Is government at best a necessary evil? If so, what is it at its worst?
It may look like and be the United States Postal Service (USPS) – the Post Office, our perennial friend and foe alike.
Before you start thinking that this article will be an anti-government screed, allow me to moderate – although not totally eliminate – such fears (or hopes). Clearly, the Postal Service does its job very well most of the time, even an overwhelming percentage of the time. My complaint is that the institution is clearly geared towards its own survival and well-being and not its customers’. It possesses an organization-centric view, not a customer-centric one.
For years, the USPS was the only game in town. A mail monopoly made in heaven with the full force and effect of the U.S. government. How good is that?
But now the landscape has changed. The Internet has introduced e-mail, the bane or blessing of our existence depending upon your viewpoint, which means that the USPS is delivering fewer handwritten notes to friends living across the country. FedEx and UPS are carrying the freight, literally and figuratively, including people’s bags that airlines wish to charge $25 to accompany them to their appointed destinations. USPS has been paying attention, but only from its self-interest, not the customer’s.
That explains why we receive a barrage of inquiries and sales pitches from the postal clerk when we merely wish to send a package and do not care a whit about whether it is insured or receipt is confirmed or delivery is registered. Do you want some stamps with that? No police interrogation could be more traumatic than a visit to the Post Office. At least you are entitled to legal representative while in custody. Once you are in the Post Office, all bets are off. You are at their mercy -- ignorant, unarmed, and a sitting duck for their revenue-increasing browbeating.
Perhaps you can relate to my latest encounter with government’s quasi-finest, given that the Postal Service is neither fish nor foul, government nor commercial, this nor that, but they are what they are – and they know it. Your rights are subordinate to theirs.
Recently, we posted to a dear friend a birthday card which was returned. My wife or I placed one of those self-adhesive stamps on an envelope which we could not use because it was mis-addressed. Over the years, I have re-used such unused stamps - if that makes sense - a dozen times or more. There has never been a problem – until now.
I went to speak with a USPS manager expecting to get a sympathetic ear. Boy, was I wrong! He recited chapter and verse of the Postal Manual and explained in no uncertain terms that I had violated procedure. When I countered that I had not used the stamp, as was clear from the lack of a cancellation mark, he said that sometimes the mark does not appear. Message? USPS equipment may malfunction, which is fine, but if a customer uses an unused stamp in a manner not according to USPS protocol, USPS will assume the customer is using an earlier used stamp not marked by its equipment.
How’s that for a monopoly on moxie?
Next, when I said that the Post Office was not being customer-friendly with its counter staff’s incessant inquiries even when customers explicitly request that they only wish to mail a package and do or acquire nothing else, the manager replied that such procedure was prescribed in the Manual and that employees are chastised if they fail to do so. When I said that such an attitude was USPS-centric and not customer-centric, I saw what seemed to be a ‘who-cares-what-you-are-saying-don’t-you-know-that-I-have-a-Post-Office-to-run’ expression on his face.
So, when people rail against the government running this or that, especially the recent talk of the government “making cars” by bailing-out the auto industry and creating a Car Czar, it is understandable when some citizens become queasy. The government is about the government. It often does not properly regard its clientele as customers.
What government focuses on very well is how to operate in a manner which is most convenient to it and not those it is intended to serve.
Perhaps we will always have a Post Office, but if it continues to act as though it exists for its own benefit and not its customers’, then the largest mover of packages and cards may soon be FedEx or UPS and not the United States Postal Service.
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Fred W. Apelquist, III
Approximately 750 words.
December 19, 2008
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