WEBVTT - How the U.S. Postal Service Works 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to you stuff you should know front House Stuff 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:13.360 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. Uh, 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.279 there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. I'm Amy Goodman to the 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.600 Democracy Now the warrant Peace Report, Warrant Peace dot or, etcetera. 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.280 I'm Stephen. Jerry just said let's do this old school 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:25.200 right before she recorded, and I had no idea what 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:31.360 she meant. Yeah, yeah, you know, she's back. I thought 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:33.320 she meant, let's make it crappy in five minutes long, 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.800 and we need like little empty tin cans to speak. Dude, 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:41.920 make it sound right. How you doing, Jerry? That's great. 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:44.279 Jerry gave us the thumbs up. I know in our 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:48.840 new murder room. Um, Jerry is within our eyesight again 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:51.440 after a long layoff where she was not within our 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:55.080 range of viewing. I know, as it's kind of weird 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:56.920 because now I'm looking at you, but I can clearly 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:59.840 see my peripheral vision that she's on Facebook. She's way, 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:04.360 she's brusting her teeth, she's rearranging the severed human heads 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:10.160 that are in jars all around the place. That's creepy. Um. 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:12.560 Do you want to talk post office man? You want 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:14.520 to give the disclaimer that we're only talking about the 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:18.640 post Office in the US of a thin he just did. Okay, Um, 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:20.280 we don't know how it works in your country. No, 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:22.880 And actually it's probably not nearly as interesting as what's 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:26.800 going on with the US Postal Service the USPS, because 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:28.160 I don't know if you know this or not chucked, 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:32.880 but the USPS isn't a lot of trouble there. Yeah, 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:35.399 there's solvency that the amount of money that they have 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:37.960 to keep the lights on and keep everything going is 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.319 expected to run out in October of two thousand thirteen 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:42.839 if they don't do something. Yeah, that's this year. Yeah. 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.720 I think they lost sixteen billion dollars last year, Yes, 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:50.680 and five billion the year before. So that's a three 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:53.360 times as much money in a year. That's bad news. 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.280 Here's the caveat to that sixteen billion dollar loss, though 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:01.680 eleven billion of that was in pain. It's to uh 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:06.720 the future benefits of postal workers that have not yet 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.200 retired but well and the posts serve. The Postal Service 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:13.480 is the only federal agency of any sort that is 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:17.360 required to prepay its employees benefits for the future. In 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.280 two thousand and six, a lame de accession of Congress said, 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.360 you know what, you guys need to make sure that 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:24.920 your workers are taken care of. So you guys have 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.160 to start pre paying, um and over the next ten years. 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.359 And they have been, and they've been bleeding money. I mean, 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.000 like a sixteen billion dollar loss, but eleven billion of 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.000 it was to these future payments. I guess that would 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:39.000 make sense. Then then if you took out that eleven 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:41.600 they would just be about the same loss as before 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:44.840 a year. Right. But and that's a lot of money 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:48.800 to live it is. But um, they're figuring out ways 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:51.200 to make up for that extra loss, and one of 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:53.320 the big ones that's on the table now is cutting 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:58.680 out Saturday delivery. They figured they can recoup two billion 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:02.040 dollars a year doing that, so then they're down to three. 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.040 The thing is is the post the post office, it's 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.560 a part of the executive branch. Man it's all over 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:10.440 the place. It's a part of the executive branch. It's 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.280 a part of the federal government. But it gets zero 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.000 dollars in tax revenue. And it's also a thrill kill 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:24.800 cult exactly. That's the horrible secret of the year, right. Um, 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:27.600 So they get no money besides what they can make 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:32.760 off of their own revenue. Right, Um, so they get no, 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.840 but they get but they're also under the purview of 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:39.200 the federal the federal government. It's a weird, weird thing, 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.040 and they can't act without asking Congress. And Congress hasn't 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:45.280 exactly been forthcoming lately. Yet they haven't approved the Saturday thing. 