A Picture

Is worth a thousand words. Ramirez proves, to me anyhow, that he is an editorial cartooning genius.

This

Encapsulates in one picture what it would take me a thousand words to say. Amen, Lisa Benson, amen.

Irony Alert! Cleanup On Aisle Two!

The APWU has had to extend it's mail in election because too many members have requested duplicate ballots because.....- wait for it -
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The ballots were lost in the mail.

I see William Burris, the heir apparent to Moe Biller (President of the APWU for life -cuz he's dead now), is still the head cheese.

Like the election would change anything anyway.

Quote of the Day

“The real communication networks have to be 24/7,” Ms. Goldway said. “The Postal Service in fact should be expanding its accessibility and delivery capability to meet those needs. The long-term future of the Postal Service may be limited by their interest in reducing service today.”

I've posted before about the ol' Post Office, since I used to work for that august agency a while back. The last post discussed the possible curtailing of Saturday deliveries, and why I thought it was a bad idea - mostly because postal management is blowing smoke up our kiesters.

The Postal Regulatory Commission is set to hold hearings on July 12 on the subject and to submit recommendations (which basically means the USPS will get marching orders) on rates and future plans. Major mailers have geared up to argue their cases for or against ending delivery on Saturday.

But I really, really like the quote above from Ruth Y. Goldway, chairwoman of the regulatory commission. She just boiled the future of the USPS down in a nutshell.

If Postal Management gets their way, they've basically assured the long term dissolution of the Service. This should be an opportunity to position themselves for the future, rather than clinging to past strategies. Doing it "the way we've always done it" is comforting and maybe even secure for some of them short term, but it will be the death of the USPS in the long run. There will be cries to cut service even more to relieve the budget, because of lower revenues caused by crummier service. There will be no investment in new tech or even maintaining what they have because there won't be enough money. New strategies would require new attitudes from management and the unions - past practices ain't cuttin' it, people. Both sides need to grow a pair or three.

My 'ol Daddy (God rest his soul) used to say (and I hear him with his nuggets of wisdom daily, believe me) "Either piss or get off the pot." It's that time for the USPS.

Saturday Delivery

Well, we've all heard the USPS is going to stop Saturday deliveries and how they're claiming to save money doing so. I wasn't sure what the extent of their shutdown would entail, but after reading some of their plan, I've got a clue.

In order to understand what they are proposing, one needs to understand the mechanics of moving mail. I worked at a Sectional Center Facility (SCF) office - specifically, Dodge City KS. That office processes primary (raw) mail going outbound to the world from all the towns that start with 678 in their zip code. This requires a fleet of bid carriers that pick up the raw mail from the towns on their route to present it for processing at Dodge in the evening. The third shift (Tour Three) of clerks process (cancel the stamps, and sort letters into machinable or manual - machinable is then sorted by machine and manual by hand) that mail to go outbound. The outbound mail is shipped on several trucks that have different destinations. One winds it's way around some of the other state SCF facilities on the way to Kansas City, and the other goes straight to Wichita - the main office "over" Dodge. The Kansas City truck stops at Hays first, where mail going to Hays, Denver, and Colby is dropped off - as an example of how the Dodge City office has to separate the mail. They can't just lump it all together and send it to Wichita. Another truck comes straight from the Kansas City Bulk Mail Center and arrives in the afternoon. Junk mail - all of it.

Meanwhile, there are a couple of trucks headed towards Dodge City from KC and Wichita. They get to Dodge a little after midnight with mail from the rest of the world bound for the 678 area. The first shift (Tour One) sorts this mail - it's already processed down to at least the 678 level. Some trays of letters might be directs - all the letters in that tray might all go to Garden City, for instance. That mail is merely "cut" to the staging area for that contractor to haul there. The rest of the mail has to be sorted manually or in the case of letters - by machine. Lots of mail still arrives in bags and must be dumped, then sorted into bags for each town. Towards the end of the shift, the sorting has to be finished and the various letter trays finished and cut to the runs, bag racks torn down and cut to the runs, and so on.

Remember the bid carriers from the small towns? They spent a few hours grabbing some sleep, then early in the morning, pick up the mail for their route, and deliver it to each office in the wee hours. Clerks in the satellite offices finish sorting their processed mail. The bid carriers go to bed for a few hours to repeat the whole thing once more later that evening.

Meanwhile, the home office switches gears and sorts mail for Dodge City. That mail is sorted by carrier route. The machines can sort letters in the order they're delivered, but much of the mail has to be sorted manually. This mail must be finished in time for the carriers to "case" - they sort their manual mail in the delivery order. Tour Two - the carriers, window clerks and maintenance crew show up for work. The carriers deliver their mail, and at the end of their day, one has to go on "collections." That carrier follows a route and picks up the raw mail from all the blue boxes scattered around town, plus the contract outlets at certain grocery stores. Tour Three came on in the middle of the afternoon, and started working on bulk mail, but in the evening, switches to primary.

This goes on five days a week. Saturdays - Tour One has a full load and sends out the usual amount for Saturday delivery. Tour Three is a skeleton crew that merely passes primary mail on to Wichita for processing, and unloads the bulk mail truck. Primary first class volume is minimal compared to the rest of the week. Sundays - Tour One still shows up for work and sorts mail that will eventually deliver Monday. Tour Three is a skeleton crew again - just enough to unload the bulk mail truck and work some of that mail.

Monday Tour One generally sends out a glut of mail - backed up bulk mail and first class mail that arrived at the center both Sunday and Monday mornings. Most of the satellite offices have to curtail delivery of bulk mail in favor of getting the surfeit of first class mail out on time.

This is all an oversimplification, and I'm not sure I'm being all that clear. My point is that there is a rather complicated set of events that have to happen in order and happen frequently or there is a major disruption in the mail flow. I've seen what happens if a truck is delayed by - oh, say - a blizzard. It ain't pretty. Plus, the truck volume is pretty well maximized already. They leave and arrive full. There are only so many hours in a day, and there are only so many workers that exist to sort this mail. In many of the smallest offices - it's just the Postmaster or their temporary replacement - Postmaster Relief (PMR) - who usually only works on Saturday or when the PM goes on vacation.

