Inspector general: Pension payment reform could cure Postal Service financial woes

Direct Marketing News ^ | October 5, 2010 | Kate Muth

[Colonel Kangaroo]

I worked as a temporary carrier one summer back in the 70s. It was hard work. Try carrying 30 pounds of mail on your shoulder all day long. I had trouble keeping up with regulars over twice my age. They made it look easy and I was dead tired.

Yep, the mail doesn't move itself. Arguments can be made about level of compensation and pensions, but most postal work is pretty heavy work. I wish some of the critics could have seen the action at my old GMF at 4:30AM with only 30 minutes to go until time to get the next dispatch out.

[Pelham]

One of the oddities about the job that you don’t expect is the constant time pressure. That silly quote of Newman’s from the Seinfeld show “the mail never stops!” tells me that one of the writers knew what it was like to work there.

I worked again as a clerk during the Christmas rush. It was the late afternoon-night shift. UPS was on strike that year so the Post Office was deluged with parcels. One of the clerks would climb up to the top of a giant metal multi-sided “pyramid”, and a couple of us would pile packages onto a conveyor belt leading up to him. He would sort them by zip code, each side of the pyramid being a different zip.

Another odd feature of postal facilities is the inspector’s galleries. Those give you the creeps the first time you realize what they are.

[blueunicorn6]

I’m sure all those package delivery companies and the internet are going to go away so it can be just like the good old days. 570,000 employees and they don’t know where to cut to balance their budget.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

I remember one UPS strike. I was working in a smaller office then and the other early clerk was on vacation. by the time the carriers arrived, each of their cases were surrounded with a Great Wall of China.

One day we actually heard noise from the inspector's gallery. Even though you were doing nothing wrong, it's still an unnerving sensation.

[muawiyah]

They used to put a rubber water tight seal around the break out doors at the bottom on those gallery set ups. Then one day a waterpipe broke and filled up a breakout tube and an inspector fell in. No one could hear his cries for help.

The design was changed and the water tight seals were replaced.

[tdscpa]

Nope. It's in an empty cigarette carton under Obama’s desk in the oval office.

[tdscpa]

I agree. I am going to have to send estimated tax payments to the IRS and KDR in a week, and really don't want to pay $5.95 or $6.95 each, whichever is the minimum charge to UPS or FedEx deliver my quarterly income tax payments.