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.200 And have they Congress. Here's the thing they've been trying 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:50.320 to get. Congress, you approve that forever. The Senate passed 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:52.360 a bill that said, after two years, we'll let you 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:55.640 cut out Saturday service, will give you eleven billion dollars 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:58.920 in over payments that you guys made towards the retirement stuff. 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:00.800 All the stuff back into the House, and the House 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:03.840 didn't do anything with it. Right, So you know the 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:09.080 fiscal cliff, Well, the US Congress passed the stop gap measure, 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:13.520 basically a federal budget that says, within this period, we're 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.880 still able to operate, right, And the USPS says, ha ha, 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.680 you didn't include our mandate from nineteen eight one that 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:24.360 we have to carry out Saturday service in that stopcap. 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:28.560 So technically, under current federal law, we don't have to 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.200 carry out Saturday service. And they're arguing it legally. So 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.120 they're just saying that's the loopholes are going to use 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:39.039 to shut down Saturday service, saying just packages. They're going 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.760 to deliver packages on Saturday. And here's a really good reason. 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:46.680 Express mail their revenues from packages of increased six over 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:50.200 the last ten years, whereas first class mail you know 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:56.400 letters have gone down I believe. So they're making all 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:58.640 almost all of their money because it's only forty five 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:04.080 cents to mail a letter from Florida to to Hawaii. Um. 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.320 But they make, however much shipping in the shipping game, 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:09.200 which is where they make all their money, which is 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:11.920 ironically the one place they don't have a monopoly as 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.240 far as the mail goes. I'm glad to see medicine 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.359 mail order medicine on that list to Express mail packages 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.359 in medicine, because at first I was like, who cares, 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.520 I don't need you don't yet. I don't need my 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.960 mail on a Saturday, right, but you you're medicine on 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.440 a Saturday. Well that's why they included that as a 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:34.040 you know something, they would still deliver and post offices 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:36.000 that are already open on Saturdays will still be open 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:38.360 on Saturdays. So if you want to go to your 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.760 PO box, maybe there'll be some mail, maybe there won't 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:43.719 be who knows. I bet you've had a PO box. 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.840 I've been thinking about this, haven't you have? You know, 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:48.600 you just struck me as a kind of person that 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.160 would have had a PO box at one point. You know, 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.920 that's where I get all my guns in the mail. So, UM, 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.920 I'm pretty worked up about this, as you can see. Um, 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.160 it's kind of interesting. Yeah, and who would have thought 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.919 that the postal service would ever be interesting? Uh? Sure, 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.839 I think parts of this are very interesting. Um. And 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:09.560 we would just want to go ahead and say hello 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.160 to all of our postal carriers out there that um 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:16.320 listen to our show who Who Won us over during 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:18.479 the Bush Era? Because we've got an emails from you 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:22.279 guys and gals. Yeah, including one of our favorite people 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:27.520 out there is a postal worker, Very Nostrin. Oh yeah, 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.960 is this one should really be a tribute to Van Nostros. 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.200 I didn't. He's a carrier. I'm he's always been kind 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:36.159 of cryptic about what he does. But I'm under the 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:40.880 distinct impression that he's employed by the Postal Service. Bangalore's 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:45.680 Van nostrin. This is for you. Um. But okay, so 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.720 let's talk about this. Let's talk about the Postal service. Man. 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:54.000 I'm all jazzed about the USPS. Dude, I'm glad you are. Um. So, 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:58.040 for a little while, even after the advent of electronic mail, 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:02.040 the postal evers is, the amount of mail they were 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.599 delivering was still increasing. As of two thousand seven, it 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:09.360 was on an upward trajectory. Sorry, two thousand six, right, 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.400 two d thirteen billion, one hundred and thirty seven million 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.239 pieces of mail that year. It's down to one sixty 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:20.080 seven now and then uh their when was this written? 