The UK's Royal Mail has used metric exclusively for many years, and is
about to change the way it charges for items in the post, from just
weight to weight and size. The weights will still be in grams, and the
sizes will be either cm or mm, all metric still.
I see no reason why the US Postal Service cannot join the rest of the
world and start using metric. Especially when you consider that items
are sent abroad and customs officials need to know the weights of things
sometimes -- for some items there is a green customs sticker, which also
includes weight. Items I have received from the USA I think had ounces
on, but anything sent from other countries, or out from the UK, always
has grams.
David King
Buy UKMA's report "A Very British Mess" ISBN 0750310146
http://www.ukma.org.uk/Docs/pubs.htm
Avoid confusion with conversion, just learn to think metric!
http://www.thinkmetric.org.uk
Paul Trusten, R.Ph. wrote:
Over on misc.metric-system, a thread began on metricating the U.S. Postal
Service, which is devoid of metric units. Not in a roundabout way (grin), I
thought I'd introduce the subject here. Remek has a good point.
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Newsgroups: misc.metric-system
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 22:44
Subject: Re: US Post Office -- not metric at all (making mail weight costs
comparasons accross world postal systems impossible)
Max Power wrote:
US Post Office -- not metric at all (making mail weight costs
comparisons
across world postal systems impossible).
Metric is better here, due to the finer grain of its accuracy (ounces >
grams).
This is a nice coincidence--I'm currently having a discussion with a
friend of mine about metricating the Post Office. He is a mailman
who's been with the PO for around 10 years. In a few examples, I
essentially presented to him what you said above, stating that the USPS
could turn a bigger profit by using the gram, and they could do it even
without appearing to gouge the customer. Right now their brackets for
First Class letter are in ounces. A 37-cent stamp buys us up to an
ounce of First Class. If the brackets were to be made in rational
metric sizes, then a bracket could be lowered from the current 28.4g to
25g. The customers probably would not notice the difference, since an
ordinary 2-page letter in a stamped envelope is <20g (just weighed one
on my scale). My friend definitely appreciated the logic of this and
the potential for the USPS to make a handy profit after the upfront
costs of conversion. His major concern was with the culture of the
USPS's management, which doesn't really champion serious innovation.
Unless the members of the upper food chain see some personal benefit,
they won't push for anything like this.
Too bad.
