subject to competition. Competition might result in competitors trying new approaches with similar staffing (improving processes, etc.) or in different staffing levels and even better service.

It's hard to know what all the clever people actually doing the work would have come up with, since their jobs will never exist when there is only one entrenched monopoly.

> Most grocery stores I frequent have replaced several lanes of "efficient" cashiers with the much slower (for shoppers) self-checkout systems. Yes, the lines may be shorter, and the store needs fewer checkers (one can cover multiple self-check lanes), so the store is saving money. But I feel a loss in service quality and am not convinced my checkout time (waiting + service) has been shortened.

Yes, I don't use them either, for the same reasons. But other people do. They've chosen to use that line. If the lines get too long, I can choose to go to another store. Having 1 cashier for each customer in the store would obviously be impractical too. But an equilibrium forms. People get short, not unreasonable wait times, and the store saves money (lowering prices for the customers).

At the DMV, that equilibrium doesn't happen, because people don't have that choice. They can't choose to go to another "store".

I send small parcels through mail every day. They go all over the world and the error rate is less than 1one percent.

I am consistently amazed that I can put something in a slot in Woodstock NY and have it turn up in the correct slot on the other side of the world in just a few days. They even come to my house and pick up.

When I do go to my local post office the only surly people are the people behind me in line.

As to junk mail, I opt out where I can and recycle the rest. And quietly thank the spamming businesses for subsidizing mine.

"the post office is one of the most unpleasant retail locations anyone could imagine -- filthy counters, grudging employees, and long lines."

i'm within a post office that is about 5 years old and clean. just because your post office is crap doesn't mean that every post office is.

Every post office I've been to has been dingy, depressing, poorly lit and has had very long lines.

It's cruel to make people work in this environment, and so it's no wonder that occasionally an employee "goes postal".

Sure there will occasionally be a new post office built, but I don't think this says anything about the values of the institution.

So when google advertises pretty much the e-version of it in your search, you are ok with it?

I'm sure most people, probably all people are ok with it. It's the difference between hiking out to your mailbox just to throw useless paper into the recycling bin (why can't my USPS mailman do that for me?) and pollute the environment versus ignoring the small text comment on the right side of your monitor while you look at lolcats.

I have pretty much the opposite experience with USPS.

Got almost no spam, maybe 10-20% of my mail, mostly sent by local businesses and free local newspapers.

It's not a monopoly. Forgot about UPS, DHL and FedEx?

Their employees are usually very hard working and have to deal with all kinds of assholes.

Plus, it's much cheaper than their competitors.

The USPS holds a monopoly on non-urgent mail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service#Un...

You are correct that non-urgent mail (what the USPS sells) is cheaper than urgent mail (what their competitors sell).

As someone else pointed out, the USPS has a monopoly on non-urgent mail.

As for spam, you must be fortunate that you have not managed to wind up on spammers' lists. If you donate to charity that's an easy way to get on the lists, and some of the spam is just unnecessary garbage sent by business I use b/c sending it to everyone (via the USPS) is cheaper than implementing an opt-out policy.

I forget the URL, but I opted out of junk mail years ago via the Direct Marketers Association web page. I think that's the name. After a couple of months, my dead tree spam fell to a trickle.

It's not perfect. I still get local grocery and retail circulars that I could do without. But at least the daily credit card offers stopped, which cut down the volume dramatically.

If someone would drop a bomb on Geico's direct marketing arm, I'd be a happy camper.

I did this too, as well as a couple of extra precautions, and I did not notice any decline in the junk mail at all.

> It's not a monopoly.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service

Article I, section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution grants Congress the power to establish post offices and post roads, which has been interpreted as a de facto Congressional monopoly over the delivery of mail. Accordingly, no other system for delivering mail – public or private – can be established, absent Congress's consent. Congress has delegated to the Postal Service the power to decide whether others may compete with it, and the Postal Service has allowed an exception to its monopoly for extremely urgent letters.