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.440 Do you know? I think two thousand seven two? Okay, 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:24.920 So then they had seven hundred thousand employees. Now they 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.960 have about five hundred and eighty thousand. So they've been 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:32.160 in and trim the budget mode I think for the 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:34.600 past few years. Well, and the reason why. In two 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:36.840 thousand and six they also made seventy two point eight 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.360 billion dollars. I mean those stamps they add up, you know. Um. 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.840 In two thousand and eleven they made sixty six billion. Wow. 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.880 Not bad, yeah, but they're still losing a lot of money. 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.760 I mean that's what seven billion dollars in difference in 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:56.200 just five years. It's not good. It's not good. Um So, 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:58.440 where the where do all this come from? Chuck? It 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:02.239 came from back yonder day. You know. People have always 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:06.640 need to communicate, obviously from long distances, and uh in 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:11.160 sixteen thirty nine, Um, they you know, colonists here in 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:13.480 the in the New I guess they weren't United States yet, 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:16.400 but in the New World needed to get word back 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.520 to England occasionally and say things like, hey, quit bugging us, 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:23.600 or hey, sind it's more t and crumpets and um. 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.600 So the first official postal service was established in sixteen 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:32.240 thirty nine. UM. Richard Fairbank's tavern in Boston was the 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.920 official mail drop for overseas there in Massachusetts, and that 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:38.160 was the place to go if you wanted to mail something. Yeah, 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.560 and I couldn't find what happened or where it went 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.679 on the other side of the Atlantic. Probably I would 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:46.839 imagine then you just went to that pub and said, hey, 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:48.720 is there any mail? And they say no, and you 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.080 turn around and traveled the five miles back to your village. 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.720 So that was step one. Step two was about uh 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:59.320 forty some nine years later, six three William penn established 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:03.040 very thing. This person obviously, um, the first official post 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:07.679 office in Pennsylvania. You have his name after him, that's right, 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.439 And uh, I love this side note. Here in the South, 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.160 private messages were just sent between plantations, so they would 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:17.280 probably just give it to a slave and say carry 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.280 this over to that guy. Uh. And then flash forward 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:24.560 a little bit more. Um, the British crown gave a 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.800 man named Thomas Neil a twenty one year grant for 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:31.280 the postal service in the United States and he paid 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:37.400 um like seven seven shillings a year, so that's nothing, right, 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:40.680 he still died in debt, did he really? With the monopoly? 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:43.000 So the postal service has always been kind of tricky 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:47.360 to call money from. Interesting. So that continued until seventeen 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.720 seventy four, and a lot of big stuff was happening 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:54.000 around that time, like, Hey, we don't like you anymore 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:58.080 in England controlling us over here and taxing us, so 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:02.360 we're gonna start and established our own constitutional post office 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:07.040 for for any kind of mail going from anywhere, basically 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:10.760 intercolonial mail. Yeah. Yeah, it was was very cutting edge 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:14.240 at the sure and actually, um, you know that when 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:16.760 the British were carrying out the postal service on behalf 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.640 of the colonies. In the colonies, Um, there was a 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:22.280 guy named Benjamin Franklin who was appointed the postmaster of 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:27.120 Philadelphia and he actually killed it. As postmaster did he 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:29.800 like totally improved the roads. He said, like, we're gonna 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.240 start working like twenty four hours a day. We're gonna 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:34.360 have like lots of shifts. We're going to put up 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:40.800 milestones like the The postal service helped improve the connectedness 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.440 of the colonies thanks to him. So when the Continental 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.200 Congress said, hey, we want our own postal service, ben 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.360 Franklin became the first Postmaster General. And of course he 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:51.640 ran it like a tight ship. And he's one of 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:53.800 those dudes. I get a feeling if we could like 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:56.520 resurrect him and bring him out today, he could fix 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:58.480 what's going on in this country. Yeah, and he'd say 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:02.440 something pithy and ask for a glasses Sharry exactly. Um. 