Vol 107

Postmasters Online

Contents:

6) We Can Handle 5 Day Delivery

7) Craft Input on Postal Solvency

8) If Only We Would All Do Our Jobs

9) If George Had a Hammer

10) RR Pubs

11) Would you like fries with those stamps?

12) Looking for Those denied Postmaster Convention Leave

You are receiving this free newsletter because you care about the Postal Service and your job. I would encourage you to forward this to every Postmaster that has a computer. If you are a state officer, then please mention this newsletter in your column for your state publication. Anything you can do to help us expand our scope is appreciated. To subscribe to get your own copy, send an email to rupzip@cs.com.

Send comments on these issues or any others to rupzip@cs.com

Visit our Website at www.postmastersonline.com

~~~~~

6) We Can Handle 5 Day Delivery

Dave,

Regards your comments from your newsletter on advertising. I really enjoyed your creative descriptions on selling our soul -"postmasters driving cars with beer logos, carriers wearing sandwich

boards, etc. Ha!

I have to say I agree with our doing the advertising though, due to our desperate financial times, and we have to really seriously start thinking and actually doing things outside the box. I think $200m per year is a pittance for that kind of visibility/exposure though. I would think we could get $500m.

On the issue of 5-day delivery and eliminating Saturday delivery, I think this is definitely our best way to go; and that will help push us towards reform. It seems to be the least-painful alternative to facing our financial reality; without seriously impacting our business and service.

As you noted, there is nothing behind the angst of eliminating the delivery, other than it being a very heavy mail day on Monday. Let's face it. A lot of our financial overcosts are due to institutional overtime. We have been increasing automation; mail volume is declining; but yet OT continues to go up.

I know there a lot of postmasters and managers out there who are working their heads off; but yet it is difficult to raise productivity/cut costs because "the system" will not allow it.

Eliminating one day delivery (but not including Express/Priority), presents a viable alternative. Our operating budget is $63 billion. If we conservatively take just one-tenth of that; (one sixth is one day

of the 6-day delivery week); that is a savings of $6 billion. Let alone the benefits of having a refreshed, rested workforce; and savings on fuel, transportation, etc. Mondays would be tough but we can deal with it

7) Craft Input on Postal Solvency

As a rural carrier who gets you letter from my dad, a recently retired PM, your newsletter sure does get one thinking. Some ideas those of us craft employees in my level 18, 12 man operation came up with.

1) All routes should be paid evaluated time. Period. Get ALL your mail delivered accurately, safely, and quickly, and go home while getting paid a full day. Forget the "what about O/T" arguement. With the time you save getting home early most of the time, get a second job!

2) There is no need for every office to have a PM. Our OIC recently went on vacation for 2 weeks and all work and problems were more than sufficiently handled by one of two clerks. We were also more willing to go the extra mile for our fellow employees than for the OIC who is only using our office as a stopping point on the way up the ladder.

3) Curbside delivery. Charge for door side service.

4) Make it easier to fire those who come in to skirt by and collect a check. I've watched 2 carriers bid and get routes they were subs on knowing what the job entailed. They then turned around and became the 2 biggest problem children, trying to use every excuse to avoid completing their work and begging for help. The PO told them what the job was. If they don't want to do it, find another profession and let someone who wants to do the job have it.

5) Keep most offices, but make more of the small ones satalites of large hub offices. Goes back to the no need for a PM everywhere, also enables for sharing of staffing, vehicles and other resources like custodial, maintenance, supplies and such.

Just a quick few ideas from the craft level.

8) If Only We Would All Do Our Jobs

Thanks, as always, for an informative newsletter. I had an incident in my office last week I would like to share as I could have been injured or lost my life because some postal employee didn't follow national procedures. A customer mailed 2 express pieces to two separate Texas towns from Tekonsha, Michigan. For some strange reason, only one piece got an "enroute" scan at the Plant. Then, the same piece that didn't get scanned enroute also didn't get an arrival at unit or attempt scan in Houston, Texas. So the customer shows back up in my office 2 days after he mailed the pieces to find out why one express didn't make it on time. He was very agitated because this meant late fees or possible loss of his business truck. Using the intranet, I looked up the pieces, then I called the Plant for an explanation of the lack of an "enroute" scan. Then I looked up the number for Houston and after a couple tries, got the correct office. They checked and had no information on an express they should have had the previous day. The customer kept insisting on a reason and that we had to find the piece and get it where it was meant to go. So I called the Plant again, hoping to get someone more knowledgeable. My customer talked to that man at the Plant and proceeded to get more threatening and profane during the 10 minute conversation.. After 45 minutes of NO answers, I told the customer I would write and fax a letter along with a copy of the proof of mailing to whomever he desired. This did not appease him either. He wanted my supervisor's (POOM) number, whom I had already called without success. I restated my solution and said he had to decide by 4:30 when I close for the day, and because he didn't seem to be willing to budge, I added, "Or I will have to call the police." He left with "I know where to find you." An RCA who witnessed it all said, "You ought to call someone." So I called 911 who had already gotten a call from a customer who came in while this man was in the lobby. While I was on the phone, the man came back in the office. 911 then sent someone immediately. They talked with him and also took my report. Getting to the point now: The NEXT morning (3rd day after mailing) there was finally a delivery scan in the computer. Further investigation after the weekend through our Express office showed the Express was DELIVERED ON TIME and ATTEMPTED ON TIME; however there were NO scans in the system a FULL DAY after scheduled delivery. Fellow employees, I could have been assaulted or lost my life to an angry customer because someone didn't scan immediately and download at the earliest return to the office. Can we all please concentrate on the important things that make our customers happy? There are procedures for proper handling of barcoded mail - make sure your employees know it is always important to do it right - at the time of delivery, not later when they return to the office. The life you save may be your own.