Now, let's look at what the Post Office has to say:

Discontinuing Saturday delivery and collections would result in significant savings by eliminating work performed by city and rural carriers. These savings account for $2.7 billion of the estimated $3 billion total.

City carrier savings will result from no longer needing the carriers who handle the sixth delivery day. This work is primarily performed by carrier technicians employed specifically for this purpose. These nearly 25,000 positions would no longer be needed. Other part-time and full-time assignments used to replace the regular carrier on the sixth day would also no longer be needed.

To determine the savings for city carriers, analysts considered the profile of average Saturday work — what portions would be saved by eliminating Saturday delivery, and what would still need to be done Monday through Friday to deliver Saturday mail volumes.

Most of Saturday’s office time would be transferred to other days, Monday through Friday. Most of Saturday’s street time would not be needed to deliver volume during the week.

I certainly disagree with that last statement. If you've just eliminated a full day's worth of "office time" - when the carriers sort their mail - it's going to have to be made up somewhere. There will be some time saved due to eliminating duplication of part of the job - the carriers will only be "tearing down their cases" for delivery once rather than twice, but still. I understand where they're coming from by claiming to eliminate the part time carrier assignments on weekends. They are saying the senior carriers will be working five day weeks and the part timers who fill in on the sixth day won't be needed. Currently, carriers work a rotating day off - they might have Tuesday and Sunday off this week, Wednesday and Sunday off next week. There are several PTF (part time flexible) carriers who fill in for them. The Post Office is saying those hours will be cut. I also have doubts about this, too.

In order for this to work, carriers must be able to process twice the mail on Mondays in the same time as before. Not gonna happen. There will be more office time on Mondays for sure. This is going to eat into their available street time. One of the current strategies for getting all the mail delivered on a heavy day is to have the PTFs take part of the regular carriers' mail and deliver it for them as the day goes by. The supervisor hears that carrier so and so is having trouble, so they'll dispatch a PTF to meet the troubled "delivery specialist" and take some of their "loops" to help deliver. Carrier supervisors are going to need all their extra help on site and working during the first part of the week to cover the extra load, period. So much for eliminating beau coups hours thataway. Another thing that has to be noted is the overtime regulations the Post Office is contractually obligated to follow. Anything over eight hours is overtime. Even for part timers. If Joe Part Time works ten hours in a day, and that is all he works all week, he'll draw eight hours straight time and two hours overtime. Also, if he goes over ten hours, penalty overtime is triggered. Anything over ten hours is double time. Supervisors who authorize double time are cutting their own throats for any promotions in the future. So, penalty OT is right out. This proviso is suspended during the Christmas rush - it's just regular OT during that time period. In order to avoid burning penalty OT, managers are going to have to be Johnny On The Spot with help for their senior carriers.

And another thing while I'm at it - reading the Post Office proposal might give you the impression that the "temporary" or "part time" help is sort of unnecessary, thus eliminating them will save money. Welp, the ol' PO is dead set against full time positions and fights the unions over this all the time. They'd prefer that all the help should be in a part time mode. So, any time a full time employee retires, it's a fight between management and the union to replace that position. Sometimes, management wins. As a result, the part time employees actually put in more hours than most of the senior full time employees (who had to run through this gauntlet in the past, and aren't all that interested in tons of hours anymore - they're in a position to refuse overtime, and do so). In order to get the mail delivered in six days requires quite a few "part timers" just because of deliberate short staffing strategies. Do you really think that just because there is a day less to do it all, the part timers are gonna be sent home?

The estimated work-hour savings for the four types of rural routes are based on the current rural carrier compensation rates. Estimated savings are 18 million work hours, nearly 10 percent of FY 2009 rural carrier hours.

The bulk of the savings would come from work-hour reductions for rural carrier associates (RCAs). The wage rate for RCAs is about half that for regular rural carriers

There also would be vehicle-related savings. Reduced driving would provide savings in fuel and maintenance costs for postal vehicles, and reduce payments for equipment maintenance allowances for carrier-owned vehicles.

The rural carriers are private. Most work five day weeks, and have an RCA available for their off day. I can see the RCA hours being cut and money savings, but it's going to come at the expense of the rural carriers. They operate on bids, so it doesn't matter to the USPS how many hours they work. There is no floating pool of "delivery specialists" to help them. They're on their own. And, I can see the vehicular savings as well. If it's parked, the only costs are fixed. The rural carriers will only be traveling their routes five times instead of six, so mileage allowances will be cut.

Eliminating Saturday delivery also would result in supervisor work reductions. These work reduction savings have been offset to reflect the cost of continuing to deliver Express Mail on Saturday.

About $200 million in annual savings could be realized because of lower processing costs at plants and Post Offices. Moving outgoing sorting from Saturday to Monday would allow savings in plant clerks, mail handlers and supervisors, and reduced maintenance.

Further, eliminating Saturday delivery and collections would reduce the need for clerk staffing at Post Offices. While much of the work formerly performed on Saturday would need to be done Monday through Friday instead, there would still be savings from the activities for which costs are driven by the number of routes and days of delivery.

About $380 million in annual transportation savings would be realized by eliminating Saturday delivery via highway contract, postal vehicle drivers, and contract delivery. Highway contract savings would result from a reduced need for highway transportation on Saturday and Sunday.

Air transport savings would be achieved because less mail would require use of air transportation. Also, eliminating Saturday carrier delivery and collection reduces the need for vehicle service drivers to transport mail between Post Offices and plants on Saturday. Contract delivery savings would also result by modifying contracts to eliminate Saturday delivery.