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:05.439 So this is to me when it gets super interesting. Uh, 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:10.000 was in the nineteenth century when westward expansion happened California 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:11.960 gold Rush. All of a sudden, we needed to get 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:16.040 stuff from the east coast to San Francisco. Let's say 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:19.520 so as quick as possible, right, what's crazy? As quick 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:24.440 as possible was to go down New York around Florida, Cribbean, yes, 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.680 like a steamship, uh, through the Caribbean, and then across 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:34.400 like Panama and then up on the Pacific side to California. 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:36.680 That was the fastest way to get mail for a while. Yeah. 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.719 And how long three to four weeks to send a 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:42.480 letter from the East Coast to the West coast. And 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:45.839 that's you know, the best case scenario, right, And that's 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.320 how that's what, that's how the US, the East coast 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.839 um communicated with the West Coast for a while until 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:56.520 some stage coach routes, routes were um, we're established. There 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:58.360 was a southern route and there was a central route, 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:00.880 and the southern route you could suposedly use a year 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:03.320 round because it's lovely down here. But then the central 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.199 route it was faster, but they said you can't use 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.839 that year round their storms. Yeah, and it also killed me. Man. 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:11.640 The way they used to name companies back then was 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:15.200 so like it made perfect sense. You basically just said 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:19.439 what you did. Like one the Pacific Mail Steamship Company 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:21.679 said we're going to carry your mail to the Pacific 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:26.520 by steamship, and then the Overland Mail Company like, well, 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.600 we're gonna do it overland, right, and so that's what 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.040 we're gonna call our company. So they got the contract 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.480 the Overland Mail Company um along the Southern Route. Took 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:39.120 about twenty five days, and then my favorite, one of 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:42.960 my favorite parts of American history was born, the Pony Express. Yeah, 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:45.679 and it's just so amazing, like the the idea that 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:47.760 they had to do this. It was a different company 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.480 that was competing. They wanted to get that contract away 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:52.880 from the Overland Company, right, the CEOC and p P, 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.000 and they said, you know what, we know the Central 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.000 Route shorter. We're gonna prove that we can use it 0:12:57.080 --> 0:12:59.240 year round, and we're gonna set up something that it's 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:01.400 just gonna blow of this twenty five day thing out 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:03.920 of the water. And they set up the Pony Express 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.200 and they had stations what every ten twenty miles, and 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:12.040 a rider would ride from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.320 or be part of a line of riding. They go 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:17.720 about a hundred miles and then they change horses every 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:20.360 like ten or fifteen miles. Yes, so the same rider 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.400 would change horses because they rode. They average ten miles 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:26.440 an hour, which doesn't sound fast, but you got a 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.199 factor in like the Sierra Nevadas where they're just crawling 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:33.440 up these mountains. So these dudes were riding hard and 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:37.000 on flat ground. If they're averaging ten miles an hour, right, 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.760 and they're going twenty four hours a day, they're going 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:44.800 two thousand miles ten miles an hour, that's what twenty hours? 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:49.040 That's no, that's two hundred hours. So what is that 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.840 that's less than ten days. So that's that cuts that 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:58.199 over link company's rate by Yeah. There was always one 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:01.520 set of riders going east, one set going west. Yeah. 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:05.480 I think when you when you were relieved by another rider, Yeah, 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.000 you'd hang out at that station and wait for the 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.000 other for somebody to come the other way and then 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:13.280 relieve them. Yeah. They were paid really well at the time, 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.559 twenty five bucks a week, which at the time unskilled 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:20.280 labors made about a dollar a week. So um, and 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:22.600 did you read the first ad they ever put in. 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:27.360 I wanted young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen, must 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:31.040 be expert riders, willing to risk death daily orphans preferred, 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.680 And that's maybe legend. But supposedly that's what it says. 