Wanna hear about gubmit wasting money? Try this one on for size...and remember the USPS is losing money. Today, while taking my lunch break, I got a call from my supervisor. She told me there was a piece of mail in the "hot case" and wanted to know where I was so she could bring it out to me. I told her and she was there in 10 minutes. She handed me a piece of bulk rate mail, junk mail to most of you, that was addressed to people who hadn't lived there for over a year. Guess where that piece of mail went when I got back to the office. We have a cage of mail labeled "unindorsed bulk business mail". Once that cage is full, it is take out to the dumpster. I wonder how much money that supervisor made running that mail out to me. Oh and in case you wonder, the order came down from the top office, not in the city, but the district.
Now that sounds as though they are working hard to get all the mail out in timely fashion right? Well here's the rub. For the last six months now, we have been actually putting a small amount of mail in order at our "case". Almost all letter sized mail is put in order by a machine and all we do is pick up our trays on the way out to load out trucks. Six months ago they have put on line a machine that will now put flats (catelogs, magazines, larger envelopes etc.) in order as well. Sounds good, less work for humans and more productivity out of the workers because they can delivery more mail on their 8 hour shift. Our office eliminated 6 routes by stretching the remaining routes to pick up the slack. Now we are short of people and soon to be short on vehicles simply because now the routes are more like 9 hour routes and we have to be off the street and back in the office by 6:00. That is when the last truck heads out that take outgoing mail. Any mail that comes in after 6, someone has to run that mail of Greensboro to the plant...and that person has to be our office manager. You reckon he likes to do that. Anyway, I'm getting away from my original thought. Machines are faster and can really put out the mail, I guess it puts a whole real meaning to hauling the mail.
Now back when we put in order our entire route, we might get a 1 to 2% failure rate, making mistakes by putting mail in the wrong place. Usually those mistakes were easily fixed because when a misplace letter or magazine is found, it usually is in the vicinity and can be taken care of quickly. Okay, zoom 16 years to today. Someone found a piece of mail, bulk mail as it was that was on my route. I had already left the building thus the supervisor ran that single piece out to me to be delivered. If that letter had been the only one, that would have been bad enough, but there were more like seven or eight letter 'unindorsed bulk business mail" that was taken to other carriers. Well guess what, that machines that put letters and magazines and catalogs in order also make mistakes and quite often. So I brought back that on pulk piece of mail, but I also brought back 7 letters that weren't for my route, 2 letters that weren't even for this city, 1 letter that was mine but was in such a bad order that going back to deliever it would account for 40 minutes. Twenty minutes to get to the house and another twenty get back. BTW, there are times when the top cheese does send carriers out to redeliver. I don't have a problem if it's a first class letter or priority piece, but I make sure those get delivered before I head back to the office.
This sort of waste id constant yet they come down on us and the lowly supervisor actually tells us the old military line, crap runs down hill and we are at the bottom.
Our routes are 1 to 2 1/2 to 3 hours over and they have been audited so there is no question about it. However, our wonderful city Post Master says that we are working slow because we are pissed off. One thing about it, she doesn't know squat about actually delivering mail.
Nope SST, speding money on a dog is great and they can do things humans can't do. And for the most part, they are always glad to see you when you come home. They like tp play, they don't talk back to you but will tell you when they are hungry. They even are glad to see you bring new friends to the house. The are such wonderful companions that even a cheap on can do wonderful work. So no, I won't gripe about buying dogs that do the kind of work your daughter's dogs do.
