Wow. Thanks for the fabulous response to the brainstorm. We’ve been overwhelmed by the sheer number of thoughtful responses. To give everyone enough time to comment and us a little time to read through everything, we’ve decided to extend the period for taking comments and post a blog about the brainstorm with the poll on Monday. Until then, please keep sharing your ideas. All suggestions received by Friday morning will be candidates for the poll. Oh, a word about moderation, we moderate every comment, and our policy is not to include comments that include vulgar words (even if the words are partially obscured with other characters) or involve name calling. We have not been able to approve a few comments that were otherwise very interesting because they violated our comment policy, so please double check your comment before you submit it. Thanks again!
Original Post:
The Postal Service is facing a financial crisis and needs to pursue every option it can to improve its net income. Pushing the Envelope thought it might be a good idea to ask for your thoughts. How do you think the Postal Service can save money or raise additional revenue? To make this a bit more interesting, the blog team will review your ideas and pick the most popular or most interesting for a poll. We’ll post the poll on Wednesday. So brainstorm now, and be sure to come back on Wednesday to view the shortlist and to vote for your favorites. Share your ideas in the comments below. Describe the idea, whether it involves cutting costs or generating revenue, and how much you think it could add to the Postal Service’s bottom line. Happy brainstorming! This topic is hosted by the OIG's Risk Analysis Research Center (RARC).
Eliminate the District level of management. All important decisions are made at Area level or HQ anyway. In this age of tele-cons and e-mail communications District is just an over paid messenger.
The front line supervisor of customer service positions must be abolished/drastically changed. Carriers are only in the office until 9:30-10:00 am now. It will be even less once FSS kicks in. There is not reason to have 2-6-or even 8 or more supervisors with nothing to do the rest of the day. Solutions.1.)Hire retired supervisors to count the mail, and input it into the computer. Offer them 25 dollars an hour, no benefits, four hours per day. That is MORE than enough time for them to do everything they need to do. If they are not interested, than have TE or casual supervisors. There are plenty of people who would be happy to measure mail with a third graders ruler for 25 dollars an hour. Solutions 2.) 204B's should supervise/count mail in the morning, and carry mail in the afternoon. 4 and 4, or maybe 3 supervising, and 5 carrying. I dont have the exact figures in front of me. But doing this, the post office could EASILY cut in HALF the costs of having all the supervisors. At 100,000 dollars per year per supervisor for salary and benefits,getting rid of just 1,000 supervisors would equate to 100 MILLION dollars of savings. Think of the possibilities
"204B’s should supervise/count mail in the morning, and carry mail in the afternoon. 4 and 4, or maybe 3 supervising, and 5 carrying. I dont have the exact figures in front of me."....
That would be a contract violation...but that has not stopped management from "wasting" even more money trying!!!!
Great idea!!! Let's throw in the facts of too many USPS Mngrs getting paid and getting bonuses (either deserved or not) and do not do their jobs on top of upper echelon USPS Mngrs creating more ways to keep the 1st line supervisors submitting reports all day and not making sure the employees are doing their respective jobs. Management is the worst position to be in due to the daily battles below and above them.
How about just getting back to the basics of coming to work, do your job, and delivering the mail safely and correctly? It seems like a lot of USPS employees are looking for more ways to get out of work than actually do it. Why are there so many employees getting paid workmans comp and not working--maybe the Dept of Labor needs to be talked to before they just sign off on checks for individuals who can perform physical actions besides what was expected from them when they worked at USPS?
Why isn't job accountability being reviewed for ALL USPS employees and the positions they hold? Too many financial issues and individuals that will continue to sink the USPS ship and ruin it for ALL of the respectable USPS employees.
You must be a craft employee. Yes, some supervisor positions could be eliminated. The number of supervisors per installation is calculated by the number of employees in that facility. If all employees took more pride in the Postal Service that would help too. You know too many employees have built OVERTIME into their lifestyle so even as mail volumes drop they are still out on the street waisting time. Not all employees are like that but unfortunately too many. I believe the 5 day delivery would be benificial to all employees. Who wouldn't like to work 5 days a week instead of 6? I think it would be a win win for all employees as well as for customers. They (the Customers) may complain in the begining but aren't most of them working a 5 day week?