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:40.560 But apparently they were young, little, light life, skinny kids, 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:43.560 because you know, you didn't want some big dude like 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:45.600 me up on a horse. The horse would be like, 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:48.640 I don't want to ride anymore. So they were like 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:50.520 these young boys, like I think the youngest one is 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:55.480 like fourteen. And supposedly Buffalo Bill Cody was a rider, 0:14:55.520 --> 0:15:00.840 although people have disputed that. Now, Oh yeah, yeah, well 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:03.160 he's he's the stuff of a legend. Well he's by 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:05.520 far and away the most famous famous Pony Express writer, 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.840 if in fact he did. But anyway, so so think 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:13.040 about the amount of infrastructure built up along this central 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.880 route to have a station every ten or twenty miles. 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.840 You've got all these employees going. And they proved it. 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.000 They proved that the central route could be used year round, 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:25.080 and so they got the contract. Then right now, the 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.080 Overland Company got the contract to use it, to use 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.320 that same route that was already established, and the Pony 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:32.920 Express was like, you have to be kidding me. And 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:35.040 so the the U. S. Government said no, no, you 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:37.440 guys do half and then let the let the Overland 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:39.760 Company do the other half. Yeah, And they were mad 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:42.840 for about a year and a half and really angry. 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:48.040 And then the telegraph line was completed and everyone's like, oh, well, 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:50.560 I guess I guess we're all out of business now. Yeah, 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:53.040 that was it. Pony expressed the soul the Wells Fargo 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:55.960 and basically shut down. Yeah. I think the American Express 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:59.400 ended up branching out of Wells Fargo too. Like these 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:01.840 are old old companies, like these modern banks and credit 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.240 card companies. It's interesting how far they go back. But 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:07.520 think about that. Man. Even as far back as the 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:13.200 mid nineteenth century, new technology was putting mail delivery out 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.120 to pasture, and then mail delivery would evolve and like 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:20.040 figure out how to come back. That's pretty cool foreshadowing. 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:23.960 So this is a big jump forward to the mid 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:28.440 nineteen sixties. Yeah, a lot happened in between. Then it didn't. Actually, 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.800 we started to go move further and further out into 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.560 the suburbs. There's a huge population boom in the in 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:38.120 the post war era, and businesses started to realize the 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:42.680 value of direct mailing, and all these factors put together 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:48.280 meant that the postal service was totally overwhelmed completely because 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:51.280 it became such a big deal. Everyone was writing letters 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:56.760 and they were using the same old hand um, I 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:02.680 guess hand delivery methods, sorting methods, that's what it was. 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:05.080 They weren't automated at all, and they needed to be right. 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.920 And so there was a postal reform that that was undertaken. Yeah, 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:12.720 and this was in nineteen seventy one the Post Office Department. 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:15.320 And I didn't even know this. It was shortly after 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:18.480 I was born. We weren't the United States Postal Service 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:23.240 until nineteen one. That was when we officially became the USPS. UH, 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:27.359 it became an independent establishment. UM was no longer a 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:29.919 part of the cabinet of the federal government, but was 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:33.120 part of the executive branch and got the monopoly basically 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.760 to deliver mail, even though it was supposedly just a company. 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.399 And they and they re up the mandate from I 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:43.480 think seventeen ninety two that said, you, the Postal Service 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.120 is one of the most essential services of the federal government. 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.280 No person has cut off in this country. None shall 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:52.800 not get delivered exactly. Everyone's going to have a mailbox 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:55.280 and everyone's going to get mail to that mailbox every 0:17:55.359 --> 0:18:00.000 day because we need to help keep intellectual freedom, UM 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:04.040 going and and and ideas in business and commerce going 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:06.840 all the time, and the Postal services, this federal agency 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:08.680 that carries that out, and that I'm sure that put 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:10.840 a financial burden on them when people started building in 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:13.639 these like especially rich people, when they started building in 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.879 these remote areas, because then all of a sudden he 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.440 had to add that to your route. Well there's it's 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.040 sixty miles up a mountain and it's the only house there's. 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:25.040 There's a guy who services the Grand Canyon. There's a 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:26.879 group of Indians that live at the bottom of the 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.119 Grand Canyon, and he has a donkey train that goes 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:31.720 down there every day with the mail. Really yeah, I 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:33.879 mean it's part of it's a federal mandate. You have 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.480 to be able to get mail. Everyone has a mailbox. 