Milwaukee, WI, Acting Customer Relations Coordinator and veteran Letter Carrier Leon Van Vooren walks up a flight of stairs with City Carrier Assistant applicant Eric Moody.
Staircase to success
Unique approach turns applicants into career employees
In his latest State of the Business message, PMG Pat Donahoe calls on career employees to “reach out” to the thousands of new employees now entering the Postal Service.
The Milwaukee Post Office has taken this message to heart. According to Postmaster Easton Wright, the facility has implemented a unique hiring approach focusing on patience and support.
New City Carrier Assistant (CCA) hires are supported right from the start. They’re personally greeted by Acting Customer Relations Coordinator Leon Van Vooren and given an overview of their position duties. An opportunity to carry a mail satchel, on a voluntary basis, is provided to those interested in learning what carrying mail is all about.
“It gives them an idea of how it feels to carry mail,” says Van Vooren. “Not everyone is hired to be a CCA. But for those who we hire, they know what to expect.”
The approach is to make the CCA experience a personal one. The district is committed to mentoring, training and developing those selected as CCAs to be successful.
Wright said it’s important to keep new employees positively motivated — especially during the rough weather of the past few months. “We invest a lot into training new CCAs,” he said. “Why not do it the right way by building their confidence and skills? Then, they can grow into career employees and set the example for the next round of people.”
As a CCA. First hand the motivation to keep you wanting to stay with the post office is Non existing. I give it to my regular carry she help me through my first year but with all the Bs that come with the job my second is up in the air. They take advantage of those that not know. Such as new CCA’s coming in. If you have a regular that will help you, listen. If not you will have to search out your rights because they are quick to say CCA’s haven’t any. In larger offices you may get hours but for those in smaller offices and a boss that doesn’t want to pay the over time. Push push push. Do it faster, what about safety? You can’t live and it hard to get another part time but your first priority is to the post office. I can’t afford medical, and have to stand in the welfare line for med-cal and food stamps, because of the cut back on rate of pay. $15 for 20hours a week if I get that in my office. On average I make less than a person work a full time minimum wage. In order for me to try and supplement my income I have to go and work in other offices. The worse part about that is if hey don’t need you, your not going in. Always doing different routes not knowing the area but always told just follow the mail and expected back within the route time. JUST FRUSTRATED!
Well, this post is very funny when a CCA reads it how regulars are so scared of us taking their job. Honestly, when you are taking your sweet time on the rout and you fall behind, you love us CCA’s to come save your ass. When you take off a day or two you also rely on us CCA’s to fill in for you as well. Stop bitching about us CCA’s taking your job when we are the ones coming to the rescue. One way or another we will become regulars.
Honestly, if i was a regular i wouldn’t act like you. I would be pleased to have someone to help me out when i am off, or when i fall behind. Do you think our job is easier than yours? You have 1 rout to carry and a lot of you still call for help on your own rout that you carry 5-10+ years. We are being thrown on routs after routs. Ones we are done with your rout, we are thrown to help another rout, and ones we call we are finished we are thrown on another one. Does management ever ask if we need a break? Do you regulars ever ask us when we get to your rout hey bud did you take your lunch yet? No and why? because you are scared we are here to take your job? Don’t preach about CCA’s taking your job. I have been carrying a lot of routs and guess what? one of the regulars in my office was bragging how she had the longest rout in the office and why when i case a rout i cant get it done as fast as she can on hers? Well what does she knows if she never carried the rout that i was casing? Guess what, it just happened that i had a hold down on her rout because she bid on a rout that i used to carry as a CCA. I burnt her rout and THAT ROUT..i was back everyday in less time than she ever was and when i told her how easy her rout was, her reply was GOOD FOR YOU. When she was carrying this other rout i was on, i had to GET OUT ALMOST EVERYDAY FOR almost 2 weeks to help her AFTER I WAS DONE WITH A FULL ROUT. You regulars think that you guys are the CREAM OF THE CROP in the office. Not so fast. some of you are lazy and some of you are slow as hell. You take off days and sick days right when the RED PLUMS arrive on mondays or tuesdays. Management keeps sending CCA’s to help you. Luckily i get along with everyone in my office, and i never had any regular not like me. I am always polite and helpful and go out of my way to get to where they need me. You should APPRECIATE US more because on your days off you can spend time with your family while we are carrying your rout 6 days a week. We also have kids and a family to come home to, and to read your posts here is sad how you regulars think of us CCA’s. You should not be afraid at all, and you should give us every help and advice as you can to become more proficient in our job. You should be an example to us and someone we look up to, and not someone who purposely sets us up for failure. We can not take your job unless you retire, even then we can not take that rout unless there is nobody to transfer to that rout. It will take us years and years before we can become regulars. What is this BS about regulars vs CCA’s. We shouldn’t act this way when we work together. It is a shame and it is sad to see this from veterans on this site to be honest with you. You should be grateful we exist to help you out when you need us. you get all the benefits and insurance, we get nothing, you get the wage that we don’t get. What are you crying about. We get a fraction of what you get. When you first got this job you did what we did. You worked your ass off and you got where you are today. Why can’t you reflect on your life and see us where you were 30 years ago. We all have families too and you should treat us with respect because we try our best to help you guys out. Just my two cents and i hope some veterans here would be smart enought to be wise and not give in to these regulars who want to smash us and kill us for no real reason but only being scared that we are here to take their job. Jeez guys it will take us years to even get a rout..