They are clearly saying that all that delivery machinery on Saturday and Sunday will stop. There was a comment about delivery of Express Mail on weekends, but if there is no way to get it delivered to the destination office, there isn't much point in keeping someone around to deliver it to the destination address. There is also not much point in guaranteeing Express Mail delivery overnight or second day by three pm. If you take it in on Friday expecting it to be delivered at the advertised time, you will be disappointed. Can we say USP or FedEx? If they eliminate all the truck routes, then there has to be some sort of system set up just for the occasional Express Mail piece - which works if you are close to a major airport. Otherwise, it has to be trucked.

FedEx actually carries quite a bit of first class mail for the USPS - a major portion of Priority Mail is handled by them. I'm not sure about the capacity - maybe FedEx has enough space on their planes in place and the USPS has it contracted to absorb the glut of mail on Monday. Considering the planning I've seen from the USPS in the past - well, Oh Ye of Little Faith, I guess.

What does this all mean? The Postal Service self monitors it's delivery goals with EXFC scores - External First Class delivery times. That is gonna go to hell, I guarantee you. Historically, the weekend drop-off in volume trickles down to the delivery points about Wednesday. That means the lowered volume takes that long to show up at the other end. Mondays have always been hectic both for the carriers and clerks - volume of primary mail spikes and the weekend backlog of mail inundates the carrier and clerks sorting mail for their office. It's about to get a whole lot worse - it's a kiss of death for a supervisor to curtail first class delivery, but I'd bet that's about to change. Plus, I've already pointed out that the trucks from the major hubs arriving locally are pretty full. The USPS isn't paying for half full trucks to run up and down the highway - if they are half full, when the contract is renewed, they'll want a smaller truck. So, the trucks are definitely full on Mondays already. The mail that wasn't shipped on Saturday? If it's not being shipped, that means it's going to be stored. That means mail will be curtailed due to lack of cubes in a semi-trailer headed to SCF facilities. By Thursday it might all be shipped, but some will be delayed, end of story.

I've been looking at this from two points of view - the carriers and the shippers. Well, the clerks have to get the increased volume worked up and sent out to both - and that's gonna require extra hours, extra help or extra delays. A lot of my dark predictions depend on the clerks to actually get all the extra mail sorted in order for there to be a glut affecting the shippers and carriers. I'm sure they'll partially succeed.

I'd say the USPS will probably save some money from this - not as much as they're so optimistically predicting, but it will save some. What they aren't saying is how it will affect their performance. Add rate increases, and perception is gonna go downhill even faster.

To be fair, at least part of this isn't their fault. While they have a monopoly on the mailbox, they are not allowed to compete fairly in a lot of arenas. Have you ever bought wrapping materials at a Post Office - like a roll of tape? Ever notice how high priced it is? It's deliberately overpriced so as not to compete with other businesses - if you want it bad enough that you don't want to drive to a store that handles that stuff cheaper - you pay. That's out of the POs hands, as it were.

If anyone reading this is into marketing - has it ever bothered ya that sitting right there is still a positive brand with a fair amount of foot traffic, and it's not being utilized? No mini branch banks or McDonalds inside the local PO? No advertising allowed? Wouldn't a Kinko's style business work just great sharing space in a larger Post Office? The USPS pays a price for it's monopoly of certain services, and staying out of other commercial enterprises is one of the associated costs. Another huge advantage UPS and FedEx have is that if they don't have something for you, they don't come by at all. USPS does - six days a week.

I used to be against privatizing the Postal Service. I had drunk deeply from the union chalice on certain subjects. Sending a letter from Chicago to NYC would be cheap, but just how much would it cost to send a letter from Outer Mongolia Montana to Tumbleweed Texas if there were several entities that had to interline to get it sent? That argument ignores the agreements and cheap shipping prices the freight industry enjoys - a pallet of stuff might pass through several different shipping companies, but it's accomplished at a fairly reasonable rate no matter how many companies handle it. I'm sure private enterprise would be able to figure something out, and what was once the USPS could be right in there competing with the rest, and making money instead of wanting bailed out all the time. If not, oh well. Someone would step up.

Otherwise, considering the inevitable decline of mail volume, we'll be seeing this again, only going from five day delivery to four, or some other cut in services and increasing rates.

Frankly, I'm sooooo glad I don't work there it ain't even funny.

Another Union Story

I've certainly blathered (that's my new favorite word for what I do here) on about the Postal Service and my experiences there. I was a card carrying member of the American Postal Workers Union - and in the first part of the "career," I became involved. Said it before, will say it again - if there were no need for that union, it wouldn't exist. Postal management's attitudes towards the rank and file were driven home on a daily basis, so "dancing with the one that brung ya" seemed logical at the time.

My local president was looking to step back and let someone younger and perhaps fresher step in, so he began to recruit me. I started to go to more meetings, and they even sent me to a big convention - the Tri-State - held in Topeka that year. Nebraska, Oklahoma and Kansas all sent reps, so most of the local big wheels were there. It ran for several days in a convention center, and there were all kinds of seminars on a variety of subjects. I'm glad I went -I did learn quite a bit. One of the side effects of these things is that you come home all pumped and ready to take on the world. I was no different.

One of the things I took from some of the sessions were how the local leadership needed to energize the members at home - get them involved in some way or another to promote unity - unity against management - but not in any confrontational manner. Several ideas were bounced off us - some used being involved in local charities. Working together to help out during the United Way drive not only would involve everyone, but it would also get the organization out of the office and into the local consciousness - instead of being just a bunch of overpaid and grumpy civil type servants, there would be proof that the union actually gave a crap about the local charities and causes. The carrier's union does this with their national food drive - maybe you've set out canned or boxed food for your carrier to pick up. This sort of thing appears in the papers, and good publicity would be a positive. Something so small as adopting a highway would at least get our name out in the public. I could certainly see how this could help us bond together - "divide and conquer" is a tactic management uses frequently.