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:39.159 He's like, don't you guys use smoke signals? Come on, 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:43.280 they do. In fact, that actually wrote an article on 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:46.160 spoke singnals. Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say we should 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:48.480 podcasts on it, but it's it's like super basic, is 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:50.720 there really it would be like a five minute podcast. Well, 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:52.639 we'll have to figure out some other way to use it. Agreed. 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:57.280 So that's interesting. Um, so do we cover going postal. 0:18:57.359 --> 0:18:58.760 Now it was sort of just thrown in the middle 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.320 of this arm Yeah, really was. It was talking about 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:04.720 how packages are delivered, and all of a sudden, it says, 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.920 and then people started killing each other in nineteen six, 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:13.080 which is actually, um, the post office has the dubious 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.720 distinction of kicking off the workplace shooting trend in the 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:18.800 United States. Was that the first one as far as 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:23.520 I could tell. Alright, So nineteen six Edmond, Oklahoma, Patrick 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:29.040 Henry A. Cheryl killed fourteen co workers. UM. Nine Another 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:33.919 one happened, including a uh supervisor getting killed with a 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:41.320 samurai sword. UM. November nineteen Thomas McIlvaine shot and killed 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:45.320 four co workers, wounded five others, then shot himself, and 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.640 then nineteen and then in two thousand three two more 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:53.040 incidences of postal workers killing fellow postal workers. It was 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:56.440 like just between eighties six and ninety seven, forty people 0:19:56.520 --> 0:20:02.040 died at postal at post offices from postal rampage and 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:04.360 gave birth to the term going postal, which is used 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:08.280 as vernacular for like just losing it basically. UM. And 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:10.320 if you're interested in that at all, there's a really 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.160 good documentary. I think it's on Netflix streaming right now 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.479 called um Murdered by Proxy, and it's all about the 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.560 postal shootings, like where they came from. There's a lot 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:23.800 of scrutiny at like the of the management techniques of 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.160 people at post offices, and there's got to be something 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:28.200 to it. I mean, oh yeah, if you watch, it's 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:31.240 like it was clearly how many other industries had that 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:35.600 many office shootings? You know, retail Actually, you're the homicide 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:37.480 rate is three times higher in retail than it is 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:40.679 at the post office. You don't say going retail, that 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:42.520 just means you're going shopping. Well, it's like drinking the 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:44.800 kool aid. They really drank flavor aid and it's right 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.800 kool aids someone with that distinction. Ah yeah, alright, so 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:51.159 that was going post Yeah, I mean we had to 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:52.600 mention it, but I don't want to dwell on it. 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:54.639 But it was weird in this article the way it 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:57.200 went right in the middle of this came up out 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:59.760 of nowhere. UM zip codes This is kind of cool. Yeah. 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:04.520 UM zip codes were introduced in nineteen sixty three and 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:10.359 then officially put in place in mandatory because just so 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:14.120 much mail going on you had to categorize it more specifically, right, 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:16.680 That was part of that, the post office being swamped. 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:19.280 This was the first step towards automation, was like a 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:24.239 standardized code. Well, they did have other ones, but it 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:28.040 was like one was New York City or something like that. 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:30.359 You know. Yeah, so ZIP this is just a nice 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:34.639 little cocktail party factoid stands for zone improvement plan. I 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:36.760 never knew that until I read this. Did you know 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:39.639 that I had before? But I had forgotten. Okay, so 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:42.240 it's his own improvement plan and it's uh here in 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:44.320 the United States at least, it's a five digit number 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:47.840 represents you know, a location obviously where you're trying to 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:51.080 send something and it now they have the ZIP code 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:54.040 plus four in some areas of like I guess major 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:57.080 urban areas have a little more specificity, right, they like 0:21:57.280 --> 0:21:59.560 deliver it to your like they put it on your 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:02.960 stomach if you visit plus four. I think certain buildings 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:04.879 even will have their own plus four if it's a 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:07.119 big enough building, or if you get a lot of 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:09.720