18 November, 2011

Has it really been almost a year?

Has it really been almost a year since I last wrote something with the intent of sharing my thoughts across the world wide web for everyone (all 3 of you, I have no delusions of grandeur) to read?  I guess I could claim to have been so busy not to have found the time to write, or even think of writing another article, but I'm also not that big a fibber. I'm really just too very distractible (yes I have started a few articles in my mind) as well as a tad bit lazy, and, again, not so largely certain that anyone actually reads these things to begin with, to spend (not waste) the time putting my thoughts to page.

All that being said, how about those Cowboys?  No, I'm not really going there, it's just a rhetorical question.

I noticed an interesting subject while listening to the news the other night.  A large company, I think it's TVA, has suspended executive pay raises for the next two years.  Sound familiar?  There was a stipulation, however, that the freeze would not effect performance based incentives.  How interesting.  This really got me to thinking about our own company's freeze on executive pay and the complete absence of information on whether the performance based incentives were part of the freeze, or even if such incentives existed in our system.

I'm sure we all remember the grilling our former PMG got from congress when he sat before them to present his plea for help in changing the laws governing how the Postal Service is structured.  How he was questioned concerning his large denomination bonus paid in the same year the USPS posted billion dollar losses? I also thought I remembered a certain "one time" lump sum, 10 million dollar payment into his retirement account just a few years before he retired.  All this churned through my mind as I walked my mile and a half lunch-time circuit and I came to a troubling question:

Won't it be interesting to see whether our current PMG, and possibly his staff, gets a performance based incentive bonus this year?

And how about the rest of us? Does anyone else understand our current pay system, N(ational) P(erformance) A(ssesment), to be a performance based incentive bonus rather than a salary raise?  Or at least it used to be somewhat akin to one before they "leveled" the playing field by tying all our hard-working, small-office postmasters' efforts into a bundle with the large-office postmasters.  It seems they weren't getting their "fair share" of the largesse (as if performance has anything to do with fair share, what a bunch of socialists) and complained that the smaller offices were prospering more than they.  Hey! All I can say is, quit making political appointment postmasters for large offices and start moving some of those hard-working, over-performing, small-office postmasters up into positions they obviously deserve, based on their performance instead of their connections.

OK... That one will probably win me some new friends, but not among the politically appointed crowd.  And does it really matter anyway?  Here we are, an organization of postmasters, whose membership, at least in the state of Tennessee, lists very few postmasters in offices above level 20.  Why is that?  Are they (the high and lifted up) really so very busy they can afford no time to participate?  I think not, in fact I know of no busier postmaster than in those level 18 and 20 offices with no supervisors, not enough clerk hours to keep the window open the allotted number of hours posted on the door, and fewer RCAs and PTF carriers than necessary to cover their routes each day. Yet they somehow find the time to join us.  No, I really think it's politically incorrect, if you have aspirations of climbing the corporate ladder, to be part of an organization which can be somewhat "at odds" with district and area managers from time to time, but I rant.

Maybe this is why I don't write here more often.  I can't seem to stay on subject without letting my angst shine through.  But can anyone blame me, when everything we hear from our leadership is so very negative?  Am I the only one reading the morning report each day?  So far this year we have been told we're unnecessary, over paid, over compensated, need to retire, get too much paid time off, don't work hard enough, have too little mail to justify clerk hours, the negative list goes on and on.

Can anyone imagine Pizza Hut's CEO telling the entire world, "We just can't compete anymore with Papa John's pizza.  Our employees are too much of a burden on the company, our pizza parlors are outdated, and our ovens don't work well any more, so we are just going to have to close on the weekends, do away with home delivery, and hope someone calls to order some of our lousy pizza."?  Wouldn't that be ridiculous? Don't you think Pizza Hut's employees would absolutely quit doing a good job and begin to believe the bad press they were getting from their own CEO? That's what I feel like when I hear our PMG speak.  What's the point in going on?  Why bother?  Somebody HELP me!

OK... enough's, enough.  How about a little light at the end of the tunnel.  I tell my carriers each day, before they leave on their appointed rounds, to just remember:

Keep the faith, my fellows, and I hope to see you, in January, at Pigeon Forge.