01/29/2015 – Apparently, the reduction in first-class mail volume is hilarious to USPS management.
Last week, The Onion, a satirical news site, published an article about a new line of commemorative stamps honoring “Americans who still use the US Postal Service,” mocking those who “still” send birthday cards or pay bills by mail.
The Postal Service’s press office – management’s official mouthpiece – responded with a tweet to The Onion featuring an image of a stamp with onions on it that said, “Stay tuned for the 2015 program @TheOnion. You may make the cut, too!”
Going a step further, USPS spokesperson Toni DeLancey told the Federal Times in the only story written about the exchange, “We can laugh with the best of them.”
“Excuse me, but do you see anything funny here?” asked USPS customer Ewing Crowder. “This entire escapade demonstrates the total disregard management has for the mail – as if we needed any more indication. It also demonstrates just how much time the folks at L’Enfant Plaza [USPS headquarters] have on their hands to waste on frivolous nonsense.”
To make this happen, Crowder pointed out, members of the press office at the Postal Service would have had to discuss the issue, ask a graphic designer to create the mock onion stamp and reach out to their contacts at the Federal Times. Does this seem like the best use of time and resources for an entity is slashing jobs and service standards left and right?
“The self-serving Tweet and story about the service’s ‘response’ to The Onion showed me further just how little regard leadership and much of the workforce at L’Enfant have for what the hard-working employees of USPS do and go through,” Crowder added.
“There’s an old story about how Nero fiddled while Rome burned,” he went on. “It looks like they’re handing out violins at [USPS] headquarters.”
hey to get their bounus mismanagement just runs one first class letter through the OCR 1 million times………..see nothing to worry about.
The ignorance displayed here is staggering. 1st class letter mail is STILL the biggest money maker for the postal service. Volume decrease has leveled off and is expected to INCREASE before year’s end. Remember this thing we had called a ‘recession’. Yeah, 1st class letter volumes just now recovering in a near mirror-image of the last three historic ‘economic downturns’…
Need to close plants and thousands of small offices that operate at less than 8 hours per day.
The troll speaketh…
Also, it’s called US Code Title 39 Section 101:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/39/101
What the hell do you have against the USPS anyway? If you don’t use it, it’s not like it costs you a single penny. NO TAX DOLLARS SINCE 1983!!!
The amazing part is that service scores for 3 day delivery of letters has been in the 60% range for the last several week since the reduction of service standards chaged January 5 and abosolutely no concern from HQ down to the plant level. Never seen scores this bad in 30 years. The transportation network is a mess and it can’t be fixed because it would cause the lack of savings in this change to be even worse. Mail is being left behind around the entire country. I doubt that it’s even being reported as delayed.
They knew it wasn’t me. Nobody in the PO ever topped the 50% delivery rate !! Newman
Lighten up, it’s a 5 minutes hack job any body could have done. We have wasted a whole lot more resources and money and you just don’t know it.
Wasting time and money – check! Insult and disregard the people who work for the U.S.P.S.- check!
Disrespect the American Public- check!
Collect large salaries and bonuses for ruining our PUBLIC SERVICE- check!
Sounds like business as usual down at headquarters!
Wasting time and money – check! Insult and disregard the people who work for te U.S.P.S.- check!
Disrespect the American Public- check!
Collect large salaries and bonuses for ruining our PUBLIC SERVICE- check!
Sound like business as usal down at headquarters!
I think social media outreach is critical in keeping USPS relevant. USPS would be remiss if they were not leveraging the value of social media. Sure, this episode was frivolous, but so is Congress’ squandering of the tens of billions of dollars it has wrung out of USPS’ coffers since they started milking USPS like a cash cow in 2006.
Oh, get off it! They responded to satire with a little (lame) satire of their own. No need to get your panties in a bunch over this.
Actually, this is a big deal. They put substantial time in on this. From creating a graphic, to calling the Federal Times and begging them to do a story (the Times certainly wouldn’t have noticed a random tweet from the USPS), and then writing up and posting their own story in Newslink, the press office devoted a lot of time and effort to this idiocy. In the end, they either were too dimwitted to realize what they did or they were genuinely repeating the sentiments expressed by PMG Donahoe. In any case, they haven’t apologized, so USPS leaders must stand behind what they did. Gotta love how carriers are breaking their backs to deliver mail in this weather, while it’s all fun and games at headquarters.
Everybody funny…..now you funny too!
This sounds more like deflategate, stop wasting time, end the prepayment, reassert the old delivery standards and stop closing down plants.