Cheap labor cost: replacement mode to reduce career employees and their earned benefits. 1.7 billion dollar loss since latest rate increase but better than SPLY 2.3 billion loss. Career employees reduced; casual employees increased.
Eliminating 6 day street delivery for bulk business mail and concentrating on increasing parcel delivery market is a profit means as is reflected in latest financial report. Delivery Express and priority as a premium is paid for a timed delivery. Face reality 6 day street delivery is same comparison as there was a time when pay telephones were on most street corners and in areas where people gathered BUT advances in communication technology eliminated the need and pay telephones are past history same as need for 6 day street delivery.
Anyone stupid enough to start working for this clown show in this day and age, deserves all the shit they get.
You’d have to live under a rock, to not have heard the shape the USPS is in, etc.
Reach out? These people scare me. !!!
Go to hell !! You have not done a thing for regulars in years
When I came to work as a PTF in 1984 an old timer was holding court for the new PTF’s in the locker room. He advised us that if we retired after 30 years and did not owe the Postal Service two weeks of sick leave that we were fools.
I shudder to think what that old dud would tell our new hires today. Probably to make their 90 days (or whatever it is now) and then get on the OWCP rolls immediately. Of course I am being cynical and know that the new guys would never receive such advice today (and of course they shouldn’t receive such advice).
In Louisville, CCA’s are not held accountable for their many mistakes. I know they are “new”, but the regulars catch hell the next day after they carry your route. I had one CCA leave packages and mail not bundled on a customers step during a rain event. It’s hard work, but common sense equals laziness.
If Congress gives a year’s $ postal buyout to all the CSRS employees to hit the road jack. Their sure going to be a lot of 🙂 new meet-n-greets.
But they won’t so I will keep putting my finger out there for all the new meet-n-greets to pull.
Always thought my vocabulary lacking but can’t cut the mustard this day !Besides my ol’ Grandma would wash my mouth out with lye soap ! !
In Mgt. it’s called a ‘Meet and Greet’. Remember–you are a new employee in a new environment and you know nothing and will say nothing. A smiley face is what Mgt chooses to deliver this little diddy. It goes something like this.
My name is Mr. VanderVoorvooven. I used to be a carrier…
This is a satchel…you put mail in here…then you take the mail out there…look man-you got a job!
Did Mgt. ever consider current employees read this stuff? Is this article something bright and new and innovative? This is ‘feel good’ management. They feel good about themselves. They are the backbone of the Postal Service…not us. It’s you people in Management that make it so much easier to cope.
I have to tell you that what you do to these poor CCA’s is criminal and the ONLY reason you get away with it is because the economy is so stupid rotten that when you post ONE job over 1000 will apply.
This is the dumbest thing I have ever read and it proves Mgt has no clue what goes on in the office and on the street. here is the short-short-short version for employee relations!! The correct way to give a CCA training is to give the the proper footwear and warm jackets and gloves and hats. Mgt did no such thing and the real way to train someone is to tell them exactly what will happen to them. Such as…you will learn every route in this office…not in any order and no training…just random. You will not start earlier you will be expected to walk this route as fast as the regular on day one. You will double set and there will be times where you will triple set! We will constantly give you more 11 hours of work which you will do in less than ten hours. Great idea giving them a satchel now show them what a dual satchel is and give them a flashlight cuz we never deliver after dark. If they have children tell them they will see them on the one day you have off. SUNDAY.
Then scare the shit out of them and tell them not to talk to the regulars! Classic Mgt. con game means when you are the enemy blame the people who do the work! WOW only Managers work this way.
OH and by the way MANAGERS we have been training the CCA’s for many months now showing them how to do a route and giving them postal clothing! That is after you have screwed them all up in ‘carrier academy’ run by old men who still train carriers to take three lunches a day. WAKE up MANAGERS! Where have you been??