I only hope that the choice would be to have delivery Monday through Friday. The carriers would have less worries with children playing around vehicles and customer vehicles blocking the boxes since more people are home on saturdays. Just my opinion. Oh by the way if supervisors made 100,000.00 a year I might have stayed in that position instead! But all the employee adult drama just didn't seem worth working too many hours and too many days a week.
I agree 100% with your comments. Having been on "both sides of the fence", I can relate.. Sure we have our "milkers",but in 26 years, I've more than earned my pay check. The 5 day work week would work for me.. My complaint about some of our employees.. and they are the ones who passed probation and have been on light duty almost the remainder of their career. The Postmaster hired these people and the supervisors kept them after their 90 days were up.. In our office many of the light duty employees are friends of the supervisor and walk around doing nothing. They can drive to work,but they can't deliver or take out express mail or sections to people on the o.t. list. The whole system has to be revamped.. Maybe we should carry like rural carriers? After 26 years, unless we fold, I plan on working another 10 years..
in response to small town pm,i (a city letter carrier/union steward) just took a survey amongst our 80 plus city carriers and found out near 75% of them thought eliminating saturday delivery would be beneficial to them and the po. as for "you must be a craft employee," we too are out to save the po and are just as sincere about doing what it takes to do so. in fact our "career 204s" were completely against us going to 5-day delivery because they are the only ones working 6 days.even our pm was encouraging us to work hard to do what it takes to save routes during the latest route adjustment...he did not want his office to drop below a level 22.
Postal FSS was developed to reduce carrier office time. The project assumed 3 hours of typical pre FSS office time. I am now spending less than 1.5 hours in the office, without the help of postal FSS machines.
How might this change affect the viability of postal FSS?
What if we directed our energies to eliminating on the job injuries instead?
Please see my YouTube videos, and remember, 'Safety Depends on Me!'.
Not a comment about this, but rather just an idea.
We cut lots of plastic straps every day and just throw them away. I don't work in a plant to see how the trays get strapped, but was just wondering why it wouldn't work to modify the plastic trays to accept a quick disconnect type coupler similar to used on dog collars built into plastic lids.
I have some ideas as to how to actually make this work without adding weight to the trays and maybe save some carrier time. OIG email me if interested.
This is a no brainer. Overbloated management. Including a Postmaster at every office. Ridiculous. Should be craft employees. Also, management needs to focus on progressive revenues streams, like universal email access to each and every address and yes electronic or hard copy options.
Yeah, we have an OIC at the moment and our Postmaster is out doing route adjustments. Pay him what a city carrier makes and don't pay two station managers.. What a waste of money. We have people who can't cut it in their offices and they float around doing adjustments or other office work just to find them a position.. When I worked for Dupont years ago while going to school, if you were injured and not suitable for employment, you were retrained and cut loose.. The Postal Service is a walking welfare system for many. In our office the majority of people are decent,hardworking people,but the minority of employees who "milk" it make it rough on the majority.. The service has to grow some ...... and run it like a business.. Maybe educate the managers.. Not every mail-handler knows the facts about carrying mail. It only looks good on paper.
Amen.
Please see my YouTube video 'ARMD'. We already have walk sequenced flats. Please read that last sentence again. What we do NOT have is a delivery tool developed specifically for delivering these perfectly walk sequenced flats (folded self-mailers, tabbed booklets, walk sequenced post cards, etc.).
-dryMAILman
Seems a no-brainer that the USPS should take care of the Census, especially when the Government will pay over 10 billion dollars. Who better know where everyone lives on a day to day basis.........hell, you could probably to it with a push oif a button........better yet, creata a program that could update populations on a weekly basis.........
Also, the idea that the USPS should be involved with FEMA, if only for logistics, could generate more revenue, AND create more mamangement jobs..........
I think in this day and age of the internet where people are using e-mail to send personal letters... The Post Office needs to begin catering more to businesses who DEPEND on the Post Office.
