WOW----That is ridiculous---

I'm not a mail carrier but I'm well aware of how useful rubber bands are-----

I will try to help.

Florence

Thanks Florence! Every voice is needed. To add insult to injury, the memo that came down from the Ivory Tower suggested we, the carriers, needed to treat our rubber bands with more care so they would last longer. These are not premium rubber bands. Nothing the government buys is top quality unless it's a $2,000 toilet seat or $1000 hammer. They think nothing of test-firing and destroying a $10 million rocket to see if it actually works. Or my personal favorite: the millions spent on studying the sex life of a fruit fly. And they quibble over a $5 bag of rubber bands? This is our government at work.

Come to my porch. THe mailman just throws them on the porch every day. Like they will decompose and become compost for cement.

It's a stupid cut but the budget director didn't eliminate those. The manager who got his or her budget with whatever reductions they had made that decision rather than eliminating something else. Supplies are an easy thing to cut - in my office they order pens by the boatload and somehow they always disappear. How? So your rubber bands are considered something like office supplies. They should be considered equipment instead. If your local manager has any brains, he or she will be able to figure out how to finance the purchase of some rubber bands.

And lastly, there is the Washington Monument issue when it comes to the ways agencies fight budget cuts. Say the Parks Dpt, or I guess it would be Interior, has a budget cut. They don't want to take that hit. So instead of cutting something like extra donuts for meetings, they close the Washington Monument 4 days a week. The public is outraged, the funds are restored, and the donuts never get mentioned. Who knows - it may be why the rubber bands got cut. So you squawk, everyone raises hell, and the money for rubber bands comes back.