The idea that really caught my attention was presented by the Topeka local. They had t-shirts printed that had some inoffensive message (don't piss off the boss - it's not allowed) but it had significance for their members. They would all wear their local union t-shirts once a month on Friday, or some such thing. Their president reported how that alone really seemed to help hold everyone together - in a small way at first, but it grew over time.

That idea sure seemed to be a good starting point. So, I got to thinking about it - and luckily I considered my strategy for becoming the local president. I knew I'd have to have a dependable person as the secretary for the local, so I asked one of my good friends if she'd do it. She was understandably hesitant - it meant eating up a lot of her spare time. I asked her to trust me - I wasn't too interested in doing this without help from more than just a few people.

I knew that if I couldn't energize the constituency, I'd end up picking up trash by my lonesome, and staffing a United Way booth by myself, as well as all the other union duties - filing grievances, studying the contract, connecting with union officials and so on. So, I decided to try a bit of a test.

I decided to start with the t-shirt idea. Since we were in Dodge City, I thought a black t-shirt with a white cowboy hat on it would be appropriate. I think the only text I wanted was just the APWU logo and our local number - that would be about as unassuming at first glance as possible. But, the "subversive" message would be that we claimed the white hat as the "good guys." We were gonna be on the right side of things, and that was gonna be what wearing that t-shirt meant. Our current secretary was a "window clerk" and since they had uniforms, she felt they would be left out of the t-shirt business - why not have a discreet lapel pin?

I agreed - it sure seemed like a good idea to me. But, like I said, I wasn't gonna wade right in without testing the waters. So, I typed up a bit of a proposal for the local members about the t-shirt/lapel pin idea and the long term benefits we could gain for ourselves. I also spoke at the local meeting about my ideas for the future, and how I would need everyone to be involved. Thus, my plans for getting us involved in the community were spread around.

In this bulletin I mentioned how we needed to know what our membership wanted to do - did we want t-shirts, lapel pins, or both? The union was gonna buy them, so the whole shebang was "free" - it did come from dues and funds raised by other means. I asked them to come to me to discuss this, and let me know what they thought.

I figured if people wouldn't come to me to talk about a free t-shirt, I was gonna have a hell of a time energizing the local. Apathy or my inability to lead? Didn't really matter to me - the results would tell me what I needed to know.

Well, you can imagine what happened. Nada. Zip. No one could be bothered to talk to me about it. Some weeks later the window clerk asked me what happened to the t-shirt idea. I told her no one would come to me, so as far as I was concerned, the deal was off. My friend who would have been the secretary was off the hook, too. Even some time later, in a crowd, one of the more prominent members asked me about it, and why I wanted people to come to me. I should have just gone ahead and made a choice, rather than requiring them to come to me.

I told him I wasn't into baby sitting, nor was I gonna wipe his or anyone else's ass. I had demonstrated that they'd all leave me hanging, and I'd do all the work. Not gonna happen.

He just shrugged, and we all went back to work. Thus ended my foray into union politics.

USPS Down the Tubes

As a former employee of the good ol' Post Office, the coverage of their problems are of some interest. It sure looks like they are continuing to slide down the slippery slope of complete failure. Most of their suggestions are just stopgap measures designed for short term continuance of current marketing strategy and fiscal planning.

Rate hike? Raise the price of stamps? How does that increase their market share, reduce costs, or include some sort of productivity enhancement? How does the continual begging for more money help their image with the public? Hey, I'd like to get a raise every time I run short of money before the next paycheck, but that isn't the way the real world works. Welcome to the real world, USPS management.

I'm just a simple country boy, with nothing other than Econ 101 in college to buttress my knowledge of the global economy. I didn't even sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night. All I know is what I learned while in the aforementioned august assembly's employ. I really tend to come down on postal management and their missteps more than the various unions. The USPS has to deal with several unions - the APWU (American Postal Worker's Union), the NALC (National Association of Letter Carriers), and the National Postal Mail Handler's Union - the three largest. They are all affiliates of the AFL-CIO, but due to the personality conflicts of their leadership, none of them get along. It would seem to me that the USPS could have played them off against each other, but they have been largely unsuccessful in this regard. I can remember the NALC settled a contract dispute and the APWU didn't - but it made but a ripple in the larger scheme of things.

And, I'm not saying I'm pro union either. Far from it. Yep, the union contracts have tied management's hands in a lot of ways. But, they signed the dotted line - management did agree to abide by the terms of their various contracts. Do they? Are you kidding me? The corporate attitude is screw the unions and individuals every chance they get. A management up and comer won't get anywhere without a few greivances under his/her belt on their 991 (USPS form for the standard resume). The attitude is that when the punishment finally is meted out by an arbitrator, they will have moved on to other things and the damage won't be noticable. Management will have realized their short term plan, even though it was against the contract. If, as an up and coming supervisor, you get a reputation as someone who is "easy" on the rank and file - well, you are screwed as far as advancement is considered.

But you won't get fired. If there was an organization that embodies the Peter Principle, it would be the USPS. Anectodes do not make evidence, but in the ten years I was there, I never saw any member of management fired for any reason. Yeah, they were generally transferred - but usually to a higher paying job insulated from any decisions that got them in hot water in the first place. Since Western Kansas is not exactly on most urban professionals' hot list for places to live and work - we got a lot of people who were basically banished to Siberia for a time.

Plus, there is definitely a double standard applied to management personnel. For instance - we had a postmaster who had problems with her vertebral arteries plugging. This made for some interesting interactions when she was attempting to lead - she'd forget the order just given and threaten dire consequences for continuing the action she had just ordered, then an hour later be back - upset that the original order was not being followed. I'm not trying to be heartless - she finally got the medical help she needed, but her superiors didn't care about her spotty performance. After she actually retired, she was kept on the employment rolls as our postmaster until her sick leave and vacation time were used up. Easily over a year. So, we had a succession of substitutes looking to "pad their 991s" by changing some process just before a normal spike in mail volume to claim the application of their intellect caused the increase in productivity. Which meant we had no continuity in our job processes. And, as an aside, do you think a rank and file union member would be allowed to be considered "present" in order to use up their accumulated sick leave?