There are dozens of companies like NetFlix, my own PuritanPicks(.com), and other smaller businesses like gamefly.com who without the proper operation of the Post Office would not have a business. These are the companies who want to see the post office do well and don't mind spending money to see it happen.
NetFlix spends millions of dollars setting up distribution centers in populated cities to increase delivery time. They also experience a 10% loss in inventory due to DVDs breaking in the mail. That money could be the USPS' instead by providing custom solutions... and this does not mean major infrastructure changes.
As small businesses we wouldn't mind PAYing USPS business consultants to teach us how the system works, how to debug problems and better take advantage of already existing services. For example, if someone sat with me and explained how the delivery network worked there would have been mistakes I could have avoided as a small business owner.
For instance: You are already adding tracking to first-class mail. My small businesss could produce the same turn around as NetFlix WITHOUT distribution centers if I knew when my customers dropped the mail off at THEIR post office. Rather than waiting for a DVD to arrive, I could send the next one out immediately upon drop off.
Are there engineers in the post office I could pay to help me/walk me through this implementation? From my perspective the post office is a big black box. I drop mail off, I get mail back: but I don't know how it works or how to take advantage of the already existing services. Do you see my point?
Start catering to small businesses.. Make small business counters in post offices so we don't have to wait on line (we'll pay for that!).. give local post offices incentives for meeting with small businesses and being entrepreneurial, etc..
The service of providing a return addressee notification of intransit mail should be relatively simple to do with the new four state barcode and the IMAQ system. We just need to figure out what and how to charge for the service.
Randy S.,
If you pay 70 cents for "two-way" Delivery Confirmation, you can keep track of: 1. When you mail your DVD's/parcels out. and 2. When your customer mails them back by having them scanned by the carrier. We will scan them on pick-up when it is requested.
For many, many, years the USPS has been seriously lacking in how to run an efficient operation. There are WAY, WAY, TOO MANY management personnel who are only in management beacuse they cannot do the job of craft employees. They are also protected by others including members of their own families who are either high level bosses in the USPS or elected politicians. When they screw up and cost the USPS thousands of dollars each and every year, they are NEVER held accountable. I should know. I have been on the receiving end of two office-wide monetary greivance settlements in the last 25 years that cost the USPS over $1,000,000.00!!! I guarantee you that no heads were rolled over either one of those incidents.
Gamefly has alleged undue discrimination in a formal complaint to the PRC regarding the handling (breaking actually) of its DVDs. See PostCom's July 15th homepage for more details. I'm just one letter carrier, but there is no question, based on my experience, that Netflix DVDs were 'culled' or pulled from automation and sorted exclusively, or nearly exclusively, by hand. I doubt Gamefly will ever receive justice. How much is this legal action costing them anyway? What alternative do they have? Would they be better off offering a 'non-predatory' home loan to our postmaster general to win favor? What certain (not all) members of the USPS are doing to certain customers (again not all) is sad and frustrating. Unfortunately, I had a 'hand' in this blatant discrimination.
I would like to see greater tracking on parcels. Why can't we have a barcode in the box so if we leave a parcel we can tie the scan to the box so we have proof that we put it in the right box? As it is now I have a customer who says they didn't get a parcel. I scanned it delivered at the time I am usually in their area. However there is no proof I put it in the right box.
Also we need better marketing. I think we need to remind people that there are still some of us out here who like to get hard copy cards more tnen ecards on birthdays and other occasions.
We also need to market the fact that the internet is less safe a delivery method then the postal service is. Every line and hub your online business crosses is a potential hack in site. IT doesn't matter how many firewall and virus scans you have once it leaves your computor. I have gone back to paying bills by mail and only paying on line in a pinch since I heard an expert explain the facts.
I Really like these ideas UPS and FEDEX seem to do a lot of this in addition I Have the text from an email I'm sending to the president and Congressman and Senators as well as the Post master Generals office If I can find an email address for his office.
Text below:
To the President Barack Obama, Distinguished Senators, Congressman, and The Post Master General CEO John E.Potter,
As noted in many news reports and in the Post Master Generals own reports, technology is impacting the U.S. Postal System. This impact via the internet has claimed a dramatic quantity of information transmission that used to occur via the U.S. Mail.
