USPS to Close 2,000 Locations

2,000 post offices will shut their doors in 2011. Is snail mail going the way of paper books?

Maybe if we’re lucky.

Wall Street Journal reported this morning that the USPS now owes the U.S. Treasury $12 billion dollars due to the ailing economy and consumers switching to email and digital bill-pay options. As a cost-cutting measure, the USPS will cut 2,000 locations and thousands more jobs this year.

The closings, like all changes mandated from above, are being met with outrage. “Under U.S. law, mail delivery is a ‘basic and fundamental’ government function meant to ‘bind the nation together’ by providing service to ‘all communities’ at a reasonable price,” Jennifer Levitz pointed out.

But, “The U.S. Postal Service plays two roles in America:,” she wrote. “An agency that keeps rural areas linked to the rest of the nation, and one that loses a lot of money.”

I think it’s sweet that some people still want to bind our crazy nation together. But if your post office is your main link to the rest of the country, it’s probably time to get a telephone and cable TV.

Also, my post office plays a third role: filling my life with garbage. My mail box contains coupon pamphlets, credit card offers, and “Victoria’s Secret” catalogues— it’s basically a mini trash can. So I’d be happy to see paper mail go the way of paper books, which are only superior to their digital counterparts in their ability to induce nostalgia.

The USPS can be reserved for things like delivering people their medication, Proactiv and Snuggies, as well as a way to dish out apologies, congratulations, and holiday tidings that are too meaningful to distribute on Facebook. If this year’s “I’m sorry I missed your birthday again this year, son,” costs $7 to send but is the only piece of mail said son gets all month, lazy fathers everywhere will get more bang for their buck.

There is one regrettable factor at play with all these closings: thousands of people will loose their jobs. This is part of the growing, terrifying trend of computers—which are generally more reliable and efficient than people—taking over jobs.

Here’s one thought for an area where the USPS could create some jobs: Customer service. Currently at post offices people are doing work machines can do better. Meanwhile, in customer service departments everywhere, machines are doing work people can do better. A labor swap could do a lot to make us feel more connected.

Post offices aside, however, I think most of us feel far more connected than we want to right now, which in some ways brings us together and in other ways divides us. Facebook and Twitter connect us to politicians like Sarah Palin, which for at least half the country is akin to being in the bath and getting connected to a toaster.

Most of us are drowning in a massive proliferation of information.  As we add a clutter of communication from Twitter and paperless billing options into our lives, it makes sense that we’ll slowly start losing old methods like snail mail.

Snooki just made the NY Times Best Seller List—in hardcover. There is more than enough cultural trash to make up for paper trash we’ll miss out on when post offices close.