OPINION:
As a retired U.S. Postal Service automation engineer, I am always interested in reading comments about my former employer (“Postal Service chief fails to deliver promised reforms,” web, Aug. 14).
There is no question the Postal Service could use some improvement, but let me tell you about the headwinds the postmaster faces.
The Postal Service can never truly be run as a private company because there are still many political strings attached to it.
It is a long process for the service to shut down even the smallest post office. Private companies can shut down their unprofitable stores without any public oversight.
Years ago, when having a monopoly on first-class mail was a cash cow, the Postal Service agree to give mailing discounts to nonprofit organizations. For at least 20 years now, first-class mail has been in steady decline and is no longer a moneymaker.
Still, the Postal Service gives mailing discounts to nonprofits. About half the mail my wife and I get is from nonprofit organizations.
The Postal Service has been bleeding temporary employees for a few years now, too. Why become a part-time or temporary employee with no benefits when you can get a job with benefits at UPS or FedEx?
For a short time, my daughter was a temporary carrier for the Postal Service. She told me she knew carriers who had been temporary employees for years. To attract and keep them, the postmaster general had no choice but to offer full-time positions to more employees.
Having had more or less a desk job with the Postal Service, I am very thankful to the men and women who physically handled the mail under all kinds of conditions.
With all the packages now being delivered, being a mail carrier is more physically demanding. My daughter had to deliver many heavy packages to third-floor walk-up apartments.
No matter how much automation the Postal Service develops, delivering mail to 160 million addresses six times a week will always be a very labor-intensive operation.
RILEY MAYHALL
Germantown, Maryland
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