What should the U.S. Postal Service do?
While the internet has generally been a real boon to the economy and commerce problems exist with it.
The U.S. Postal Service has standardized the way our addresses are organized via zip codes and Zip +4 bar coding all wonderful innovations.
The Internet posses many benefits and many problems namely in the area of security.
My Proposal for the U.S. Postal Service is to become a standard bearer for internet & email security offering secure portals.
Portals that can be secured via a CAC card similar to the one I use for my computer email access over the U.S. Army NIPR computers, or perhaps even more secure SIPR like system at the Post Office itself.
Passwords for all Internet commerce need to be standardized, just like our Zip Codes.
The same applies for Login names for buisness/banking needs. These should not apply to social networking sites unless volunteraly.
The post office could provide secure Email, Fax, and postal online payments.
These are just some of the ways I believe the postal service needs to transform itself for a rapidly changing technological society.
We will still need effecient rapid package delivery nothing can replace that yet.
But the postal system must evolve to meet the needs of a changing nation and world.
Thank You and God Bless America.
Sincerely,
Henry Joerz
I believe sending hard copy documents still has it's palce but will only decline.
Therefor the Post Office must still serve it's purpose to make sure that mail either hard copy or electronic gets delivered and that it is carried through rain, sleet, hail, snow, storm,virus, hacker, or what else plagues or will plague the internet.
This will provide new income streams for the U.S. Postal service and transform itself thouroughly into what it has always been a bearer and mover of INFORMATION!
THE FIRST THING POSTAL MGT. MUST DO IS MAKE THE POSTMASTER JOB A 5 OFFICE ASSIGNMENT.ONE DAY A WEEK OVERSEE THE OPERATIONS,NO NEED TO WORK 40 HOURS IN ONE PLACE,WE MANAGE OURSELVES OR THE 204B'S DO A GREAT JOB AT MY STATION.SECOND, OFFER ONCE A MONTH DISCOUNTS ON SHIPPING PACKAGES,THAT'S OUR BREAD & BUTTER.THIS WILL TAKE REVENUE FROM UPS&FEDEX.THIRD, ALL U.S.MINT SHIPPING SHOULD BE DONE BY U.S.P.S.I ORDERED FROM THE MINT & IT WAS SHIPPED BY UPS...FIVE DAY DELIVERY IS A MUST.AFTER THIS PAST HOLIDAY (JULY 4TH)WE CAME TO WORK ON MONDAY AND ALL THE MAIL WENT OUT WITH NO DELAYING OF ANY CLASS MAIL,THE INTERNET HAS TAKEN 50%OF OUR FIRST CLASS MAIL.THAT'S MY TAKE ON WHAT TO DO .THANK YOU
I am glad to see in you office there was no need to pivot, in my there were 3 routes that had to be pivoted and flats by the tub were curtailed. If Topeka would have done there job, we wouldn't have had to go through tub after tub looking for 1st and 2nd class mail, like they have promised for years!! They could have also worked more mail for Saturday, instead of working so much for Monday, then working tons of letters and Tuesday, especially in the flat tubs, what a waste of time, energy and air some of those people are!! Micromanaging seems like its really doing well, ha!!
"FIVE DAY DELIVERY IS A MUST.AFTER THIS PAST HOLIDAY (JULY 4TH)WE CAME TO WORK ON MONDAY AND ALL THE MAIL WENT OUT WITH NO DELAYING OF ANY CLASS MAIL"...
It only took 10.5 hours to do it...and we delayed 3rd class...so what's a little over time?????? then overtime on Tuesday, Wednesday...
To generate revenue, I'd like to suggest we sell "gift vouchers" for magazine subscriptions (similar to those sold by fundraisers). We could have a display in the lobby and include them on the stamp-by-mail forms too. This has not only the revenue from the sale itself, but also future revenues when the periodicals are sent. Also, we could sell popular store gift cards (Toysrus, Sears, HomeDepot, BestBuy, etc.) in the offices that will soon be testing "greeting card" sales. Another thought for revenue generation would be non-urgent local "prescription drug" delivery. A carrier could easily make a late afternoon pick-up for items to be delivered the next day.
