An interview with T.L. Righter on the Current State of Postal Affairs
10 May 2002
 

Righter: I have two general comments about the plan. First, it seems that a lot of the Transformation Plan is a series of mission statements for the Postal Service's various departments. However, these "mission statements" shouldn't necessarily be part of a transformation. The missions outlined are what the USPS should have been doing all along. Of course, it's good that the Transformation Plan has refocused the vision and the mission of various departments. My second comment addresses the costs of the Transformation Plan. Recently, the USPS announced that it would end the year about $1.5 billion in the red. Now, this $1.5 billion deficit comes after the belt-tightening and cost-cutting of the last year - reductions in admin staff, reductions in much-needed training, building and construction freezes and the like. If the Postal Service can't pay for anything but a bare-bones operation now, how will it afford the many proposals found in the plan?
 

Righter: That's a good point, and I will use a current example of how the Postal Service is killing itself with costly technological blunders to illustrate the problem. The USPS recently rolled out a Web-based, that's right, Web-based information system to help delivery supervisors manage their carrier units. This system requires a PC or two or three in every delivery unit, a slew of mainframes, servers, national technical support, local technical support, and much more. Ten years ago, the USPS had a relatively well-trained cadre of front-line supervisors who only needed a pencil and paper to effectively manage their units. Without their PCs, these supervisors had time to manage and supervise their carriers both in the station and on the street. Today in many areas of the country, the requisite street supervision has virtually disappeared. Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, was right about technology - at least as it pertains to the USPS; technology is (or can be) evil. The USPS needs to recruit and train leaders, not computers, and save itself many hassles and many millions.
  

Righter: Well, speaking of technology, technology is giving individuals and small groups of people new powers to project their influence and abilities over other people, communities, governments, and powers. For example, 30 years ago an individual on the ground was powerless against a jet fighter. Today, a single individual wielding a Stinger anti-aircraft missile can shoot down the fighter. Thirty years ago, there were only two nuclear superpowers. Today, conceivably, one person could smuggle a man-pack nuclear weapon into New York City and incinerate several square miles and kill several million people. Likewise, technology has given individuals instant access to pipe-bomb assembly instructions on the Internet, and likewise, technology has given appropriately-trained individuals the know-how to develop deadly strains of biological agents. Combine technological innovations with the most efficient delivery system in the world - the U.S. Postal Service - and you can see how the USPS will be at risk in the future. The Postal Service must be very aggressive in developing countermeasures to combat future risks.
 

Righter: Ten years ago the Postal Service also had a large cadre of top people to pick from for their supervisor positions. Ten, twenty, thirty years ago the USPS had its pick of top people. Today, the USPS is begging for anybody to carry the mail. So the situation you have at the Post Office, since the USPS for the most part doesn't recruit people, is that it now hires whoever shows up. These people, who just show up, eventually make their way into management. Not to take anything away from these people - many are great employees. However, consider how the United Parcel Service (UPS) hires people. UPS aggressively recruits at college campuses for entry-level positions (truck loader, etc.). Some of these college-educated people eventually make their way into UPS management. This recruiting helps the UPS run "the tightest ship in the business". The Postal Service can help itself by recruiting desirable individuals, and I'm not just talking about college people. Some school districts have a 'Troops to Teachers' program, for example. How about a 'Troops to Carriers' program? The U.S. military does a good job of turning out individuals with desirable work ethics. Plus, many troops are really good at hiking long distances.
 

Righter: It doesn't seem to have much of a chance, mostly because people do not truly trust the Postal Service to do the right thing on this issue. Postal customers - the American public - don't want a Postal Service that can raise rates at Christmastime, or charge extra for out-of-the way deliveries. Rank-and-file postal employees believe that postal managers will raise rates only to assure their annual bonuses. Postal labor unions believe that the USPS would offer huge, uneconomical discounts to major mailers, who would flood the mail system with money-losing cheap and flimsy fliers. And then there's the competition. UPS, with its well-paid lobbying machine, will lobby hard against any proposal that would help the USPS to become more competitive.
 

Righter: Frankly, I'm worried about the Postal Service's future. Technology is fundamentally changing the way the world communicates. However, the USPS - although it is incorporating (costly) technology into its infrastructure, is not fundamentally addressing the changes technology is bringing to society. It's odd that the Transformation Plan is a plan for the USPS to provide (pretty much) the exact same services it provides today ten years from now. Internally, the plan may transform some areas, however, externally, the plan is to maintain the status quo. (For example, the plan doesn't address the inefficient method of delivering mail by walking door to door. Email that travels at 186,282 miles per second is increasingly making door to door delivery at a hundred paces per minute seem pretty nineteenth-century.) I'm also worried about a "wildcard". A "wildcard" is a term that Futurists use to describe an unforeseen event or development in future-time prediction models. For example, a Futurist could predict or forecast that the eye care (prescription glasses) industry will grow at 2% annually for the next ten years. A "wildcard" could be, in this case, a development in five years that rendered prescription eyeglasses (and the forecast) obsolete, for example, the development of a $10 - 10 second medical procedure that restored everyone's vision to 20/20. Just last week, FreightMart.com introduced a new service that allows shippers to bid on shipments. Such a "wildcard" thrown at the USPS, which does not currently have flexible pricing, could ultimately destroy its package delivery business. In this age, where we have seen potent anthrax through the mail, jetliners as guided-cruise missiles, and 21 year old college students who can disrupt mail delivery throughout America's heartland, I worry about what the next "wildcard" holds.