Like I said, I'm no fan of unions. Their constant nit picking about issues that were more about "not respecting my authoratah" than much of anything else got on my nerves as well. The USPS created the need for the unions by their cavalier attitude towards their employees, and their refusal to give and take put them in the penalty box with the rather liberal federal arbitrators. They made their own beds. And, just a thought, when you hear about how the USPS is hamstrung by their contracts with the various unions and how their costs are just out of control because of said sad condition, let me ask you this question. How is it that the UPS's employees are unionized and they don't have this trouble?

I'll just leave that issue with this thought: When management is actively trying to piss off their employees, what sort of response should you expect? But before I drop it, just one more dig. The "rank and file" employees are overpaid and underworked, according to USPS management. However, their pay scales have to be competitive with the rest of the business world. When considering the salaries of the Postmaster General and other high echelon positions, you should be looking at what other large corporations are paying their top managers. Gotta be competitive, doncha know. If you want to attract talent, you gotta pay. The rest of their workforce? Crush 'em.

So, yeah, I'm giving management a hard time, but they deserve it. They are the supposedly responsible parties in the equation. Like a lot of businesses, they have been obsessed with short term results rather than using long term thinking. IE: tracking packages. When their competitors invested in the technology to track packages and keep the consumer informed about the probable deliver time - well, that should have been a clue. The original decision was made to concede that part of the parcel business to their competitors rather than actually try to maintain their market share. Later, they saw their error and have been rather belatedly attempting to catch up. A consumer is still unable to send a package and have it tracked all the way from A to B. Priority Mail has the extra expense option to track when the package is handed over to the sending post office, and then when the package reaches the destination address, but not between. If you want true tracking that UPS and FedEx offers on everything, you have to use the premium and much more expensive USPS services (think Express Mail - yeah, the overnight or two day option). So, back when that fateful decision was made, UPS was a pretty small entity. Look what they and FedEx have become with just a small window of opportunity.

But, but, but - the USPS claims they are self supporting! They are the only government entity that doesn't get taxpayer funding! Well, hold on there buckaroo. Shall we look back on the anthrax scare in 2001? That was just $5 billion between friends. And, that was hardly the only time. Independent? Not so much.

Lets look at another poor decision just for kicks. In 1997, the USPS and Emory Worldwide (now a division of UPS), reached a historic agreement.

After conducting a three-year study on creating a separate, outsourced network to improve delivery times, the Postal Service reached an agreement with Emery Worldwide in 1997 to process and transport Priority Mail.

Four years later, the Postal Service’s Inspector General’s office audited the contract and concluded that “Priority Mail processed through the network cost 23 percent more than Priority Mail processed by the Postal Service without a network,” and that Emery “was not meeting overall delivery goals.”

Furthermore, the auditors found that network subcontractors had abandoned Priority Mail in Seattle, rather than transport it to Alaska as required in the contract. The audit also said that the contractor did not perform security screenings as required in the contract. (IG reports DA-AR-99-001 and MK-AR-01-003).

In November 2000, the Postal Service and Emery agreed to an early end to the contract after the private contractor tried to charge 40 percent more than the USPS expected to pay. The work was brought back in-house the following January.

Ending the contract cost the Postal Service $66 million in termination fees and another $235 million as settlement for Emery’s claims of underpayments.

Turns out Emory was headed down the tubes. Did anyone at the USPS ever read a balance sheet on Emory? Do you suppose any USPS honchos heads rolled over this?

Another issue that really resonates with people is the junk mail issue. I cannot tell you how many people would come in and bitch about how much crap they got and wanted it stopped. The customer is always right, correct? Why doesn't the Postal Service stop delivering junk mail to individual customers?

Well, when you are the recipient of mail, you are not the customer. The person or entity that sent that mail is the customer in the Postal Service's eyes. They paid the postage. Not you, hapless Joe Sixpack on Generic Drive. You just happen to have the mailbox at the address that is on the piece of mail. And maybe the name isn't the same? John Doe moved out over two years ago, and your name is Joe Sixpack? Why are you still getting HIS mail? WTF? Welp, look at the fine print. Deliver to addressee or current resident. Guess what - Joe Sixpack is the current resident. The mail was delivered correctly as far as the actual customer is concerned.

But, that is really all beside the point. For years, consumer advocates have held that the Postal Service gives mass mailers a sweetheart deal. They say that First Class mail - the mail the average schmuck (that means you and me) uses actually supports the costs of handling junk mail.

Picture from here

"Standard Mail" is the postal euphamism for junk mail. Look at the piece count comparing first class to standard. Roughly equal. Look at the weight. Standard mail weighs significantly more. Standard mail generally is held to a lesser delivery standard - up to a point. Most of the time, it is handled separately from first class mail. So, the latest JC Penny sale catalog can sit on a pallet for a day or two at a mail facility before delivery requirements say it has to be out the door. On the other hand, if you have a local non profit mail permit, and take your church bulletin in to be mailed on Tuesday, the bulletin is treated at first class mail and delivered on Wednesday.

The issue is with the very large mailers and the rates they are charged. The mass mailers have a very good lobbying front that keeps their issues in Congress's ears. They claim that any rate increase will cause them to take their ball and go home - they are already stretched too much paying what they already are. They threaten to use other advertising avenues. The Postal Service listens to this. So, the marketers have the heaviest load, and roughly half the piece count, only paying about half the postage. Most standard mail isn't shipped by air like first class, but once standard class mail is introduced into the mailstream, it is considered first class.

