You may want to consider giving your postman a little something more than a holiday fruitcake this year, for his job may be gone before next Christmas.

A press release posted on the United States Postal Service (USPS) website this past November reported that the USPS would be ending its 2011 fiscal year with a $5.1 billion net loss. Had it not been for passed legislation postponing a congressionally mandated $5.5 billion to pre-fund retiree health benefits, that loss would have been at $10.6 billion.

This is not good news. For months now, media speculation has predicted that the 236-year-old institution could be closing its doors sooner than we think.

This May, Bloomberg Businessweek’s cover story, “The U.S. Postal Service Nears Collapse,” predicted that without a major makeover, USPS would “implode.”

A September opinions headline in the International Business Times predicted the USPS could be finished by the end of this year.
Yes, the U.S. Postal Service may be going away for good — but do we care?

For the vast majority of today’s tech-generation, where bills can be paid online and emails can be sent and received anywhere in the world with an Internet connection instantly, the USPS has essentially become obsolete.

If that isn’t enough of an answer, check your mailbox. My mailbox unveiled an Internet bill (likely to be paid online), two coupon catalogues (likely to be thrown in the trash) and one package addressed to my roommate (sent via UPS).

So yes, for many, the closing of the USPS may very well go unnoticed.

Others, upon hearing the news of the possibility, may wander into a state of nostalgia, reminiscing the days of handwritten love letters and holiday party invitations in sealed envelopes.

And for the 571,566 full-time workers employed by USPS (the second-largest civilian employer after Wal-Mart Stores), a closing wouldn’t simply be nostalgically depressing, it would mean over half a million people would be out of a job.

Since its opening in 1775, the USPS has worked something of a miracle, delivering pen pal letters, Halloween candy parcels, love poems and the like anywhere within the U.S. borders. Today’s delivery guarantees go so far as postmen using snowmobiles to reach the high hills of Alaska or mules to deliver parcels within the depths of the Grand Canyon, starting at 44 cents for a simple letter. How’s that for a deal?

Its own government agency, the USPS has been legally obligated to deliver the mail six days a week anywhere within the United States, “binding the nation together through the personal, educational, literary and business correspondence of the people.”

One large problem, however, is that much of today’s “correspondence” is built upon the mass junk mail advertisers, which last year consisted of “9.3 billion pounds”:http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=875771&f=28⊂=SundayReview of the nation’s mail — compared to only 3.7 billion pounds of first-class envelopes.

In a recent New York Times article, “Junking of the Postal Service,” Ian Lee, a professor of strategic management at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa asked, “If the Postal Service has become a subsidized tool for mass mailers, why does the state still own it?”

It’s a valid point. But I still stand with the post I’ve grown up with for 21 years for a blended mix of reasons from nostalgia, worker support, to — quite honestly — sheer reliance.

Just like my parents, I pay the majority of my bills by check sent through the post. Each month, I ritually send a handwritten letter to my pen pal in Arkansas. And while I may be an oddity considering my age, there remains a large bracket of Americans who have relied on USPS for decades.

Which is why, maybe for this Christmas, that something extra you give your postman should be a first-class letter. In fact, make it a handwritten letter to a loved one far away, or even close by.
This year especially, there’s going to be more than one reason to appreciate a 44-cent post.