Lorraine Lindsey

Postmaster, Tekonsha MI

(EDITOR: I too am frustrated by a lack of scans, misdeliveries, no 3849 signatures in the system and the like. I know its more work, but our customers depend on our consistency. Lets get it right the first time.)

9) If George Had a Hammer

George Weaver Writes:

In answer to some of your questions,

Yes, promote the qualified, turn each PO into a stationary/book store, coffee shop, video

rental combo sell greeting cards

Eliminate the stupid things we do for customers like forwarding for 1.5 years (wow, how much return on that no brainer.) We could instead print up forwarding stickers to sell them with stamps built in

according to class and weight of the mail.

We could sell designer mail boxes (what a lost opportunity.) finish the electronic email to PO box/delivery address projects

establish and service co-located server farms.

we already have a mandate to control addresses to bind the country together, why haven't we challenged email in the courts, we have that monopoly already doesn't matter if the mail box is in etherware.

We should charge customers added service charges when their mailboxes don't conform to minimum standards (offer those who can't afford improvements low cost assistance of some sort.)

Allow newspaper companies discounted rates for their papers if the customer erects a tube for the paper.

Give customers discount for holding their mail for one day a week delivery and box all of their mail or shrink wrap it depending on the volume.

We would have to have the added storage space, but that would be offset by far less fuel and maintenance costs. provide a drieve-through window for mail pickup. Convert all routes to evaluated routes with payload bonus's when the route exceeds evaluated weight and time standards.

I don't see productivity in the carrier craft as near the problem as the clerk craft in the larger post offices. Our PO has some serious dead weight on the clerk side.

eliminate hourly pay standards and contract routes. Evaluated routes are semi-contracted routes. clerk jobs could be evaluated exactly the same way the rural routes are evaluated with count standards. If clerks aren't worried about getting their hours they will push to get through the mail.

Mail work is hard work, especially in the letter carrier end of things. We have excellent productivity in that arena in spite of the outsiders view on our jobs. Once we went to an employee owned corporation, with profit sharing things would probably get better. Here's what I'm worried about. We have major corporations that are trying their best to get a piece of the postal action at any cost. There is a major propaganda war to steel the PO out from under the government. The major mailers would love to take us over and then we would be working for them under their rules and I'm not sure we would like the

changes that would come down the line.

George

(EDITOR: Wow….Mr. new PMG - here's a start. Why not bring George to the Plaza for a chat?)

10) RR Pubs

For # 6) The Question. What rural carriers hand book (blue) is Marlin referring to? It sounds like a local edition of something and not a Postal publication.

Thanks for your newsletters--always good to hear about PM's across the country.

Ralph E. Viegelmann,

PM, Interlaken, NY 14847

11) Would you like fries with those stamps?

Dear Dave,

Cudos as usual. Keep up the good work! I enjoy it very much. The format of asking us for reactions is a good way to go.

I had the desire to be a Postmaster and got shortchanged in the ASP program, however I do feel strongly about postal reform and the desperate need for it. Without it I fear for m job. In reaction to your editorial question; If I had a hammer, I think the Postal Service needs the freedom to react to market conditions, but I don't think we should go overboard. The signs on trucks, mailboxes and even on buildings, I can tolerate. I don't think that they will bring in enough cash, unless all the trucks, mailboxes and buildings are used. More importantly, we have to go back to the style of business from the 90's. We need to be lean and mean. We need to cut the jobs of the people from the top down. The ones who sit in offices and create the acronym programs that don't work; the ones who peddle paperwork, the ones that make stupid demands on the people in the field; the ones who haven't been in the field for twenty or thirty years and don't have a clue.

I also believe that all the tiny "one man" post offices, should be consolidated into the neighboring ones. The savings on rent, utilities, etc. would be significant. I can hear the screaming now and I know that it will never happen, because all the concerned citizens will petition their congresspeople and congress will yield to it. The post office is an institution and should continue to be a part of every american town.

To sum it up. Congress needs to pass reform so that we will be able to not only survive, but to flourish into the next century and on...

The last point is that I hate the title of Sales and Service Associate, my fellow window clerks and I feel that we are working in Sears or Mcdonalds... Would you like fries with those stamps?

Fred Peltz

Sales and Service Associate

Monsey, Ny

12) Looking for Those denied Postmaster Convention Leave

A reporter is looking for individuals who are denied the opportunity to attend NAPUS and the

League Conventions if they are dual members. She is very interested in writing a story about this issue and would like the opportunity to talk with some postmasters either on the record or on background.

You may call India Young, a General Assignment Reporter for Federal Times Newspaper at

703-750-8658

~~~~~

Postmasters Online is the brain (small) child (midget) of David Rupert, Postmaster of Wilson WY 83014. While we talk a lot of postal here, the opinions are solely those of the newsletter and its contributors and should be construed as an official Postal Publication. While we have nothing but the Greatest , um, respect for the DMM , IMM, and the Postal Bulletin, we are not in the same class. To write the editor, send an email to Rupzip@cs.com. To use the mail for comments, flames, or monetary contributions, send it to David Rupert, POB 3, Wilson WY 83014.

Visit our Website at www.postmastersonline.com