Life's annoyances

[Juan Vancouver]

Three words.....Governemnt Run Healthcare.

 

If you didn't just feel a shiver run down the back of your neck.....you're a moron.

 

It always puzzles me when I read this. Aside from the US, Government run healthcare is a universal thing in all first world countries. We are all incredibly proud of it and we are still all alive... which means it works.

 

What are they feeding you in the news down there?

[mike carey]

"Oh yeah? Say something in Swedish."

Perhaps you should go out of your way to learn how to say, 'You're a complete idiot', in Swedish.

@Juan Vancouver, I considered quoting the words you did and commenting, 'Like in Canada?'

[+ WilliamM]

It really was not that long ago that the only way to visit Europe was to cross the Atlantic Ocean by ship. My dad was in both theaters of war in World War ll. I was young when he died in 1960. I am not sure if he ever traveled by airplane. My mom certainly did. But, her first flights in 1952 were horrible. Her sister's husband died suddenly in Florida. She had to take any flights that were available, which meant several stops and change of planes in the middle of the night before she arrived in Tampa.

 

My point is that until some point after World War ll, it was much more difficult to take a vacation in Europe than today. If you add those who do not enjoy flying with people who are too poor, it's not surprising that some people have trouble with the geography of Europe.

[AdamSmith]

It's not just the civil service though. Last year I went to Lowe's to buy some roller blinds. The clerk who came to the machine to cut them to length asked me what length, and I gave her the number of inches and started to describe how I had measured them.

 

"I DON'T NEED ALL THAT, I JUST NEED THE LENGTH AND I CUT TO THAT NUMBER."

 

I had to point out to her that posted right there on the front of her cutting machine were the instructions defining 3 different ways of measuring roller-blind length, and how to adjust the machine accordingly: depending on whether they would be mounted inside the window frame, on its front face, or some third way I don't remember now.

 

Another clerk at this same store one time thought that a coupon that applied "up to" some quantity meant that it applied only if you bought more than the quantity. Her manager had to explain the concept of "up to" to her.

[+ SundayZip]

My experiences with the US post office have, for the most part, been very good. Postal employees behind the counter have been efficient and friendly. I too have had horrible experiences with customer service but not with my state and federal government services.

[bigvalboy]

Odd man out...

 

I've never really had a problem with postal employees. In LA the post offices get a little crazy, so most of the employees become like robots and just plow along. That was fine by me, as long as they do their job. I can't remember a time when any postal employee said anything that would be considered rude, and I've filled out paper work wrong, labels wrong, was at times confused by their instructions, and never experienced anything that could be construed as sarcasm.

 

In FTL the other day, I decided to send the package a faster way, but that meant filling out a new label. She was nice, and asked me to step aside while I did that, and assured me that I wouldn't have to get back in line. When I was finished, a customer in line felt that I should have gotten back in line, and quite loudly raised his objections, to what he perceived as me cutting the line. The postal employee very calmly but firmly told him that she had told me to come right back up and that I wasn't required to go to the end of the line...problem solved.

[Reluctant Daddy]

It's not just the civil service though.

 

Indeed. Last month the ATM at a local branch ate my card. It was 7:50am and I knocked on the glass door to get the attention of one of the employees. Once of the clerks reluctantly came to the door and cracked it just enough to hear me. I explained the problem and asked if it was possible for him to grab the card from the machine. Door closed and locked, clerk disappears, moments later appears to tell me that they open at 8. So I wait. At 8, the same clerk comes to the door, unlocks it and goes back to his position behind the counter. I greet him at the counter with a friendly "Hi!". He shuffles some papers, plays with the keyboard for a moment, looks up and says "Yes sir, and how can I help you?" For a moment I thought I had entered a Monty Python skit. Card returned........eventually

[AdamSmith]

My father worked for the Post Office (as it was called back then) and made the observation that anyone halfway competent was always promoted away from the customer-window jobs.

[Kenny]

What are they feeding you in the news down there?

We don't have 'news' anymore.

[Rudynate]

Post Office branches around here tend to operate the same way. There are a lot of mistakes and inaccuracies - mail gets delivered to the wrong address, certified mail just disappears and the employees say they don't know what happened to it, etc.

 

One thing I have noticed is that our mail carrier, as she walks her route, talks on her cell phone a lot, which would help to explain some of the problems with receiving mail.

 

I also think our branch is understaffed. There are rarely more than two windows open.

 

The root of the problem is that the Post Office is underfunded.

 

It also seems like the Post Office has a terrible morale problem. I don't get the impression, when I go in a Post Office, that any of the employees are very happy to be there.

[Rudynate]

It always puzzles me when I read this. Aside from the US, Government run healthcare is a universal thing in all first world countries. We are all incredibly proud of it and we are still all alive... which means it works.

 

What are they feeding you in the news down there?

 

I believe in single-payer healthcare. But it's far from perfect. I have had more than one Canadian tell me that the wait for procedures in Canada can be so long that anyone who can afford to comes to the US to have their procedure done.

[+ deej]

My father worked for the Post Office (as it was called back then) and made the observation that anyone halfway competent was always promoted away from the customer-window jobs.

 

My father did as well. In that town, during that time frame, counter service was a coveted and competitive position. (Hey, it beats trudging through snow schlepping heavy bags of mail!) He was literally on the waiting list for 10 years.

[AdamSmith]

I agree. The GOP privatizers want bad service in order to piss off the public so the USPS can be taken over as a commercial business. Horrible.

Same strategy as they have for destroying Amtrak.

[Rudynate]

Another weird thing about the Post Office, at least here in San Francisco, is that it can take four or five days for a piece of mail to be delivered to a local address. Mail is delivered from the east coast faster than local mail is.

