Postal Service Did Disservice to Patrons

Oh, don’t we know actions speak louder than words? We can hear all promises, but when words turn into reality, we get a jolt, a real kick in the pants.
For the sake of argument, let us consider the U.S. Postal Service. We know it is as broke as a newly married couple working in a fast food joint but driving a new Cadillac and living in a penthouse. We know use of mail has dwindled to the point where, even the Postal Service itself uses e-mail to communicate. We know that the good people who deliver our bills and magazines are working as hard as they can to make a buck, and my concern is not with them, but with “the Service” at a higher level.
Consider the action that the U.S. Postal Service took last week against the faithful patrons of the Goshen (N.J. 08218) Post Office. It is not Cape May County’s largest post office, nor is it the tiniest, but the people there have, for decades if not over a century, gathered at that post office to talk about births and deaths, rising taxes and lower employment. They talked about fire district elections and what’s right and wrong with America.
The building that housed the office recently changed ownership, so something was in the wind.
However, on Thursday, patrons were notified that, in two days, the office would close. You know how personable our government can be when it wants, well, that’s how it was to the hundreds or more patrons who daily zipped into the lobby at 08218 to their boxes and rush out again, or maybe buy stamps and say hello to the clerk at the window. In effect, “See you later, chump!”
Of course, they were not bereft of an office to get their mail. No, that fateful decision had been preordained amongst the postal gods. Goshen patrons’ mail would go to Dennisville Post Office.
Oh yes, and patrons were told they would surrender their box keys at Dennisville.
To say the least, the patrons were dumbfounded. No notice was sent to the Herald (or anywhere for that matter), unless it was mailed and never got to us. Stranger things have happened.
So, there it is, a new dilemma to add to already stressed postal patrons. How would you feel if you were in their shoes? Certainly, there are options, like having Court House Post Office deliver your mail to a roadside mailbox, but that’s no post office.
One long-time postal patron called me because my name was at the end of the page 3 story where the Herald carried the stunning news last week.
What was she to do? She asked. I had no answer, I’m no postal guru. She did not live in Goshen, but had retained a box there for many years, partly for sentimental reasons, and had paid a year’s rent. What happened to her mail? Would she get her money back? She asked questions I could not answer.
All I could offer was to contact the good postmaster at Dennisville.
From what I was told, even that person was hit with this shift like a “sack of mail” out of the clear blue, with little or no clear plan to follow. Sounds like a government screw up of the first degree, but then, we know the Postal Service has no government affiliation. Could the private sector be that convoluted?
In Whitesboro, when the post office was closing due to the retirement of its long-time postmaster, arrangements were quickly made to put a trailer in place at the Martin Luther King Center. It’s been “temporary” there for so long; I think it’s probably grown roots there.
Regardless, the people there were in an uproar over the closing and relocation, but they have adapted to the “temp” solution.
Where is the clamor of postal patrons in Goshen for a post office of their own? There is certainly space for a trailer, just like in Whitesboro. Are patrons simply too stunned or disgusted to raise a fuss?
What does that closing portend for other small post offices in this rural county? Is the day to dawn soon when patrons in Green Creek and South Dennis, Cape May Point and Ocean View will find them in a similar predicament? Is the aim of the Service to wipe out all small offices and serve from large centers like Wildwood, Court House, Woodbine, Rio Grande and Cape May? What is your bet?
If this closure is really part of a postal plan to save money, why didn’t the “Service” come out with its grand plan and fully explain what was happening? Why could it not warn patrons where to go and what to do?
As stated, actions speak louder than words. The recent closure of Goshen’s post office screams just what the administrators think about the “little people” who buy their stamps and mail their packages.
Cheer up, friends. There is strength and immense power in numbers, remember that. Take heart that there is powerful ammo in your wallet. There are other ways to ship parcels and packages, and they are not with the U.S. Postal Service.
As we know, two can play any game.