You can only try to reach out so much, you can tell them to they are blue in the face on how to do things, and then they still do it the way they want to.
They kill mail they don’t know where it goes, they bring back packages and circulars. There are 10 new CCA’s in our office, and out of those 10 I would keep one. Five of them have called in sick or been AWOL at least 15 times, with one that bangs in or doesn’t call when it’s payday, she is gone from Thursday to Saturday probably 2 out of 3 paydays.
If the Post Office doesn’t do a better job of hiring new employees, there wont be a Post Office in the future as we know it.
One other thing when good mail gets returned to sender because new carriers don’t know if it’s good or not, these customers start paying all their bills online, so they don’t have to worry about late fees.
Also in our office the CCA’s are doing clerk work all the time, and the Clerks are getting thousands of dollars every month, becasue of the CCA’s doing their work instead of letting the clerks do it.
I am not a carrier and would not have that job. I do not downgrade those that do but just say it is to rough for me. Now, having said that; that guy Van Vooren is a typical post office POS trying to suck up and move up.
Not to worry…APWU will most definitely reach out to them for their dues money. Too bad they will be the first ones to go when the layoffs come. I dare any new employee to ask their stewards if this is not a fact!
I continue to support our new CCA’s and help them as much I can but with the continued beat down from upper management during the toughest winter I ever remember as a carrier in my 35 years makes it tougher and tougher. I worked every day with no injuries and got the mail delivered which still wasn’t good enough. The senior carriers are the back bone of this organization but management wants us out so sad. What kind of example does this show for our CCA’s.
Here’s how I would reach out to new employees of the postal service…I would tell them to “Run don’t walk” to the nearest federal agency and apply for a transfer, (so you don’t loose your federal time) and go to an agency that is not hell-bent on screwing its employees out of their healthcare benefits like the Postal Service is currently doing!!! They would be better off and have better job security….I can’t see the situation getting any better for the Postal Service!
i will place a bet by the time summertime rolls around he will quit after working 7 days a week management is just taking advantage of these people no mercy!!!!
Here is an idea, why doesn’t the pmg or the postal service “reach out to the new employee’s and give them some decent health insurance and a retirement plan. HOW ABOUT THAT FOR SOME MOTIVATION? tHEY WOULD REPLACE ME OR ANY OTHER 30 YEAR PLUS EMPLOYEE WITH A PSE OR CCA IN A HEARTBEAT WITHOUT THINKING TWICE BUT LET ME MAKE THEM FEEL WELCOME BEFORE THEY TAKE MY JOB.
Are you fucking kidding me? To get to feel what it’s like to carry mail! You lazy, stupid EAS clown. Why don’t you put down that cup of coffee Mr Van Voreen, and lug some of this environmentally unfriendly product around 8 to 10 hours a day for $12 an hour. Freaking hypocrite.
Whatever. Is this reaching out program the reason they tell new CCA’s not to listen to regular carriers? Is this the same idea that convinces management that no training is the best training to see if they can figure it out on their own? At least they get to go out with a regular carrier in my office now. I remember my training 29+ years ago.
I went out with a supervisor on two extremely light swings on a Saturday afternoon, and the following Monday they pointed to a full cart of mail they called the “auxiliary route” with almost 900 stops on it and said “This is City 17. Follow the mail around. Good luck.” That was it. Good thing I was in the newspaper circulation business prior to this and good with maps or I’d have been screwed.
Still, I do agree we should try to help CCA’s wherever possible because as is the case in our office, the supervisor never carried mail before, and the 204-B who did was the sloppiest ever. She only got in because of her looks and now I have to take orders from somebody who wasn’t even alive back on that Monday when I was introduced to my first “auxiliary” route. Management has reduced the starting wages with the NALC’s approval to the point that they are barely competitive, and many CCA’s are smart enough to know they can do less difficult work than this for the same pay and same possibilities for a career. Only after a long long time will a CCA today have an enviable job carrying mail. Granted it’s better than a lot of places you could end up in, but I’m afraid quality has been replaced with slop and run. After the next five years or so, maybe ten, you’ll be lucky if your mail doesn’t end up on Mars.
Lets train them the right way and beat them into the ground right from the start. Give them a taste of forced overtime with impossible to meet, made up standards, so that they will know what they have to look forward to for as long as they are employees. Don’t pretend niceness, be real about it, and get straight to the point. Abuse has always worked in the past, so why change a winning formula?
its ok to treat us like shit, but treat new part-time carriers like gods!! when did management ever give us carriers any respect! P.M.G. go to hell!!!! where is our buyout!!