You Can’t Make This Stuff Up!
By Brian J. Wagner
Past NAPS President
My column as NAPS president titled “What Don’t You Understand?” was published in the May 2021 issue of The Postal Supervisor magazine. In a nutshell, it addressed how some in postal leadership wanted EAS employees (active NAPS members) to sign a statement that they agreed to adhere to certain manager-imposed directives and/or be responsible if certain conditions in their postal operation were not met. Was this another Poltergeist movie of “They’re back?” You can’t make this stuff up. Here’s the scoop.
A few months ago, I sponsored a new NAPS member who recently was promoted from the craft to supervisor, Customer Service. This new supervisor hadn’t attended all—very little, to be exact—their required supervisor training. Therefore, they were pretty “green” in understanding all that is required of them in the way of duties and responsibilities as a supervisor.
However, that did not stop postal leadership having their administrative assistant send an email to EAS employees with instructions to sign and date the attached document and return it the same day to the postmaster. That document stated: “Article 8 policy—By signing below, I acknowledge that it is my responsibility as management to monitor and ensure there are no employees extending hours past 12 hours a day, 60 hours a week, for full-time employees; 11.50 hours a day and 60 hours a week for part-time flex employees.”
However, within two minutes after sending the email, the assistant sent another email to some of the EAS employees noting they were refusing to sign the document. For the record, this document was not on USPS letterhead, there was no reference as to what office the document was from, except noted in the email, and only that EAS employees were being instructed to sign, date and return the document to the postmaster’s office.
This new supervisor called me to ask if he and the other EAS employees were required to sign this document with the aforementioned statement. My first reaction was, “They’re baaack.” You can’t make this stuff up that some in postal leadership are recycling the same old “stuff,” just like Letters of Concern or Information
(see my April 2024 column).
As I wrote in my May 2021 column, the Postal Service is in the communication business, but, somehow, fails at times to properly and understandably communicate its mission, business strategies, policies or instructions to EAS employees. Instead, they issue vague and unrealistic documents requiring EAS employees to blindly sign that they agree to be responsible for whatever is written in the document.
Realistically, can EAS employees control the weather? Can EAS employees stop craft employees from calling in sick? Can EAS employees stop employees from performing in an unsafe manner when away from the supervisor’s view? Can EAS employees stop vehicle breakdowns, resulting in penalty overtime? Why would any EAS employee sign a document saying they will take responsibility—full responsibility—for actions or circumstances outside their control? They shouldn’t.
The bigger question is why would anyone in postal leadership think such “responsibility and acknowledgement” statements are a good idea? They aren’t. However, some in postal leadership want to put NAPS members in precarious position to pressure them into signing a document that only can lead to negative implications and consequences—a position of “I gotcha.”
Without rewriting my May 2021 column, the advice of NAPS Headquarters always has been for members not to sign these types of “acknowledgement” documents. Signing such documents is not a requirement of one’s postal employment. It is a redundancy of the duties and responsibilities of the position the person was promoted to perform. NAPS considers these documents to be like those of a “Letter of Concern” or a “Letter of Information.” Such documents are not worth the paper on which they are written because they cannot be appealed under ELM 650.
If any active NAPS member is being threatened with discipline for not signing this type of “acknowledgment” document, they should contact their NAPS representative immediately to file a grievance on the grounds of harassment. Furthermore, postal leadership should stop wasting everyone’s time in trying to get EAS employees to sign these types of “acknowledgement or responsibility” documents and use their time to adhere to ELM 651.3, Nondisciplinary Corrective Measures.
Psychologist Luigina Sgarro once said, “There is no communication that is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood.” Understand this: Active NAPS members should not sign documents of superficial understanding and/or acknowledgment.
I want to acknowledge the June winner of my “Nifty-50 Membership Drive” $100 Visa gift card—Cierra L. Love, Don Ledbetter, TN, Branch 41. I hope you will acknowledge my ice cream flavor of the month: Butterscotch Bomb!
Categories: The Postal Supervisor
