Like any small business owner, I tend to do most administrative tasks myself. This includes getting mail, sending mail and everything else under the sun. I have come to rely heavily on the Culver City post offices.
USPS on Jefferson Blvd has always been my back up location when the "Gateway" station on Culver Blvd is either too busy or closed, as the hours were generous and the facility always has more than one harried worker behind the glass.
Times are changing, though, and not for the better (pardon the pun). I went to Jefferson yesterday and there was a sign posted that the new hours are 10a - 5pm M-F and 10a-3p Sa. This is a dramatic reduction in service hours. Home delivery has also changed over the past several months. Our mail used to be delivered between 2p and 4p. Now our mail carrier (he's great, by the way) doesn't roll by until sometimes 7p. Poor guy.
If that's not bad enough, this morning I read that the USPS wants to raise the price of first class mailing an additional $.03 to a whopping $.49.
Despite my whining, I actually welcome any and all changes that USPS has imposed, and plans to impose, on our mail service. Why? Well, because I need it to stick around!
The Service has been in a huge financial crisis over the past several years and has come dangerously close to bankruptcy more than once. I, for one, would hate to see what a world without local mail service would look like. Instead of paying $.49 to mail a letter to the East Coast I'd be looking at several multiples of that to send my letter via FedEx or UPS, even via their slower product offerings.
Thankfully not all of USPS's changes have been negative. They recently revamped their Priority and Express Mail services for the better. Now Priority Mail packages (all you can stuff into an 8x12 envelope for $5.05 online) are guaranteed to be delivered in either 1 or 2 days, depending on the distance it needs to travel. That's a huge savings over FedEx and UPS.
They also updated their tracking service and, over the past month or so, my email box has become inundated with tracking updates that alert me when the package gets to the facility, gets processed by a particular machine, gets processed by another machine, grabs a coffee, leaves the facility for its next stop, etc. A welcome nuisance, though.
Perhaps I'm now in a small minority of business owners who still rely on "snail" mail on a daily basis, so many of you may not care as much about the changes as I do. But my practice requires frequent and large mailings to both DHS and the Department of State as neither has been able to drag itself out of the dark ages and switch to electronic immigration benefit filing. Until they do, I will continue to rely on the USPS and really do appreciate the fact that it's fighting tooth and nail to avoid having its Wiki entry start with "The United States Postal Service was a...".
Millie Cavanaugh is an immigration lawyer in Culver City serving the Los Angeles metro area.