I ran one of several CSBCS machines - they are letter sorting machines capable of sorting carrier level mail into the delivery sequence. I spent many an afternoon running standard mail through those puppies, and the extra weight and thickness of the majority of those mailpieces was very hard on the mechanicals. High wear items wore out much more rapidly - belts broke more often, and feed strips and belts ground down in a hurry. There were more labor hours associated with handling that mail. The standard rule for the Postal Service and labor costs associated with classes of mail can be summed up with: "Don't burn overtime on junk mail," which means it's ok to do so with First Class.

I'm for thinking that standard mail rates should be cheaper than First Class Mail, but not as cheap as it is. Running your infrastructure into the ground to keep a loud minority happy is no way to run a business. The mass mailers might take their ball home, but not for long. Their own studies show how effective mass mailings are. Mass mailers could cut their costs considerably if they actually kept better databases on correct and current addresses. They're supposed to, but the reality is a bit different. The way they try to control their mailing costs pretty well tell me how much they consider the cost of mailing vs the cost of their spray and pray advertising (as opposed to tighter controls on targeting their potential consumers). It's cheaper for them to waste a significant portion of their mailings than it is to actually hit what they are aiming at.

There are plenty of other examples of mismanagement and excessive spending - but these will do for now. I blame a corporate culture obsessed with keeping themselves in power no matter the cost, a culture of obstinate employee relations, and very short term thinking. The unions have their share of blame as far as the continual nitpicking of largely inconsequential greivances, for instance. I think Moe Biller and Vince Sombrotto were dickheads. But, management is supposed to manage. They failed.

So, I'm sure there will be a postal bailout in the news soon. Why fix the problems when y'all can just toss more money in the mix? That's a recipe for success...

Postal Employee's Personalities

One of my former coworkers stopped by yesterday, looking for places to hunt deer. We hadn't talked in quite a while, so it was pretty entertaining to get caught up, etc. His visit reminded me (oh boy, here we go again....) about a theory I've held for years about the types of people the Postal Service attracts and why.

It seems to me, and anecdotes do not make evidence, that the rank and file postal employees seemed to share similar personality traits. First and foremost, they were mostly fairly smart. There were a few ditzes, but the majority were moderately intelligent, particularly compared to the average trucker, for instance. Then, most were at least moderately anal retentive, some worse than others. I fit into that category as well. I was particular about my job as far as it compared to others. I wanted to be faster, neater, and more productive. Some were just picky about their work environment. They'd spend a major amount of time making sure trays were lined up, labels were just so, and any other nitpicky little detail that bothered them. The typical "slow moving" postal worker would be highly insulted if they were called slow, because they pictured themselves as the hardest working employees ever. After a time, they developed their excruciatingly slow speed more as an offensive measure to management and other workers. Naturally, these types populated the unions, too. Self preservation was a common trait among the average worker, unlike me, who was more into burning out. The work is repetitive and boring, so some took it upon themselves to make life miserable for those they didn't like, particularly if they were senior to their victims. Most employees are also impatient, not necessarily about the same issues, but something not going their way sets them off.

Part of the problem at the USPS is the environment. Management is truly shackled by the contracts they have signed, and they become frustrated and break said contracts. Everyone always goes on about how it's impossible to get rid of an unproductive employee, but that is simply not true. What is true is doing so is difficult, and most of the managers didn't have the patience. Most supervisors are selected from rank and file workers as well, and this will become important later.

One of my supervisors figured out the best way to keep me on the boil was to piss me off. For a long time, I was the main "flat" sorter. Flats are basically the larger manila envelopes, magazines and small catalogs. They require a separate case to sort. I was the flat king - no one was faster. However, later in my career, I got burned out from trying to get done as fast as possible and go to a letter case to help them out. We only had one flat case, and lots and lots of letter cases - and there was always a shortage of people who were fast enough to overcome the deliberate drags on production. This supervisor would mess with my head in order to piss me off - he'd mess with me about how I was setting up my area (remember how I said we were all anal?), or make some snide comment, or whatever it took to bring my blood pressure up. I performed better under pressure, and being pissed off counted as pressure. Of course, he only was able to pull this stunt a few times until I caught on and refused to be pissed. I'd just answer whatever he spewed with "It ain't gonna work this time."

There were all kinds of incidents and policies that helped burn me out, but that is another post for another time. I just used this incident to show how malignant the relationships could be in that fine institution, and this was really rather mild in the great scheme of things. Anyone who was fairly productive was pretty high strung, and those who were not were usually fairly malignant in petty ways. Not that some of the more productive weren't malignant, either. Some were.

Now, most of you who have worked in an office see this as well, but I've held jobs in other fields and witnessed the interactions there as well. Take my word for it, the average business isn't even close to being as toxic as the atmosphere at larger post office. For one thing, businesses don't generally put up with the lack of production nor have picayunish contracts restricting their decisions. Unless there are unions involved, but I also have a theory as to why the USPS is different.

To get into the USPS as a career employee, you are required to take their battery exam. I've mentioned it before. The people that designed the test are looking for above average abilities in certain areas. The general knowledge portion of the test weeds out the less intelligent on a bell curve. However, and here is one of my contentions - they don't get employees further up the curve with really high intelligence. People with college degrees - unless it's in underwater basketweaving and they can't find a job any where else - don't go into the USPS except in certain higher level positions requiring degrees. The average worker is smart up to a point, but not successful in the sense that they could get a college degree. I fall into this category as well. Not that a degree is the salvation of all that is holy, but the slice of the bell curve of available talent is fairly narrow. People with degrees find better paying and more rewarding jobs than the USPS usually offers.

Another thing that USPS management wants in their employees is the ability to learn and retain apparently disjointed information quickly and repeat it as well. Such employees are more likely to learn and retain sorting schemes in a shorter time and be more effective. What is a sorting scheme? Well, each postal mail carrier delivers mail to a route. This route consists of "loops" where the carrier walks or drives in a predetermined pattern designed to give them a consistent amount of mail, and bring them back to their starting point to gain access to their delivery vehicle to get another loop of mail. So, a loop might have a starting point at the 2500 block of "A" street, turn on Oak to "B" street, come back to the south, and loop over to A on Maple. So, all the addresses contained within that loop go to that carrier route. A completely different carrier may have the rest of A street, and a completely different one with B.

