[holyscroller]

I thought all this touchy-feely "bonding" crap went out in the 70's. This is outrageous! And this is why our postage rates keep going up?????

[SWake]

I used to work across the hall from a Human Resources group that was seemingly always off somewhere playing these kind of games. Couldn't do their jobs, but they certainly felt good about themselves!

[Fraulein]

Who ever would have thought that the slowpokes at the post office would have so much energy, and that they could move that fast?

[Bob]

...its audits and probes of postal operations have identified $2.2 billion in potential, projected and actual savings during the past six years.

OK, so what's the breakdown.

I'm guessing that it's $2 billion in the potential and projected categories and $200 million in the actual category. (Then again, maybe I'm just being too darned optimistic.)

[4Freedom]

The Post Office squanders all of these dollars and then they plot and scheme to charge us for the e-mail we send in order to cover their wasteful spending.

Liberals.

[kcvl]

USPS Gets a New Watchdog

When Karla Corcoran was appointed Inspector General of the Postal Service nearly a year ago, she started out with a staff of one: herself. Drawing on past experience, which includes guiding hundreds of employees at Air Force audit offices around the world, she has had to build from scratch an entirely new office within the Postal Service.

Corcoran describes herself as a non-traditional Inspector General who encourages creativity by her staff. The spartan, no-nonsense appearance of her office suite reflects a work still in progress. But Corcoran, friendly and gracious, has immersed herself in the postal culture, and she says she's impressed with what she's found.

"It's very, very different from what I would have ever thought of the Postal Service from the outside," says Corcoran, who is a former Assistant Auditor General for the Air Force and has held high-level management positions at several federal agencies.

"I basically thought of the Postal Service as being bureaucratic. While it touched your life and you received mail every day, I really had no idea about the types of products and services that it offered other than stamps and the delivery of mail," Corcoran continues. "It's amazing when you consider all the components, the people and the systems that have to work to process and deliver the mail. I've been very impressed with how postal employees are trying to drive the Postal Service into the 21st century."

The Inspector General is independent of postal management and reports directly to the nine presidentially appointed Governors. Corcoran was appointed to a seven-year term by the Governors. Prior to the establishment of this separate office, the duties of Inspector General were performed by the Chief Postal Inspector, who reports to the Postmaster General.

Nearly a year after being sworn in — January 6 is her anniversary — Corcoran acknowledges that the newly created Office of Inspector General continues to evolve. Staff is being hired. Responsibilities are being delineated. Corcoran has had to build the OIG infrastructure, which included assembling a transition team, developing a pay and benefits package for her office, and identifying those functions that will be performed by the OIG and those that will remain with the Postal Inspection Service.

More...

Employees who want to report fraud, waste, abuse or mismanagement can call (888) USPS-OIG or [(888) 877-7644].

[kcvl]

Postal Watchdog's Methods Spur Subordinates' Dissent

By SARAH LUECK

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

A conference room is littered with toys, especially stuffed pigs (for "postal inspector general"), including one with wings suspended overhead (as in, "when pigs fly," a slap at naysayers who fought the office's creation). Cubicle assignments are random, scattering workers throughout their Arlington, Va., headquarters to combat interoffice balkanization, but employees say communication suffers.

Now some of Ms. Corcoran's subordinates are wondering, should somebody be watching the watchdog? The problem is that her efforts to be different are, in critics' eyes, costly and downright weird. Scores of current and former employees have complained to Congress and to the Postal Service's Board of Governors. The board alerted the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, the IG community's self-policing body, which opened an investigation, and Ms. Corcoran has engaged a private attorney. The office of Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Finance Committee, also is investigating.

She regularly has food for "working lunch" meetings brought in, charging $8,600 worth of meals to an office credit card in a recent nine-month period. "You do what is required of you to get the job done," she explains. She bought a $5,515 treadmill for her management team, because the gym in the building closes at 7 p.m., too early for late workers. After deciding the purchase might be "perceived incorrectly," she says, she returned it unused -- which cost $940 in shipping and restocking fees.

More...

[kcvl]

Mrs. Corcoran defended her "values-oriented" management style, saying it helps foster teamwork and efficiency. The values are called "TLC3," which stands for Teamwork, Leadership, Creativity, Communication and Conceptualization.

Deputy Auditor General Tom Coogan said the values training takes up "maybe 5 percent" of staff time.

In an interview with The Times on Saturday, Mrs. Corcoran said she does not intimidate staffers.

"I'm a passionate person, but I don't hold grudges," Mrs. Corcoran said, explaining that anyone who feels intimidated is misreading her intentions. "I honestly wish I had another personality but it's just not me."

A former senior investigator for the inspector general's office, however, said that "public floggings are commonplace over there."

"There are too many people who think this is wrong, and it needs to be stopped," the former staffer said.


A Senate aide who has seen some of the documents forwarded to Mr. Grassley said Mrs. Corcoran hired a production company to film events, such as an annual meeting that feted employees who excelled at the "values."

Several such sessions cost the inspector general's office "tens of thousands of dollars" each, the aide said. Pictures and videos of such events have reportedly been shared with Mr. Grassley's office.

Mrs. Corcoran has been the inspector general of the post office since the position was created in 1997. The department's 2002 budget was $117 million. Before taking the position, she served on then-Vice President Al Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government. Inspectors general serve seven-year terms.

[kcvl]

February 10, 2003


Postal watchdog buries Senate probe under documents
By James G. Lakely
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


After being questioned in writing by a senior Republican senator regarding her professional conduct, the inspector general of the U.S. Postal Service has replied by sending 600 pages of documents for his review and investigation.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa demanded answers last month to 24 lengthy and detailed questions about the management style of Inspector General Karla W. Corcoran. Mr. Grassley's aides said they were expecting direct answers to the questions, not hundreds of pages of documents sent along with a one-page letter signed by Mrs. Corcoran's director of legislative relations.