I have over 28 years with the USPS. The service has been very good to me. But now I just feel like everyone craft and supervisors will be so much better off working five days versus six days per week.
For once carriers will have a chance to have a "normal" lifestyle and home life. People will have a chance without scrutiny to to attend recitals, band events, weddings, birthday partys little league games and week end getaways.
Most people do not even open mail correspondence on the day that it is received. It's a quality of life and a matter of finance and let's not forget the environmental advantages of no Saturday delivery.
For all of you craft employees that think its a walk in the park for supervisors, please know that the constant attempt to chase dream numbers and beg carriers to pivot everyday, just means that it sucks for all or for every last one of us.
Thanks for allowing my two cents.
One area where the postal service is falling behind greatly is in automated services. Why doesn't the letter carrier have computer access? I submitted an idea proposal to the postal service a few years back and again this year concerning the letter carriers having their own computer databases. This would allow the carriers to know when transactions are made on the computer. Such as moves, hold mail, temporary orders, complaints, etc. I was told that the postal service was already working on something of this nature. Well.....it should have been done by now. Bottom line, carriers should have access to computers. Maybe, some of us would not need any extensive computer training.
Numerous federal agencies, such as Dept. of Agriculture, pay no rent to GSA for office and facility space. Postal Service leases office space in GSA buildings. We should approach GSA and get the same deal - no rent. This would in effect permit the Postal Service to have tax payer support, without a direct subsidy from Congress.
Having worked for the USPS since 1973, and a long time union advocate, I see the USPS "driving" revenue away rather than making earnest efforts to retain or capture revenue. With rapidly dwindling mail volumes, especially 1st Class, failing to take advantage of every source of revenue is absurd.
Instead of closing a/o consolidating many of the so-called "unproductive" retail units and branches, coupled with reducing the number of POS-1 units and retail associates, perhaps the USPS should be expanding instead of contracting. For example: As local president I just received notice that two (2) of our local NBU's are under review for closure. Absurd! Both are at near capacity in their respective PO Box rentals, which could be easily expanded, thereby rendering even more revenue for the USPS with a far better cost-ratio than street delivery. People are STARVING for more PO Box availability and the USPS is taking action to close down such units!
If we close these units, thereby vacating these PO Boxes to a contract unit, or worse to a UPS or Going Postal Store, that is revenue lost to the USPS forever.
Additionally, reinstate up-to-date vending machines. They are sorely missed by postal customers, APC's and windowline do not provide the service the vending machines provided, and the cost ratio to labor (at least in my installation was 1-6) was an enourmous benefit to the USPS. We don't need fewer, we need more!
Reduce labor costs by reducing significantly the redundant layers of management and administration that have absolutely nothing to do with collecting, processing and delivery of the mail. The assumption is that all of the USPS associated labor costs are craft employee related, which is wholly bogus. The current ratio of EAS to craft is absurdly out of line, particularly above the operational level.
Eliminate and/or minimize the number of OIC and detail assignments, which with their inherent costs in travel, per diem, lodging, relocation, etc. impacts the USPS horrendously while providing no real operational benefit. Most companies or businesses would never permit such a process.
Finally, stop providing favored discounts to large mailers to the detriment of the remaining American postal customers. Their is nothing wrong with appropriate discounts such to promote mass mailings, however, the discounts the USPS have historically "sown and cultivated" have denied the USPS billions of dollars in lost revenue, which is now clearly apparent. The gravy train is now over. Every mailer - large and small - should pay their fair share. Bp...
BINGO!!!!! Never will happen...makes too much $ense!!!
Good ideas. Especially the excess discounts. We have excess capacity and can barcode mail at a cost significantly lower than the discounts we give for it. It makes no business sense to provide these discounts that exceed our costs.
