The Pushing the Envelope blog team, along with the entire OIG, would like to wish everyone very happy holidays and a safe, healthy, and happy new year. We're taking a break this week, so we'll see you all next Monday, January 4, when we present our Top Ten Postal Stories of 2020.
When it comes to trailers that are hauling mail, the Postal Service prefers to lease — it only owns about 23 percent of its fleet of more than 12,000 trailers.
That’s a lot of trailers to manage, especially when you consider USPS leased trailer policies. For example, any leased trailers that aren’t consistently used 10 days or more in a month are supposed to be returned or relocated, meaning regular monitoring of usage is pretty important.
How’s the Postal Service doing?
Each year, hundreds of thousands of children write letters to Santa Claus, but did you know that sometimes Santa responds? Operation Santa, a program run by the Postal Service, allows children to mail a letter to a special Santa address. Then volunteers — including postal employees, customers, or teams — can adopt the letter and send a gift to the letter writer.
Like just about everything else, elevators age and break down. Just ask the U.S. Postal Service, which operates about 1,200 elevators — used to move mail as well as people — at more than 500 facilities nationwide. A little more than five years ago, the Postal Service established the Elevator...
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In any organization the size of the U.S. Postal Service, financial forecasting plays an important role. Accurate forecasting of revenue, volume, and expenses is essential to planning budgets, understanding future cashflows, identifying risk areas, and deciding where to invest capital.
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We’ve all gotten them — those handy return envelopes that say, “No Postage Necessary if Mailed in the United States.” Sometimes they’re included with a bill. Sometimes they’re included in a solicitation for donations. In the latter case, there’s often a note that says if you affix a stamp, you’...
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Each year, increased mail volume during the peak season puts significant strain on the Postal Service’s processing and distribution network. During 2020, increased package volumes and reduced employee availability resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic put even more strain on the network. This...
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The Postal Service relies on more than 32,000 facilities connecting with hundreds of systems to support mail processing and delivery, technology operations, and customer service. Most of these systems are classified as business applications which support essential business functions such as...
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The Postal Service’s peak season begins each year from November to January, when thousands of employees are hired to help ensure customers receive quality mail service and parcels on time during the holidays. Individuals hired during peak season are generally non-career bargaining unit employees...
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