My Sick Mind

News Item: The Postmaster General says that the United States Postal Service will be broke by August 2012. Supposedly, if the economy doesn't improve or Congress doesn't act, our mail will cease to be delivered a year from now. Phooey! That's a classic cry for help, and he'd have been better off keeping his mouth shut. Why? Because there is plenty you don't know about the United States Postal Service, not the least of which is how they deliver the mail. A few years ago, I found myself in a Center City bar sitting next to a FedEx pilot (off duty, I presumed) who related to me the details of how anything that the Postal Service gets winds up on a FedEx plane. I started out by kidding him about how he liked the movie "Cast Away," and one thing led to another. It turns out that I learned a valuable lesson before the beer got to me. That's right kids, it pays to drink. FedEx has a partnership deal with the USPS to fly their stuff around the wor...

I'm not sure what has happened to customer service. I think it's floating out there in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Two recent incidences make me think that the old ways of doing things are fast falling by the wayside. I'm also not sure what has happened to telephones. It seems as though the "phone" function is an afterthought, and that they are for web browsing, text messaging and running applications. Using it to actually speak to someone is a nice ancillary benefit. I filed my Federal income taxes last night. They make it sound like the e-filing process is the easy way to do it. It is, to a point. To the point that you need to finish it, that is. Just before I hit the "click here to send" button, I was told that I needed a PIN to file the forms with the IRS. They don't tell me what the PIN means or what its significance is, just that I need it. When the IRS tells you that you need something, you tend to believe them because the...

Do you remember that scene in "Cast Away" where Tom Hanks is berating some Russian FedEx employees because they don't seem to understand the concept of "on time package delivery?" Sure you do. He put a timer in a package that came from the United States and opened it to reveal the exact time it took for the package to arrive from the States to Russia. Then he started screaming about getting some packages on a truck and getting to wherever they were going. It was a nice commercial for FedEx, right in the middle of a movie. The whole movie is pretty much an ad for FedEx, except for the part where the plane crashes into the ocean and the packages start washing ashore. I think FedEx would have preferred they left that out, but it's kind of the point of the movie. Last Tuesday I ordered a little camera from my favorite Internet camera store in New York City. What I have found out in the interim is that I should be in the package delivery business - or at leas...