Not only that when we barcode the mail we put 2 codes on it one on the front and one on the back providing greater read rates down stream. Additionally, tools like MHTS which use the ID tag barcode to identify inefficiences in the system would be even more valuable if a larger percentage of the mail were ID tagged. Because of this the address quality of the mail we code exceeds the address quality of what we give discounts for.
The rate of missent mail is also much higher in mailer prepared mailings than the rate is of what we process end to end. So we spend extra money getting mailer prepared mailings to the correct office when they come in the wrong tray. It is a long way from Illinois to Montana yet every day thousands of mailer prepared pieces destined for one end up in trays for the other.
retire that would save some money you have been here for 36 years. how many more are there out there like you? USPS should have a 30 year cap on employees. USPS and the Unions should have a 3 strikes and your out with employees who keep "messing up" or who want to call in all the time.
I think we should start charging a hold mail fee based on the number of days the mail is being held. This takes a tremendous amount of time for a carrier to honor specific requests for hold mail. (i.e. do not hold bulk mail, forward 1st class and hold all other mail, etc.)Not to mention tracking all of the holds. I have some carriers with over 30 holds at one time! This is time the carriers should be pivoting or casing more mail, not fussing for a free service. I think customers would pay just as they do for Premium Forwarding.
Typical manager.....
I totally agree. As a former window clerk in a very wealthy area, people would put their mail on hold several times a month. They should be allowed maybe 3 - 5 times a year free of charge, and then a fee for each "hold" period afterwards.
I totally agree. Charging for hold mail would be pure profit, since we currently do it for free. As a window clerk, I spend at least 10% of my day walking all over the building looking for hold mail, and most of the time, delivery has already been resumed. Holding mail is much like giving free P O Box service. I think $1 per day to hold mail is reasonable. I say no freebies on hold mail, because if you start offering up to a certain number of holds per year, that's just something else to keep track of.
Your right about "something else to keep up with". Lord only knows that we don't need anymore "reports" to have to keep track of. So therefore...I now agree with "no freebies"!! Furthermore, people WOULD just try to skirt the system anyway. CHARGE THEM NOW!!!!!
Regs do not allow a customer to hold mail longer than 30 days. Also customers can not pick and choose which to hold. If the address has a hold it is ALL held. If a customer has a temporary forward then the bulk is UBBM not hold mail. Do things by the book and it takes very little time. BTW it is time that is figured into the carriers daily duties. READ the BOOK people!
Get rid of the IODer's and those on light and limited duty.
it's obvious you have never been injured on the job. Workeman's Compensation is a hard-won right and the last resort for those of us who have experienced on the job injuries. It's no picnic to be in the office all day, knowing there is really no productive work for one to do, and with management waiting to set you up to be fired. What is the alternative? Get hurt, lose your job and live in poverty for the rest of your life? That's what happened before WC.
There isn't a person in my office who doesn't have some sort of work related physical problem-workman's comp is the last resort if you want to be treated properly. Most of the employees I know have been treated by their own doctors because they just want to feel better and not engage in a long battle with worker's comp and suffer mgt harrassment. On another topic-the PO culture needs serious attention. Politics and corruption rule in my little neck of the woods and if things are this bad in my little microcosm I can't even imagine how bad it must be higher in the food chain. I am a rural carrier , and I know volume is down and my income has gone done, however, during count our pm cheats , bullies and has harrassed employees-I know that some of our income goes to the pm bonus-there couldn't be a more adversarial relationship-morale couldn't be lower-disgust for this organization couldn't be stronger.The union steward told us not to bother to grieve threats, bullying and harrassment in the workplace -too difficult to prove and takes years.Guess what-decent work places don't need unions-guess what -in a decent work environment employees will eagerly give 100%-but we don't work there
What about the lazy unproductive employees who are not injured?
To reduce the extreme cost of labor, owned and leased overhead just place your local/rural retail side of the post office in your local grocery store. Very similar to the Postal Services CPU concept. Most importantly, make it attractive to A&P, Publix, etc to maintain this important service.
