It is so annoying since I get off work at 5. They used to stay open until 5:30 but changed last year. I never get to go the post office now.

And at 12:30 on Saturday.

Makes it almost impossible to actually get packages mailed when I am doing eBay.

I fear what you will now get is, "want fries with this order?"
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It's not like there will be a veteran employee at Staples that the clerk can ask if there is a question.

If they funded the retirement/health care in the same (honest) manner as any private industry, they would be well in the black. It could be fixed legislatively tomorrow. The problem is we all know those changes aren't coming soon. Wall Street wants that money to play/steal with. You would have to wipe out half of the upper floors around Wall and Pearl and most of K street to defend that.
Or you could go with Sander's ideas and allow the USPS to expand their functions to provide the functions that are needed in their local offices.

I grew up in and and am now back at a fairly rural area. The PO was sort of the coffee shop. That was where everyone caught up with the neighbors to find out what was going on. Now most of the people here are really old or get RFD. When the "other" delivery systems can't even follow a map or ask for directions, what do they do? They drop it off at the Post Office so you can pick it up when you get the mail or you drive miles to pick it up if they notify you. I will admit that I get a bit pissed that I see neighbors that have their mailbox in front of their house when they have to walk 30 yards less than me to the PO. Hey it costs them less.
Know why I don't do the same? No one can drive by and get my mail and personal information. If I get a package from Amazon or whatever, I know it will be secure until I pick it up.
One of the biggest reasons I think we should all be pissed off is that those "commercial carriers" NEVER deliver that last "mile" if they can avoid it or no one is guiding them. I've watched the truck back into the PO parking lot to deliver a package that was for me even though they could have put it on the front porch without slowing down much.
Back in the 70's and even the 80's, the UPS driver knew the whole family, probably even if he didn't they knew exactly where and who we were.

I still pay the price for my post office box because it's been the same forever. I don't need it and it costs more than I can justify, but that's just one more definition of where home is.

Even in urban or suburban areas the post office needs to be available as many hours as possible. I can remember when I was in school I was up a few hours before dawn, did a half shift, went to classes, back to work for a full shift. Back in the old days, I could write a check and ran past a few mail boxes to pay the bills I couldn't pay in person. Ever notice? There aren't so many mailboxes around anymore?

I, as you may have noticed by my ID am not afraid of technology. My problem is that I always consider the lowest common denominator. What is available anyone with the least resources?
I think the founders had it right. Mail service was the only industry defined in the Constitution that should be supported by the national government.

Sure we live in a different world today but the same concept should and needs to be applied.
Get your ass out there and know your neighbors! Start doing as much business as locally as you can.

SHIT! Sorry to go on so long, like I said in other posts, I don't have a life!

I'm trying to remember, isn't it that Congress made the Post Office fund retirement/healthcare for like 75 years?

Even if they cut that to 1/3, they could squirrel the money away in a safe investment and take care of the post office for the next 100 years.

I think the post office was made to have everyone the ability to feel "local' ...no one being isolated.
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Not much government action now to make anyone feel like we are all in the same "local".