The problem is not with the post office,or even with the majority of the clerks or carriers. The problem IS with congress,and as a result of things like Affirmative Action,with Postal Management. They give preference it stupidity and laziness as long as it is wrapped in a brown shell,and ESPECIALLY if it is wrapped in a FEMALE or HOMOSEXUAL brown shell. Double bonus points for a homosexual female in a brown shell.
I am retired from the post office as a letter carrier,and I have personally seen female and non-whites hired right off the street and be put in management positions within 6 months. NOT talking about college graduates with business or management degrees,either. Talking about home bois and home gurls from de hood that have a hard time reading the weekly safety briefing. I have personally seen two women letter carriers suddenly declare themselves to be a lesbian couple and get promoted into side by side postmaster positions in a rural area. I've seen a black woman that gave birth to her 5th child taken off her letter carrier route and given a job sitting in the break room all day answering the telephone "because of her delicate physical condition". Meanwhile,they hired a series of temporary white workers to deliver mail on her route for her while she continued to draw her full paycheck as a letter carrier and got her regular raises.
And it starts sooner than being hired. When I went to take my test in a major city,there were foreigners there from Asia that didn't speak or read a word of English,and they were actually allowed to have translators there to read the questions to them in their native language,and then write the answers or check the blocks for them. These translators were earning some pretty big bucks and since they took the tests every day for someone,they knew all the right answers. They did the same for illiterate black Americans. I sometimes wonder why they even asked the people applying for the job to show up to be tested when someone else is answering all the questions for them,anyway.
And guess what happens when these people are hired. That's right,the post office has to hire other people to do their jobs for them in most cases. In other cases where the new hire is actually willing to work,they run the new letter carrier employees through a course to help them recognize and memorize addresses,and they are only required to deliver mail on ONE route because they still can't read English. They have memorized the route and the way the names and addresses look on that one route. Every white new employee spends months or even years working different routes every day to cover the regular carriers being out on sick leave,vacation,or to handle the route after the regular carrier retired and the route is up for bid as a permanent route for the other letter carriers,based on seniority.
I have personally seen a white female hired after me that was fast-tracked into management because she was a female,hot,and was humping someone in management. She had worked for the telephone company before getting the post office job,and won a lawsuit against the telephone company that gave her early medical retirement from the telephone company because there were several telephone operators working out of the same building where she was working that had been raped after leaving work at night,and she claimed to have had a nervous breakdown due to worrying about getting raped that prevented her from coming to work. I know this because she told me about it.
She got her job in management,and within a year she was suing the post office for sexual harassment based on the guy she was humping that got her into the management job "Sexually intimidating me into performing sexually in order to keep my job." Keep in mind this was a woman who went to a carrier union party while still a carrier,and got drunk and was humping people by the side of the swimming pool in broad daylight. Once again,she won cash damages and early retirement with less than two years invested in the job. She even retired at the supervisory level she was working when "the stress got to be too much for me to handle,and I had to start staying home because I couldn't bear the thought of going to work at that job again."
ALL of which decreases efficiency and increases costs,and ALL because Congress mandates they do these things. With every new administration in DC,the US Post Office gets a new Postmaster General,and it is ALWAYS a political appointee pay-off job to someone owed favors.
BTW,for those interested,Affirmative Action beats veteran privilege every time.
