Have you noticed anything strange lately about your local post office? For years, one of the big issues in my town was the need for a larger facility to accommodate the popularity of the services offered and the SUVs of customers clogging the tiny parking lot at the old post office. Each time plans for a new facility solidified, zoning issues hung the deal up. Now even that talk has faded. The town will simply have to adapt to the old building, the postage-stamp parking lot and long lines.
The first sign of trouble was the recent opening of a "mailing facility" at the south end of town. This storefront operation is part of the U.S. Postal Service family, but it is not staffed by USPS employees. Meanwhile, back at the town's main post office, the unionized staff is being cut. Delivery routes are altered; every day a new face delivers the mail at our house at a new time. On some days, portions of our mail are delivered to our neighbors, and some of the mail in our box belongs to the houses one street over.
The second sign that something not good is up was the transfer of two longtime postal employees, among the most popular public servants in town. Both women have genially worked the front desk at the old post office for years, becoming an integral part of the town, watching our kids grow, inquiring after vacations and even, at times, offering words of condolence. They're the sort of people who do their jobs well, mostly without thanks and often under stressful conditions—there's nothing more stress-inducing than an impatient Hummer-driving soccer mom or a triple-wide-truck-driving suburban macho-man.
Now they're getting the boot. One is going to a facility 25 miles further from her home (no compensation for the added commuting costs) and the other is being made a custodian (20 years of service to sweep floors). During their last week at work, the post office counter resembled a funeral home, smothered with the flowers customers brought in farewell. Next week, the lines will be longer and the experience more stress-inducing.
So it goes around the country. In case you didn't know, the U.S. Postal Service is a "quasi-governmental agency." That is, it's wholly owned by the government and controlled by presidential appointees and the Postmaster General. It's part business and part government agency. As a government agency, it works well (44 cents for first class letters is still one of the world's great bargains). As a business, it is in the red, as it were. At the end of the last fiscal year, the USPS had a $1.5 billion deficit. Cost-cutting, and union bashing, are the order of the day. Though it currently employs 745,000 people, the USPS has cut nearly 50,000 jobs in the last two years.
The impact around the states has been profound. Connecticut is among the first states to begin making plans for massive closings of small or "underutilized" post offices. Three post office branches in Hartford, one each in East Hartford and West Hartford, five in New Haven, two in Bridgeport and two in Stamford are likely to be closed. A recent article by the Hartford Courant's Edmund Mahoney suggests that as many as 150 of the state's 400 post offices could be closed in coming years. In Massachusetts, a sizeable district office in North Reading was closed in May, and it's likely that the state will begin a systematic closing of "underutilized" branches in the near future.
Though obviously some actions need to be taken, many of the proposed changes seem penny-wise and pound foolish, like the summary removal of popular employees, arguably the only faces most people regularly see of a government in action. I've always had a soft spot for postal employees, ever since reading Charles Bukowski's hilarious novel Post Office, based on his decade of work with the Los Angeles postal service.
If nothing else, maybe in tribute to all these hardworking people facing the loss of their jobs—or perhaps if you're a Bukowski fan—the next time you get the urge to email a loved one, mail them a letter instead.