On the delivery side reduce six day delivery and revamp the high cost of delivery. Contract out delivery to the private sector. It is the only way with the unionism entitlement approach it will be cost effective. With these cost savings and cost avoidance ideas a smaller and profitable U.S. Postal Service will benefit this great country. Otherwise, hold on because this is just the beginning of the death spiral of the U.S. Postal Service.
Go home today and review the mail that you get for the next several weeks. First, how much of that mail is critical and how much is junk? Secondly, evaluate paying someone fifty thousand plus twenty five thousand in benefits and see if a business you owned could make it several months.
In closing, contracting out the high cost of labor may be the only solution to save the U.S. Postal Service.
You must be management. I didn't read anything about down sizing management which I believe is one of the BIGGEST problems with the PO. We have 5 managers for no more than 50 workers in the building at one time. The City supervisor is so busy doing reports (that are useless) he has no time to do the job he was hired to do.
Carriers aren't allowed to provide customer service if by some chance they do stop to help a customer management calls them in the office for wasting time and trys to write them up.
I say cut out 5 day delivery, let the carriers and clerks do their jobs and provide customer service. And most of all cut the number of managers at all levels. They don't even touch the mail so it will not affect the delivering of the mail.
Contracting out will be a "death spiral" ....unless you contract out management!!!!!
More information from a union president not a management prospective:
Burrus Update: Changes and Challenges
In response to the staggering decline in mail volume, the Postal Service has implemented significant changes to the postal network, with more to come. Many of the changes have had an adverse impact on employees — including widespread excessing, the loss of the equivalent of 100,000 jobs in the last four years through attrition, and a significant reduction in the number of hours worked by part-time flexibles. And, as the USPS continues to face financial difficulties, management plans to make additional cuts to the postal network and to service
This is the financial quicksand or death spiral that the unions and management make reference to with the bleak budget conditions in the U.S. Postal Service.
You must be management! Management is where most of the dead wood is in the USPS. Way too many managers. I work in a amall PO, My manager is done with her work in 2 hours, but gets paid for 8.
I wish you carriers the best of luck in the future with the U.S. Postal Service. Today your PMG mentioned that the U.S. Postal Service is in Financial Quicksand even with the passage of HR-22.
2.3 billon last year and possibly 6.7 billon this year is the financial quicksand mentioned most recently. How much red ink can the U.S. Postal Service withstand trying to get out of the financial quicksand?
What happen to the large telephone companies in the 60's and 70's may be the same type of quicksand Mr. Potter is refering to. How about GM and the auto industry??? The best solution is to work hard and do what it takes to make the U.S. Postal Service viable in the future.
The Mystery Shopper Program should be stopped immediately. It is worthless any way.
All advertising needs to cease until we are in better financial health.
No financial backing for teams, or posters,or teeshirts, bottles, etc.
The window clerks would love to buy their own tee shirts approved by USPS. They are more practical and comfortable. WE wouldn't have to worry about uniforms from back office to window.
Have stock to sell, we have nothing and customers have quit coming when it used to be just the opposite.
Lower lights when not in use and only use the minimun bulbs, we are over killing now.
Set the temperature at 78 this summer, not 65. Turn off offices that are not in use.
Let the clerk or carrier have input as to how to do their job more effectively and more efficient. If we are told how to do our job by a despot we will do it as we are told and not one bit better.
THe Post Office use to be a great place to work with a sense of pride in your job well done, no longer. We do the minimum. If we are treated like adults we will do a much better job. We have forgotten more than these young supervisors know.
The first thing the USPS needs to do is start eliminating management jobs...there are way too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
Next...get rid of mystery shopper and mystery caller (BMEU) programs. These programs limit our ability to serve REAL customers...we can't call back with our answer which often leads to making paying customers wait while we scramble to look up some obscure question that no REAL customer would ever need the answer to. Our district says it is more important to answer the mystery caller than to serve customers who pay hundreds of thousands dollars with the USPS. Then the positions who oversee these useless programs could be abolished.
Have a promotional campaign for employees and friends, and family and friends of employees to order catalogues, and information, on any of hundreds of subjects, from fishing to forestry, home improvements to gardening,that are available for free by filling out a form online are sending back a response card. This would increase mail volume, and revenue.
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