When sitting in front of a "city case" set up for manually sorting letters addressed to the town, you will see labels on the "holdouts." C1 would be carrier one, and so on. You have to know all the addresses that each carrier delivers to in order to correctly sort the mail that is sent to them to deliver. So, retention of disparate data and applying it consistently is important to postal management.

But now let's look at the bell curve of available employees. We've already narrowed it down to a small subset of above intelligent (no, really) candidates, but inadvertently limited on the upper end. Now, we've cut into that subset and weeded out people with lousy short term memories. Not that someone with a poor short term memory isn't capable of memorizing the schemes necessary for the job - but that is what the USPS wants. Now we have an even smaller subset of candidates.

I took the battery exam when there were only two sections, but it's far more than that now. So, I'm not familiar with what they are looking for these days in the other parts. But, I can assure you, the tests reduce the qualifying candidates even further. Finally, we are left with the ideal USPS candidate.

My question is this: Wouldn't you think that people sharing these "superior" abilities also have personality quirks in common? That immersing these people in the petri dishes that are the hallmark of employment in the USPS may result in conflicts and general unhappiness? That recruiting management from the ranks is another bad example of the Peter Principle? People hired for a specific skill set not necessarily related to management are suddenly placed in positions of authority. I'm not trying to knock burgeoning supervisors here, but I'm just trying to look at the situation analytically. Yes, the USPS spends endless time training their managers, but the raw material was formed for a different purpose. And, the raw material doesn't play well with others in the first place.

I'd bet that if someone did a study on this, they'd find a lot of unhealthy traits common to our ideal subset of available candidates. I'd expect no change - postal management doesn't like to be told what to do. Most of them took the tests as well.

So, that is my Unified Theory on Screwed Up Postal Workers. Part of it is the selection process, and the rest is their environment. Oh, there are people who manage to survive successfully in their careers at the USPS, but most have something in common as well. They leave their work at work when the door swings behind them leaving, they work hard enough to stay under the radar of their managers, but not so hard it affects their home life. They can look at injustices and not let that bother them, either, unless they are specifically singled out. They learn to survive. I did not.

I'm Hired - Wheeeee!

How can you tell when the Post Office is hiring?

When the flag is at half mast.

There is a lot about the Postal Service that runs counter to the normal business world, plus it is different than the average government job. For one thing, the Postal Service has it's own pay scale. A G4 or G5 government worker doesn't translate into a Level 4 or Level 5 postal employee.

The hiring practice is different as well. You have to take a test(postal entrance exam) to get in. Back in the day, the test I took had two modules - general knowledge and short term memory.

A
B
C
100-699 Elm
1300-2399 Elm
700-1299 Elm
Box 1-399
Box 1000-1699
Box 400-999

(I can't do tables in HTML very well)

This is a very limited example of a table provided for study for the short term memory test. There would be more than three columns and two rows for sure. Notice how the addresses and the boxes aren't in order. The test taker is providing information on how well they can learn and retain information. When postal workers sort a city scheme into the letter cases, the slots are labeled for carrier routes. The individual address ranges must be memorized. It doesn't follow that Carrier One gets all the lower addresses, or part of a street, or all of it. It just depends on the delivery area and the route the carrier follows to deliver the mail. Carriers deliver "loops" where they start and stop at the same place (when on foot).

Anyhow, the test takers are given a period of time to memorize what they can and answer what questions they can. Was Box 1500 in A, B, or C?

I understand the test now has five or more modules, being more specialized than the one I took. Once you have taken the test, you are put on the "register." The call ins start with the highest scores, and as time goes on, the lower scores are called in. If I recall correctly, eighty is the minimum score. You can hurt your score by answering all the questions and getting a lot wrong, more than answering fewer correctly.

The job you will be trying for is considered career employment, but it is also considered part time by the postal service. The position is called Part Time Flexible or PTF. The postal service loves acronyms. There are a number of contract obligations for PTF's.

On call
Must have eight hours between shifts
Work schedule must be posted Tuesday
Only guaranteed two hours on scheduled day, no guaranteed hours
No holidays off
Normally no weekends off
Only one day per week required scheduled for day off
schedule due to change with no personal notice (your responsibility to check it every day)
Forced overtime if necessary

But, you do get insurance, vacation and sick leave and other benefits. You may see an ad in your local paper advertising for help at your local post office. These jobs are for temporary employees called "casuals." They are hired for a maximum of two three month periods, then they have to have a certain amount of time off before they can be hired again. There are no benefits other than they aren't contract laborers - they at least have taxes deducted. Hiring on as a casual does not improve or give any preference to hiring for a career position. Applicants for career positions are required to take the postal entrance exam, period. Postal exams aren't given on an individual basis - it may take up to five or six years between exams. The other ads are for exam preparation kits. You pay them for a study guide and a list of current entrance exams.

New hires of any stripe are at the bottom of the seniority ladder. PTFs are above casuals. This means casuals get the shit jobs, and they don't necessarily get to do some of the more preferential jobs at all. If a senior career employee sees a casual (or PTF, for that matter) doing something they want to do, and it falls within their job description, they can force the supervisor to let them do the easier job. Some employees live for this. This sort of behavior fosters ill will and job dissatisfaction (just one of many little things at the PO). Most of the shooting incidents in post offices involve casuals. They finally realize the efforts they have put into the job aren't going to get them anywhere, other than a day off. They were all informed of this since day one, but some still have the dreamy eyed optimism that they will, in fact, be asked to stay. They can also be disciplined or dismissed without the due cause protections that a career employee protected by contract enjoys. So, if you are desparate for a job or know someone that is, and they find there is an "opening" at the local post office - realize just what you're getting into. Personally, I recommend you run the other way as fast as you can.

