Service standards:

Each plant has a delivery area in which a 1st class piece of mail will be delivered next day. This is mandated by law. (Sorry, Oneonta, kiss that goodbye. You customers just aren't important.....Tim Leonard has the authority to delay mail, just ask him)

Each plant also has a 2-3 day delivery zone, also mandated by law.

Congress has never changed these restrictions, the USPS however, has evidently chosen to ignore them completely.

Mailpiece Standards:

USPS allows a huge amount of mail which would never be allowed in other countries, and is on the edge of what can be processed on the machines. The 6X11 3/4" postcards which have become popular fliers for businesses are a nightmare to run.......but they're paying about 1/4 of what you are for 1st class postage.


Business practices:

The USPS is bleeding money..........but we're giving a 20% discount to major mailers, who are already paying only roughly $.13 per mailpiece.........for the 1st class service which the rest of us pay $.44 for. I loved a poster the Union had.....it showed 3 first class mailpieces, with three different postage rates, with no difference between the mailpieces. What's the difference? I can't tell, and I work on the machine that sort the stuff.

We outsource snowplowing.........despite the fact that we have 2 trucks with plows on them in the fleet at our plant, (which we still have to use, because the contractors get there when they can, not when we need them) and part of our staffing package includes plowing. Eliminate the contractor, save money? Nah.

We have personnel in our plant who are supposed to repair the building....but the last door (Just a door, nothing fancy, a run of the mill entry door) which was put in was contracted out.

We have $45,000 in test equipment sitting idle because they don't have the money (in theory) to teach people how to use it. I offered to teach a class on parts of it, but they won't allow it because someone would have to get paid overtime.

The USPS has cut hundreds of thousands of full time employees over the past 5 years........but the ranks of management have actually grown.

USPS could be a case study in how to waste money.