Ramblings
I hope your summer is going well. As usual the USPS is shorthanded once again and those of you who are working have been picking up the slack. The days are long, and the weather is hot and muggy, but you persevere. Being a letter carrier is a tough and difficult job. By far, the most difficult in the service. It is also a very honorable job. A job that you should be proud to do. We serve our customers each and every day through all types of weather. We take care of our patrons like they are extended family members. I loved serving my customers when I was delivering mail. I had a special bond with most of them. I had many mom-and-pop shops along with 2 senior apartment complexes. The look on the faces of those seniors when I showed up with something for them made my day. There was always something special to take care of those seniors. I miss it.
We had our issues with management during those days but nothing like you do now. They have taken a basically simple job and treat it like rocket science. Management has built layer after layer of fat around themselves. They are insulated from the real world. A couple of months ago I was speaking with a postmaster I have known for some time. I asked him how it was going, and he just shook his head. He stated that he was not sure where the USPS is going or what they are thinking. He explained that when he got in that morning, he received 4 e-mails from 4 different people in the district. Each and every e-mail said the same thing only worded a little different. So, 4 well paid people working in the district, or at home, were doing the exact same thing at the same time. What a joke. A fat and bloated management weighing the service down. This is only a microcosm and one example of many showing why we are falling apart at the seams. Yet rest assured, when you got to your office, there was little or no help. Either they do not have enough bodies in the offices or just cannot hire enough to fill the void. They are losing almost 60% of the CCA’s they hire. Either they cannot grasp the physicality of the job or are treated like crap 7 days a week and do not need the aggravation. Either way, it is a major problem. I can guarantee that the clerk craft was short also. That means the mail cannot get up in time and creates even more pressure on the carriers waiting to do their jobs.
In many cases, now during prime-time vacations, the brain-trust of the USPS is once again using numerous able body employees to act as 204b’s instead of keeping them in the craft. A real company would not do that. Wear out the ones actually working while the supervisors and acting 204b’s sit on their respective butts making sure the coffee is made. Injury’s mount, carriers are exhausted, families are falling apart because of the pressure being put on the carrier craft all because of incompetent management.
This has been going on for years. It just seems a little different as we attempt to come back from a mentally and physically exhausting pandemic. But do not worry, all those managers from the district and Washington D.C. should be back from working at home soon. While you were holding the line every day in the street, they were sitting on their couches with their laptops and potato chips making sure you were doing your jobs right. Warms the cockles of my heart.
Just saying.
Stay safe and hydrate.