"[The letter] said that the inspector general looks forward to cooperating fully with the senator," said Jill Gerber, a spokesman for Mr. Grassley. She said his staff hasn't had a chance to digest all of the material.

Mr. Grassley has collected testimony and documents from more than 50 current and former employees of the Postal Service Inspector General's Office that he said contained "troubling disclosures" about the way the office operates.

The testimony provided to Mr. Grassley by current and former employees of Mrs. Corcoran contained a host of accusations, including charges that she is "verbally abusive and publicly humiliates" employees "often in front of peers and subordinates"; used her office to "hire and promote friends"; and forced several individuals "out of their positions because they were perceived as not having the organizational values or would not commit acts they thought were unethical."

Mr. Grassley said the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency also is investigating the allegations.

"We have had a lot of good people come to us and give us evidence of wrongdoing or mismanagement, or waste of taxpayer dollars within the agency," Mr. Grassley said. "Inspectors general police their agencies. Given this great responsibility, they have to be above reproach."

Sandra Harding, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Corcoran, said her office hasn't seen the testimonials Mr. Grassley possesses, so "it is extremely difficult for us to accurately and fully respond" to questions about the investigation.

"We are fully cooperating with Senator Grassley, and we have nothing to hide," Ms. Harding said. "However, without seeing the allegations it is extremely difficult for us to know specifically what Sen. Grassley is looking for. Nevertheless, we will do our best to respond to his requests."

The Washington Times first reported the complaints about Mrs. Corcoran in December and has since obtained copies of the 13-page letter sent to Mr. Grassley and the questions he sent to Mrs. Corcoran.

The complaints range from frustration over "team-building" exercises, such as building sand castles on the New Jersey shore, to strong-arming employees into early retirement who don't adhere to Mrs. Corcoran's "values."

Mrs. Corcoran, who declined to be interviewed for this story but submitted answers through her spokeswoman via e-mail, defends her "values-oriented" management style, saying it helps foster teamwork and efficiency.

The wording of many of Mr. Grassley's queries suggested that he already knew the answers based on the evidence given to him.

"When the senator writes such letters, he is not just going on a fishing expedition," said a Republican aide familiar with the investigation. "You don't want to lie to the senator. Only he knows which [questions] he doesn't know the answer to."

The complaints sent to Mr. Grassley claimed the number of reports issued by Mrs. Corcoran's office "has remained relatively constant since 1998," though the number of employees has risen 285 percent — from 245 employees to 702.

Ms. Harding said "a comparison of the number of audits performed to total employees is not an effective measure of the productivity" of the inspector general's office.

"A better measure of productivity is coverage of significant issues, monetary results, and improvements on postal-wide operations," Ms. Harding said.

Mrs. Corcoran also was accused of forcing an auditor to resign "when she refused to alter audit results," and of placing an employee who returned from heart surgery "in a position requiring excessive travel for not demonstrating the organizational values."

http://216.239.57.100/search?q=cache:vCp9qj1Dl-oC:www.washtimes.com/national/20030210-72376536.htm+Karla+Corcoran&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[weegee]

The bigger expense to investigate at the post office are the bonuses. One year, they wound up millions in the hole and surprisingly, that was about equal to the amount paid out in bonuses (to the tune of about $250million).

I know that when I worked at Compaq, I didn't get a bonus check if the company was losing money. These guys just write themselves another rate increase.

[Dajjal]

BTTT

[Constitution Day]

Summer 2001
Event: Summerfest picnic, Denver field office
Where: Cherry Creek State Park, Aurora, Colo.
Activities: Toilet paper, aluminum foil and pipe cleaner body wrapping
Cost: $535

What the?!?!

[chuknospam]

Bump

[bert]

Meanwhile in lobbies all across the nation, the USPO is pushing AOL as internet provider and is giving away AOL CD's with a USPO sticker attached.

l

[battlegearboat]

It's enough to drive one "postal".

[Grampa7030]

If you think the Postal Service is alone among Government agencies...

I personally in a 6 month series of team building exercises had to draw what animal I was most like, had to carry a bag around with me for 90 days that had all "prejudices" on it including religious affiliation and answsers to certain personal questions, I had to build a structure from PVC while blindfolded, had to learn the Macarena, and had to march through a hotel lobby wearing hats we made while trying to avoid the curious stares of onlookers. I also had to procure at taxpayer expense meals for the working lunch. When lunch arrived several people refused to work while eating so it essentially was a paid for non-working lunch. This was supposed to make as work as a well oiled machine, but it divided the group.

Disagreement was not tolerated. For instance we were told to make a list of all the reasons why moving employees 50 miles away was a good thing, while not being permitted to make the case why it was not a good deal.

After deciding I had had enough, I took a job elsewhere and subsequently every problem that has occurred over the last three years was attributed to me.

[tracer]

Egad. Where is Timmy McV now that we really need him??

[johnb838]

The soft underbelly of the federal government. And considering the competition that's pretty bad. Any surprise the anthrax terrorists chose the USPS to attack?

[Byron_the_Aussie]

Bump.

One of our Cub Scout mothers works in a large postal sorting facility, here in Sydney. The mail is sorted electronically, with scanners reading postcodes on the envelopes. She told us that, due to the fall in mail volumes caused by the popularity of e-mail, some nights the same mail is put through the machines six times; in order, to make it appear that everyone's still busy. I'll bet that scam's happening Stateside, too. Post, take note?