If and when your name comes up, you will get a notice in the mail announcing an appointment to see the postmaster. That date and time are generally set in stone. The PM calls in a certain amount of people for a certain amount of positions. If there are two openings, the top two scores that show up get the jobs unless there is some sort of defensible reason they aren't qualified.

When I was called in, there were two of us. Myself and a black woman. I thought I was screwed right off - that in order to prove non descrimination perhaps a quota was necessary for hiring, and here was someone with two characteristics in the positive. She thought she had the job as well - her questions were primarily about the specifics of the job benefits, followed by "Thank God." I didn't ask very many questions. We were told that we would know within two or three days if we were successful candidates. I heard from the postmaster that night - he had me scheduled for fingerprinting and a screening physical. He was concerned that since I was a trucker, I would be out of town. It finally occurred to me that I did have the job.

During the next visit to the PM, I found him to be far friendlier. He grabbed my biceps and gave 'em a squeeze - telling me I would work out fine. Of course, I had no idea, but the work I did was very physical and involved lifting a lot of moderately heavy items. Later, I found out how he gamed the system. He actually had three openings, and he had filled two already. To get me to be the highest score for this interview, he called in everyone between the two he planned on hiring and me on the roster. He wanted the two he hired previously. The candidates between them and I - not so much. Since they were unsuccessful for those two jobs, they got put back on the roster, but the roster had to go to the bottom before starting over. The black woman and I were called in together because he had to have a selection - he didn't want to lose some below her for later consideration, and he wanted me.

It doesn't necessarily work that way at larger offices - they just don't have the time to check out every potential employee and just hire them as they come.

Thus began my career with the USPS.

What Is Yours is Mine

I've mentioned several times that I'm a trucker. I took a ten year break from trucking to work for the United States Postal Service. Yep, I was a union card carrying postal worker. If you look at the url of this site, you'll see it says crazedpw. That was meant to mean crazed postal worker. I was a clerk with guns. Oh My God, what if I had gone nuts?!? I started this blog about eight or nine months after I resigned my position. On my About page, it says I've been on blogger since May 2007. Actually, if you peruse my archives, you'll see my first post was in August of 2004. I didn't do much for some time, but it was there. One of the conversions to a "new" blogger version accounted for the date discrepancy.

At any rate, I am a former postal worker. I used to say I was "gruntled" rather than disgruntled, but in retrospect, that is wrong. I was very unhappy working there. A lot of my health problems can be traced to the stress of working for that fine institution. My friends can tell you how I returned to the human race after I quit. I was no fun to be around whilst in their employ. Quitting wasn't easy - I was about maxed out on the pay scale, so I made decent money. The benefits were very good. I just couldn't stand to go there every day anymore.

I haven't written much about my experiences there. Oh yeah, there is a LOT of blog fodder to be mined. If I talk about it much with my friends, I generally go ballistic and my blood pressure goes up, and my day goes downhill. So, I've left it alone for quite some time. Most of my complaints deal with management - but the American Postal Worker's Union (APWU) didn't show me much, either. The constant battling (from both sides) and underhanded tactics to gain even the slightest appearance of an advantage didn't age well with me.

So, I'm gonna relate a rather minor incident that to my thinking illustrates the liberal point of view towards property rights and ownership of personal items. We were given a half hour for lunch. I liked to read a newspaper during this time - I usually brought a sandwich or a frozen dinner to snarf down. Thirty minutes isn't a long time to eat. The break room got a free newspaper every day, and it was pretty hard to get a decent section to read when the place was hopping. It was also a copy of The Hutchinson News. It's a fine paper, but I've alway preferred The Wichita Eagle. At that time, the Eagle had cut back on deliveries beyond Wichita, and getting one in Western Kansas could be a problem. For a while, there were entrepreneurs that brought copies out to us country folk for an extra quarter - thus the paper cost seventy five cents rather than the posted fifty. So, I'd stop at a Quick Shop before work and grab a copy so I'd have something to read at lunch. Simple enough.

I always left the copy in the break room after I was finished reading. I shared. Why let it go to waste - I could have thrown the damn thing away, but it never occurred to me. But, that wasn't enough.

One day I was chowing down while reading a section of the paper, and one of the union bigwigs was sitting next to me. He started to take my paper.

What are you doing?

I'm gonna read this section.

But I'm not done with it.

You're not reading it now.

I don't care, I'm going to. It's my paper. You can have it after I'm done.

What difference does it make? You aren't reading it now.

Don't you even ask before trying to take my paper? Buy your own damn paper.

At this point, the president of our local stepped in - on his union brother's side. I was selfish for not sharing, even though I let people read the sections as I finished. My protestations about the actual ownership of said newspaper fell on deaf ears. I literally couldn't believe what was happening. I fell through the rabbit hole that day. I finally said "Enough. It's my paper. I bought it. You can't read it until I'm done, and I've been nice enough to let y'all read the sections as I'm finished, but that stops right now. It's going in the trash from now on."

For several weeks, I guarded my paper, and when I was done, I put it with my other belongings and threw it away at home. Those assholes would have dug it out of the trash, and I wasn't leaving it there for them. I finally relented and left it in the break room - the other shift read it too and they missed it as well.

This little incident revealed to me the normal thinking of the liberal mindset. Literally, what was mine was theirs to use as they saw fit, no matter the ownership. The discussion degenerated into my pointing out that with this sort of thinking, I expected to jump in their vehicles at the end of the shift and be able to drive myself home on their dime. That was different, because that was their property. But, since they wanted to read that paper Immediately If Not Before, the ends justified the means.

So, when I hear Hillary or Obama yammering on about sacrifices for the common good, and how we need this entitlement program or another, this little incident comes to mind. It's ok to take my money, even if it's a drop in the bucket compared to the income they pull down. They aren't volunteering their money for these projects, in fact, they'll do everything necessary to hang on to every penny they can. My money, not so much. Hypocrisy means nothing to these people.