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We're Not Who We Once Were

We’re Not Who We Once Were
By Kevin Moore
Postmaster of Toccoa, GA, and Member of North Georgia District Branch 595

In January, I celebrated 29 years with the Postal Service. Lately, I have reflected on how the times have changed since I started. We didn’t have DPS, packages were minimal and we basically were a letters-and-flats operation. Today, we’re a package business with many fewer letters and flats.

I also reflected on life as an employee. I remember when I got the job how proud I was and how everyone would ask, “Who retired?” “Did someone die?” or “How’d you get that job?” Getting a job with the Postal Service was a major deal. My starting salary of $12.96 an hour was more than my father’s salary at the manufacturing plant he had worked at for 30 years.

Sadly, for many, the pride of getting a job with the Postal Service may be no more. I currently have eight RCA vacancies I can’t fill, regardless of the number of job postings. I work in rural, northeast Georgia; we primarily have rural routes. However, only two routes are provided postal vehicles.

Granted, the vehicles are 37 years old, but they are provided. The other routes require the employee to drive their own vehicle. The applicant has to purchase a vehicle they can drive on the route, modify it for delivery, which is a $5,000 to $8,000 investment for a job they may not like or we may decide delivery isn’t for them. Most people looking for a job can’t afford that kind of investment.

I also look at the salary. Manufacturing and other businesses have caught up; the USPS no longer offers a premier salary. Manufacturing plants are paying as much, but without the investment required.

It’s also true the younger generation doesn’t possess the same work ethic we had at that age. I was reluctant to ask for a day off, much less call out. Today’s employees aren’t afraid to do either. They know they have the upper hand because we are short-staffed.

I recently lost a supervisor position not due to excessing of employees or a decrease in workload. I lost the position because I was short-staffed and fell below the minimum number of employees needed to keep that position. To whom did the workload transfer? You guessed it! The norm is 10- to 12-hour days. Summer, with prime-time vacation, is coming.

We also differ in service to our customers. Georgia recently went through a consolidation of facilities and transportation; it hasn’t been a pretty process. My office always has maintained a high OSAT score, but it sank significantly during the first few weeks of the changes.

The main complaints were “Where is my package?” and “Where is my Wall Street Journal?” When customers have the means to track their packages and see them sitting in the same place for a couple weeks, it’s hard to explain or appease them. Many customers say they will use other services from now on; I hope it’s just a temporary mood and they come back to the USPS.

It’s hard to explain why we deliver four days’ worth of Wall Street Journals in one day. I do my best to assure them it’s just temporary and it will get better; for the most part, I think they believe me. My OSAT scores have started to climb again.

However, there was one gentleman whom I couldn’t appease or provide a suitable answer regarding a package. He looked straight at me and said in his slow, country, southern drawl, “I could have rode my jackass down to Palmetto and picked up my package faster than y’all are delivering.” I had no reply because, truthfully, he was correct.

I’ve been through many changes in my career and it’s always made me mad when someone refers to “snail mail.” I’m a great defender of the Postal Service and take pride in it.

Will we ever find more employees who take pride in the company again? Can we maintain the pride our customers have shown throughout my postal career? I hope so.