The US Postal Service sent the latest in a series of postcards to indoctrinate its workforce on the benefits of its Delivering for America 10-year plan. The USPS recently mailed the latest postcard (the fifth in the series) to Postal Service employees’ homes.
In addition to touting its efforts to transform the postal delivery network, the postcard included a QR code directing employees to an online survey to test their knowledge of the Postal Service’s 10-year plan to modernize the organization.
The survey said the organization was gauging employees’ knowledge and awareness of the plan to help further improve efforts to inform them about the plan and related initiatives. “Participation is voluntary and anonymous,” it stated.
In addition to asking if survey participants had heard of the Delivering for America plan, it asked where they received information about it – options include Stand-up Talk; Supervisor or Manager; and Coworkers.
One question, “How will the Postal Service transform Destination Delivery Units to increase efficiency of mail and package delivery,” provided the following options from which to choose:
- By ensuring metropolitan areas are served by up to 80 small delivery units
- By aggregating operations into larger sorting and delivery centers, where feasible
- By investing in renovations to add additional dock spaces to our older destination delivery units, where feasible
- By expanding the use of leased spaces in expansive rural areas
The next screen said either “Oops – missed that one” or “Correct!” – depending on the response – and in both cases, provided the following information:
“Much of the current USPS footprint will be aggregated into new, larger Sorting and Delivery Centers with adequate space, additional docks and material handling equipment to operate more efficiently. Where a metropolitan area might today be served by 80 small delivery units, in the future these carrier operations would be served by four or five new, larger purpose-built facilities.”
Another question, “Recent modifications to the pricing structure allow for what type of changes to the price of market-dominant products (e.g., letters and flats),” offered the following answer on the next screen:
“This new pricing authority will allow the price of market-dominant products to increase incrementally and correct pricing imbalances by adjusting prices of various mail categories depending on market and demand. This gives the ability to consider increases in per-unit costs caused by density declines associated with delivering fewer pieces of mail to more addresses.”
Other survey questions included the following:
USPS Connect offers a diverse suite of scalable and customizable solutions to help businesses of all sizes meet growing consumer demand for fast delivery and convenient returns. Which of the four delivery solutions is designed to ‘make expected same-day or next-day deliveries throughout your neighborhood’?
What year will the Postal Service Reform Act’s employee health benefits provisions go into effect?
How will the new footprint of processing and delivery facilities affect the postal transportation model?
The Postal Service will streamline processing to be more efficient, consolidate surface transportation, and improve utilization. This will include the transition of the Network Distribution Centers (NDCs) into new Regional Distribution Centers (RDC) focused on regional acceptance and processing of which of the following product lines?
The DFA Plan modified the First-Class Package Service (FCPS) time-in-transit standards from 2-3 days to 2-5 days, which allows additional transport time for long-distance package deliveries and increases network efficiencies by enabling additional package volume to be transported by which of the following methods?
After taking the survey, participants were taken to a landing page on the USPS website where they could download a copy of the plan.
USPS needs to indoctrinate its workers on not stealing customers’ packages.
What is meant by “small delivery units?” Are these smaller post offices?
There are probably 80 post offices of varying sizes in the metropolitan area where I live; I can think of 6 post offices within 5 miles of where I live and I know of at least that many more that I’ve either visited or driven past over the years; this covers just a small fraction of the metro area.
If USPS is planning on doing away with smaller neighborhood post offices, I hope they reconsider that idea. My rather small local post office often has lines out the door as it is (and it’s a freaking nightmare during the holiday season!).
Since my post office added the self-serve machine, I rarely have a need to stand in line (thank goodness!), but many mail-senders don’t seem to know about buying shipping labels online (and apparently don’t have any interest in using the self-serve machine).
“many mail-senders don’t seem to know about buying shipping labels online (and apparently don’t have any interest in using the self-serve machine).”
Betting these are the very same people who are proud to still use rotary phones.
eBray, there is no “self service” machine in any of the local post offices in villages within at least 5 or 10 miles of where I live (I haven’t bothered to check them all). Personally? I would have no use for one unless I was absolutely desperate with an envelope needing a stamp that HAD to be in today’s mail.
I do use online shipping labels – I truly feel they are incredibly better than hand prepared, with bar codes all created for me and any address mistakes corrected automatically. I used Stamps.com until the fees outpriced what my business could afford; then tried ShipStation but it was way too complicated; and I’m now using PirateShip and 99% delighted.
BUT – !!! HAHAHA ~! I have TWO rotary phones (well, they can switch between “Dial” and “Pulse”) and guess what — THEY KEEP RIGHT ON WORKING WHEN THE POWER GOES OUT!!! sorry, all you electric-dependent phone owners lose service when that happens. My biggest gripe with a rotary phone is the voice mail systems I encounter when trying to work through a computer prompt or leave a voice mail, that keep saying “Press this, Press that” and the schmucks do not understand they should add that their system will pick up if I stay on the line (which works for Rotaries). A tip of the hat and big thank you to people who are that intelligent.
I worked at USPS for 30 years, half the time as a supervisor. I can promise you 99% employees laugh at this
May work in a city but when it comes to rural routes, it’ll be a major mess. Rural couriers already drive a ton of miles on their route but for them having to drive an extra 10-20 miles to the hub then only get paid when they drive back to start their route. More wear and tear on their own vehicles, some got the new van, well, 6 months ago and their already pretty tore up and the did not handle the snow at all with the hills we have.