OK, so we have a new postmaster general. I suppose when you’ve been around long enough to see seven of them come and go you can get a bit jaded. What I’ve noticed, though, is that everybody has his own idea about the kind of mark he wants to leave on the postal service.
For instance, while Marvin Runyon seemed to strive to make the USPS more businesslike, Bill Henderson appeared intent on using technology to improve the postal service’s efficiency. One can only imagine what kind of mark Jack Potter wants to make.
It’s not only PMGs who come and go. The same is true of postal governors. Heaven knows what design any one of them has in mind when they join the board. However, each board eventually develops a style of its own.
About the only thing that remains constant is that mail continues to get delivered. It’s a fact that should grab someone’s attention.
E-commerce initiatives are here and gone. Advertising jingles and campaigns change with the seasons. Bureaucratic empires within the halls of L’Enfant Plaza are created or destroyed. But despite it all, the mail still gets delivered. In fact, some cynics maintain that even if the postal service’s headquarters were to disappear tomorrow, the mail still would get delivered. It’s about the only thing customers have ever asked of the USPS: Just deliver the mail.
The agency probably could save billions each year by cutting programs that have little to do with mail delivery.
Imagine: No more millions wasted on e-bill payment and presentment. Instead, the quality of first class mail delivery could be improved.
Imagine: No more spending over $5.3 million to develop a hybrid mail scheme that needlessly duplicates private sector resources, all in the pursuit of $56,000 worth of postage.
A couple of years ago, the USPS ran one of its best ad campaigns using the jingle
Network
