A Postal Worker's Perspective

Times are bad. That is no news flash to anyone on the planet. For some people, these are the worst of times, as Charles Dickens put it. There are lots of people out of work, with no benefits, and no prospects on the horizon. I am thankful that I have not been affected that way. Yet. As a long time US postal worker, I offer my own perspective of what is happening within my workplace.

Up until just a couple of years ago, business was good. Why was business good? Because everyone's business was good. Business and the USPS have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship over the decades. They used our service to get their message out to the public, and we provided the service and in the process employed hundreds of thousands of people, enabling them to live the American dream, paying mucho taxes, paying our kids way through college, and putting away for our retirements so no one would have to take care of us in our old age.

Most people just think of the Post office as a line to stand in to mail a package or buy stamps. Or the Letter Carrier who brings you your mail every day. Yeah, thats part of it. But then there is us, the people you don't see. The ones behind the scenes. We take the mail everyone drops in the blue boxes, or hands over to the window clerks, and we get it to that letter carrier who takes it the final mile. There are lots of carriers. There are as many of the rest of us that no one ever sees. We work at huge processing plants that operate on a 24 hour clock, with three shifts. Millions of pieces of mail come through the loading docks of our plants every day. And all those millions of pieces need to go out and on to their destinations before the sun comes up.

So year and year, day after day, we show up to mountains of mail, get it all sorted, trayed up, containerized, out to the loading docks and onto to trucks for dispatch. then we go home tired but satisfied that we did what we were supposed to do. We come back the next day to tons more mail. We do letters, bills, catalogues, magazines, newspapers, packages, you name it.

In the old days, there was so much mail coming in everyday, that there was mandatory overtime calls, and you would likely have to work holidays, even Thanksgiving. We complained of course, but we came in and worked. Got good paychecks too. It seemed like this reality would go on forever, for the 30-40 years it takes before a postal worker can retire. Then the winds of change began to blow.

It blew gently at first. The USPS got new-fangled machines that could read the addresses, with computers that could sort to an address. Doing what we used to do. Now instead of 18 people on a sorting machine, there would be 2. People started losing their positions and having to settle in somewhere else within the Postal facility. So we did. Then came robotics, machines that didn't really need anyone except the mechanics to keep it running smoothly. More people had to look elsewhere for different postal positions. And they did.

The wind blew a little harder, bringing with it Direct Deposit. No more Social Security and retirement checks by the millions going through the post office. All done electronically. More jobs gone. We looked for new positions. The winds of change got a little brisker, with the internet, and fax machines and scanners. Letters, documents, birthday greetings, love letters, dear john letters, all started being sent through the internet. Hiring freezes. More jobs gone. We kept looking until we found different positions yet again.

Full out Storm time: 9/11/2001. Planes grounded. Mail delayed. Then right on its heels, Anthrax in the mail. People became afraid to get their mail everyday. Those who didn't like the internet before Anthrax flocked to it after Anthrax. More jobs lost. Hiring freezes again. We found new positions again.


Hurricane strength winds blew in 2008. Stock market, economy tanks. Businesses closing. Houses foreclosing. Nobody buying, nobody mailing. With every business that folded went their advertising mail,what you all might call junk mail. This is not junk mail to the businesses, their employees, or to us. Think of the places that closed last year. Circuit City. Linens and Things. Look in your own neighborhoods at the shuttered storefronts. All those places used the US mail. More volume gone. But now, no new positions to seek refuge in.

2009: The Winds of change caused migrations of postal workers. Vacant jobs are being saved for postal workers in other areas. Some are being offered positions 20 miles away, others 120 miles away. You have 65 year-old window clerks being told they must move 100 miles away and start working as a letter carrier, with seniority starting all over again, and having to walk all day long when they were not accustomed to such a strenuous routine. Some are now being offered jobs 1100 miles away. People have to leave their spouses, their kids in school, etc, to move halfway across country in order to not lose their job. Because they can't sell their houses to move away. No one's buying houses these days. And the Storm isn't over for us yet.

Machines are being tarped and removed. Mail volume continues to drop. You know its bad when Supervisors are now experiencing a RIF (reduction in force). Carrier routes are being consolidated. Truck drivers routes too. Any new positions being posted are going up as part time jobs instead of full time.

The USPS is destined to go broke by November 2009, barring a miracle. Neighborhood post offices are slated for closure. 6 day delivery is being put on the chopping block. Layoffs are around the corner.

Postal Workers have house payments, car payments, kids in college, and they counted on having a secure job until the day they decided to retire. That is not their reality anymore.

It will be sad to see the demise of a very productive venture. It will be depressing to see how some of the employees handle the stress of foreclosure, pulling their kids out of school to move several states away. It won't be good. It will be terrible to see old people getting hurt as they try for the first time to carry a satchel of mail around unfamiliar neighborhoods in unfamiliar cities and states. People will get hurt, or, if the neighborhood is bad enough, will get victimized.

I have to keep the faith that things will turn around for the country. For as the country goes, so goes the USPS and its people who represent the Eagle.

When was the last time you actually mailed a letter? Sent away for a magazine subscription? Ordered products from a catalog? Do you think saving the trees is more important than saving the economy, and its people? We've got to prioritize. We have to think of people first. And people need jobs. Not just Postal jobs, but sales and service jobs. Because how do you all think everything gets taken care of in this country, from roads maintenance, to police and fire fighters, to trash pickup, to clean drinking water, to free education? It's the Working people who are paying tons of taxes to support their neighborhoods and infrastructure. When people lose their jobs, everyone loses in more ways than meets the eye. We've got to get America working again. It isn't too late. Patronize the businesses that are still mailing you their sales offerings, so they too, can continue to keep their own employees at work. And just for old times sake, mail a letter the old fashioned way. We will either all rise from the ashes together, or we will sink lower into a depressive abyss. It's really up to us.