I'm with you Nick and let's not forget mail service is 6 days a week in the US and 5 in Canada..........so we're getting less service for a lot more money...........and don't get me started on our POS Health Care system!!

 

Well we are right behind you. There are talks that USPS will be switching to 5 days a week, and we may soon have a similar POS Health Care system that you have if Obama has his way.

 

Hi Folks, I've been a letter carrier for the US Postal Service for over 20 years. I would personally like to apologize for any mistake any of the over 275000 letter carriers have made over those 20 years. I know I've made a few myself. We have alot of people and machines that touch your letter when it makes its way to its destination. Mistakes do happen. But, please know, that we do care about your letters and parcels. I take every letter I pick up and deliver as if I mailed it myself, from my own home. If there is a problem, please realize that, sometimes, it's not our fault. Sometimes the zip code is incorrect. That may not seem like such a big deal, but with our automated equipment, the mail piece will be routed to the incorrect zip code - even if the rest of the address is correct. Also, if you forget to put a stamp on the letter, and drop it in the mailbox, the letter may get all the way to the destination, and then have to go back to your house for the missing stamp. Just the other day, I had to return a letter to one of my customer's houses because they forgot to put a stamp on it. The awful thing was, the letter was their property tax payment to the state. Now, they will have to pay a penalty because of late payment. Last week, I told one of my customers that there was a package addressed to them that I saw delivered to a different house. Why didn't I pick it up and deliver it correctly? Because it was a UPS package (the guys in the brown trucks). They don't allow us to pick up their stuff. Everybody makes mistakes. Because the USPS moves more mail than any other company in the WORLD, we tend to stand out. Thanks for all your positive comments, and, again, sorry for the mistake.

 

Great post, and thanks for your 20 years of dedicated service.

 

Thanks bmorgan for your kind words. Sometimes, the US Postal Service takes some hits - deserved or not. I just want you all to know, that the letter carriers that I work with are wonderful people who really care. We are just another government entity, but we are self sustaining. We don't get one dime of support from taxpayers. The Canadians are upset with their postal service, because they went thru privatization. Their postal service is now profit driven. The US Postal Service has what we call universal service. That means, that everyone gets service everyday for one price. When private companies get into the mix, they can pick and choose the most profitable areas. Big cities are easy, rural areas get service when the companies can arrange the most profitalble time to deliver. I'm not saying the US Postal Service is perfect, but sometimes a government run entity can be the better alternative. By the way, 99% of letter carriers in the US want to keep our service running 6 days a week. If we had Saturday off, Mondays would be a bear - the mail would keep moving 7 days a week, but we would only have 5 days to deliver it! I would be working 12 hours on Monday, 10 hours on Tuesday thru Thursday, then maybe catch up on Friday. Of course, I would have Saturday and Sunday off, but Monday would start the whole thing over again!

 

In Canada I heard that some of our posties need special training in how to get a 12" wide letter with 'Do Not Fold' on it through a 6" slot. You probably guessed it but it takes a while for some, you fold it in half.
Anything that says 'Fragile' they have to stomp on it until they hear that it was indeed fragile. They love 'Glass', normally they only have to stomp on it once.

 

Great list of numbers, and that is what the USPS is about. I retired in 1973 with my 20 and saw many, many things that were outstanding, I also saw many dead beats that set up the overtime work. $70,000 a year for a mail handler with no sorting skills was not uncommon. On the otherside, more then half of the supervisors were promoted from worker, to Union Steward/oficial to Management and were lazy in all aspects.
I worked on the LSM, Letter Sorting Machine, for 10 years, was good at it and for the most part enjoyed it. It was the only place a supervisor had a true numbers count of letters worked. The machines worked us at 60 letters per minute where we had roughly a 1/4 second to read an address or zip code and 1/4th a second to key three numbers and 1/4 a second as it was gone. Mathmatically production for an 8 hour shift was based on letter jams, machine stoppage rotation of operators,(we keyed 40 minutes and then replaced a person n the back to clear the machine for twenty minutes. 3 operators per each station on the machine, 12 stations. total 18 personnel.(yes the math is correct, a STATION was 2 consoles keying and 1 sweeping the back). Some hot dog supervisors in order to increase their production would increase the speed of the machine by 2 or 3 letters per minute. This gave a higher overall production count of 15,000 plus per shift. It also increased the error rate having to rework the same letter several times, or having it sent to be hand worked. It also sent many letters to the wrong destination, causing it to be reworked and returned.
Fortuneately there were enough concientious management personnel that could see thru this, and the violaters were demoted back to craft. I witnessed a number of serious violations by craft workers and management personnel that were swept under the rug but in some areas of work it was best to keep your mouth shut.
The numbers in the above post tell only a part, an important part, but do not show where the money goes. The one part that interests me is the payroll. An old chart that I saw showed that 35% of employees were management or not involved with the handling of the mail, while 65% were the production employees, yet approximately 60% of the payroll was management. Postmasters were all given a "Christmas" bonus based on the efficiency of their office, and if they were the worst performers n their district, they just got a lower bonus and took it out on their supervisors.......dominoes.
If you notice the last entry in the above post post---0 tax dollars-- what is not shown is that The Postal Service is robbed by Congress of hundreds of MILLIONS of DOLARS a year to pay a subsidy to Civil Service Retirement for older employees that retired under Civil Service. Since 1984 there have been no new CS employees, they are all FERS, but I have seen no word of when this rape wil end.
For the most part the USPS is to be admired and anyone that gets a chance to see mail processing in action will be amazed. The customer is perhaps the biggest problem of misdirected delivery, and multi-million $$$$ machines are still not pharmacists when it comes to reading scribbles.
A drop in the bucket

FTroopChief