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A Day in a Life of a Customer Service Supervisor

A Day in a Life of a Customer Service Supervisor
By Dee Perez
NAPS New York Area Vice President

I read the news today—oh boy—about a stressed-out supervisor; the news was rather sad. I woke up, got out of bed and dragged a comb across my head. Or should it be “Help, I need somebody, not just anybody, you know I need someone.” The lyrics from the Beatles song describe the customer service supervisor’s and postmaster’s work environment today.

From the moment we step into our offices and switch on our computers, we are bombarded with a never-ending stream of emails. The voluminous volume is staggering, reaching over 40 in a matter of minutes and continuing hourly throughout the day. If we are away for a week, “fuhgeddaboudit,” as our trusted, respected and revered NAPS Secretary/Treasurer James Warden always says. The number skyrockets into the hundreds, drowning us in a sea of digital communication.

The abundance of repeated emails is as if district leaders pop up on your screen every half-hour on the hour. Is this a narcissistic trait or are they so paranoid they want to cover their behinds to say they alerted their EAS employees?

The sheer number of emails drives everyone to the brink of insanity. If you think you have it bad, our MPOOs and district managers have it far worse. I understand and share your frustration, my fellow EAS employees. But what’s truly alarming is that EAS employees rarely receive a proper lunch break to clear their minds. And I’m not talking about eating at your desk while working.

If you’re authorized an hour’s lunch, begin taking it daily and leave the building. I understand this rarely happens in our newly created, crisis management, daily accountability work environment created by chief Retail and Delivery Office (CRDO) leaders who never spent a day in this environment to really understand and appreciate what they are putting you through. These CRDO leaders live in a postal world lacking empathy!

By the time you read all the emails and respond to all the surveys, especially after two days off, “fuhgeddaboudit.” Then, hours into your tour comes the excessive Learn & Grows you must attend. And, heaven forbid, a carrier or two doesn’t answer an SPM alert correctly, your triangulation LM letters or flats indicators are in red. Get ready to prepare that time-consuming daily report for the entire week.

Then come the infamous Zoom meetings that occur daily at all hours of the day. But the worst part are the monologues and length of time, then the dreaded HR & B Zooms, where you are made to wait for your MPOO group to be called to explain your employee’s status on OWCP or a bid position. “Fuhgeddaboudit!”

Oh, and heaven forbid, if a carrier pops up on a load time or stationary event, there’s another Zoom meeting to explain why and the corrective action taken for this data-skewing mistake.

Let’s not forget the most important job you do. You run the workroom floor, prepare schedules, observe carriers’ loading, answer customers’ phone calls, investigate and answer C-360 issues, as well as deal with all shop stewards’ concerns. In all this chaos, you still must address your carriers’ performance from the previous day. And, somewhere in your day, do a driving and safety observation?

Perhaps you’ll find time for lunch tomorrow, but I doubt it. Last month, I said a Level-21 in an associate office should have a higher salary than anyone at the same level in a Headquarters position. There’s no comparison in responsibility; I stand by this.

Now, I’ll take it a step further and say this: The salary level of a Level-17 supervisor, Customer Service, should be much higher with all their responsibilities every day, seven days a week—“fuhgeddaboudit!”

I challenge every NAPS branch nationally to this goal: Sign three new members a month.