[AdamSmith]

My father did as well. In that town, during that time frame, counter service was a coveted and competitive position. (Hey, it beats trudging through snow schlepping heavy bags of mail!) He was literally on the waiting list for 10 years.

Yeah, the carriers had it worst, especially those with on-foot rather than truck routes. My recall of the hierarchy was from window clerk, up to mail sorter (a job mostly mechanized now but entirely manual back then), then up through a couple of levels of supervisor, up to postmaster of the branch.

[AdamSmith]

Another weird thing about the Post Office, at least here in San Francisco, is that it can take four or five days for a piece of mail to be delivered to a local address. Mail is delivered from the east coast faster than local mail is.

My observation here in Raleigh is that population growth has not been matched by any expansion of local Postal Service branches or staff, with service suffering noticeably as a result.

 

A product of, as @Kenny notes, Congressional Republicans' efforts to defund and destroy the USPS, to make way for all-privatized mail service.

 

Yet another blow by Republicans to one of the republic's functional foundations.

[+ Charlie]

Window service at my local branch has always been pleasant and efficient, in my experience. Home delivery is something else. The last two times that I gave them the proper form to hold mail at the p.o. while I was away on a trip, I arrived home to find my box completely crammed with letters, magazines and advertising leaflets. One would have expected the deliverer to have realized that something wasn't right when the box filled up over two weeks (sitting outside in 100+ temperatures), because I normally empty it every day. When I went to the p.o. to complain, I found that there was also some mail held at the branch, where it was supposed to be. The sullen manager (to whom I had originally given the hold form) said, "Well, it's not my fault. I turned in the form," and walked away.

[+ deej]

Yeah, the carriers had it worst, especially those with on-foot rather than truck routes. My recall of the hierarchy was from window clerk, up to mail sorter (a job mostly mechanized now but entirely manual back then), then up through a couple of levels of supervisor, up to postmaster of the branch.

 

Dad was a sorter for many years, partly because he could get a night shift (with accompanying elevated pay). As the family grew more stable financially, he retreated to day shifts and got on the list for counter service. Mine was one of the many, many families lifted INTO the middle class by employment at the Post Office. It was decent work for decent pay for people without a college education.

[AdamSmith]

Dad was a sorter for many years, partly because he could get a night shift (with accompanying elevated pay). As the family grew more stable financially, he retreated to day shifts and got on the list for counter service.

Ah! My recall was upside-down then.

Mine was one of the many, many families lifted INTO the middle class by employment at the Post Office. It was decent work for decent pay for people without a college education.

Ours likewise. He served at the end of WWII, could have gone to college on the GI bill but wanted to start working right away, and PO jobs as you say were good work then.

 

And having grown up on a tobacco farm, he knew he wanted a job conducted under a roof.

[+ deej]

having grown up on a tobacco farm, he knew he wanted a job conducted under a roof.

 

Heh! Dad actually owned and ran a TV repair business until solid state put him out of business. (We had boxes of vacuum tubes in the basement for many years.) But I understand the motivation. His other option was working for granddad, painting houses.

[gallahadesquire]

Dad was a sorter for many years, partly because he could get a night shift (with accompanying elevated pay). As the family grew more stable financially, he retreated to day shifts and got on the list for counter service. Mine was one of the many, many families lifted INTO the middle class by employment at the Post Office. It was decent work for decent pay for people without a college education.

 

My starting pay, in 1969, was $2.98, and went up to $3.05 after a week. That works out to about $35,000 a year now. [as an aside: in 1973, I made $12,000 a year as a lab jock {not a lab rat}. At my medical school, as a programmer: $2.00 hourly. As an intern, 1979: $14,000]

[Juan Vancouver]

I have had more than one Canadian tell me that the wait for procedures in Canada can be so long that anyone who can afford to comes to the US to have their procedure done.

 

It's funny; one hears this story so often from Americans and american news.

 

I live in Canada. I know many wealthy people. I know many people who have gone through various medical conditions. I don't know a single one who decided to fuck off to the US to pay for treatment.

 

It's rather strange.

[Kenny]

It's funny; one hears this story so often from Americans and american news.

 

I live in Canada. I know many wealthy people. I know many people who have gone through various medical conditions. I don't know a single one who decided to fuck off to the US to pay for treatment.

 

It's rather strange.

The word that AARP uses to describe this claim is simple: Myth.

http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-03-2012/myths-canada-health-care.html

[Juan Vancouver]

The word that AARP uses to describe this claim is simple: Myth.

http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-03-2012/myths-canada-health-care.html

 

What the handsome gentleman said!

 

You guys are being fed propaganda, not information.

 

But we have all read that study that proved that once someone is shown incontestably, with cold facts that their beliefs on a subject were entirely wrong, they will hold on to their beliefs with even greater conviction.

 

This explains so much! We human beings are strange, flawed animals.

[Rudynate]

It's funny; one hears this story so often from Americans and american news.

 

I live in Canada. I know many wealthy people. I know many people who have gone through various medical conditions. I don't know a single one who decided to fuck off to the US to pay for treatment.

 

It's rather strange.

 

I DON'T HATE CANADA. I'm willing to be wrong about it. As I said, I believe in a single-payer healthcare system. The reason why I credited these reports is because they came from Canadians. I certainly wouldn't have believed them if they had come from, for example, a conservative Republican congressman in the US. There are Canadian-sourced statistics that show significant use of US healthcare facilities by Canadians. A closer look reveals that nearly all such data originates from the Fraser Institute, a conservative-libertarian think tank in Canada that would likely have a vested interest in making the Canadian single-payer system look bad. But still, where did these numbers come from? Did they just make them up?

 

A complete data set would also show why the Canadians were accessing the US healthcare system. There could be reasons that have nothing to do with lack of availability in Canada or dissatisfaction with the Canadian system.