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How Mail Really Travels
29 Plays2 months ago
On this episode of the Postal Blue Podcast, we speak about the flow of mail and how it actually travels in the Post Office. There are a lot of misconceptions that we wanted to clarify and set the groundwork for future episodes. No one is the blame on the ground as we all have a level of ignorance and learning is the way to have a better understanding and grow as a community.
#usps #postoffice #nalc #postalblue
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Transcript
Introduction and Scheduling Changes
00:00:02
lastyles
What's going on, everyone? This is your boy, LA Styles, AKA Ice, along with your girl Watkins.
00:00:09
ShereeVWatkins
Hello out there everybody.
00:00:11
lastyles
We're here on another episode of the poster blue podcast on the midweek episode that was supposed to be a short. You know what I'm saying? We try to give you all those midweek episodes at .5. This might end up being a full just podcast, uh, episode six. If it gets close to an hour, we'll just make it a six. Um, that'll be us making up for the late poster five. You know what I'm saying? And then.
00:00:35
lastyles
we will probably still give you all a 0.5 like Saturday. We're trying to give you all as much content as possible, give you some guys some content to listen to, you know what I'm saying? Give you all informational educational purposes. This is what the podcast is about, informational and educational purposes. All right, so as much content and information we can give you all, we're gonna create that and give it to you.
00:01:00
lastyles
Okay, so again, this is the postal blue podcast. Let me get the intro out the way.
00:01:27
lastyles
Appreciate you, appreciate you. What's going on over there, Watkins?
00:01:31
ShereeVWatkins
Well, not much that's ready to get into it. Ready to get into it.
00:01:35
lastyles
Watkins, a Watkins video getting fuzzy, y'all. I don't know what she got going on over there.
00:01:39
ShereeVWatkins
Oh, man, man. Let me straighten it out for you.
00:01:41
lastyles
We can see her though. We can see her.
00:01:43
ShereeVWatkins
Okay. Hey, y'all. I can see.
00:01:48
lastyles
No, you good.
00:01:48
ShereeVWatkins
Should I turn my light on? I'm good. Okay.
00:01:53
lastyles
Main thing again, long as they can hear you.
00:01:56
ShereeVWatkins
Okay. I want them to see me.
00:01:57
lastyles
Uh, I can see you too, but it might be internet connection. It's kind of blurry.
00:02:01
ShereeVWatkins
Oh man, my wife filed up and weren't in. What's going on?
00:02:07
lastyles
I don't know. Government trying to hold you back.
00:02:09
ShereeVWatkins
No, they bet not. They know me.
00:02:11
lastyles
Government trying to hold her back, man.
00:02:12
ShereeVWatkins
I'm coming up there.
00:02:13
lastyles
They might do that type of stuff. We don't know. You know what I'm saying?
00:02:14
ShereeVWatkins
I'm coming up there. They ain't gonna stop this.
00:02:18
lastyles
You work for them.
00:02:18
ShereeVWatkins
We getting hurt.
00:02:19
lastyles
So they feel like they can do what they want to do.
00:02:21
ShereeVWatkins
Yes, sir.
00:02:22
lastyles
You belong to them.
00:02:24
ShereeVWatkins
Not today, though.
Understanding Mail Processing
00:02:25
ShereeVWatkins
Let's do it.
00:02:27
lastyles
Today is August 28th. We're gonna get this up immediately, immediately, right after editing that there's gonna be live, right? So hopefully we can get back on schedule and this is Wednesday, so it should be released tonight.
00:02:42
lastyles
We have some issues, worked out some technical difficulties and we back up and running, right? Today's episode is, was kind of two titles. There's a title and a subtitle is processing and distribution.
00:02:54
lastyles
Also, the co-title is How Mail Really Flows, right? A lot of customers, let me get this started. Carriers, supervisors, managers.
00:03:07
lastyles
All of y'all should be sharing this podcast, especially this episode with y'all customers, because it's going to get a lot of y'all out of hot water, right?
00:03:14
ShereeVWatkins
cards as well.
00:03:16
lastyles
Clerks too, counter clerks.
00:03:18
ShereeVWatkins
Okay.
00:03:19
lastyles
Everybody else is already behind the scenes and hiding from the issues that the mail distribution has, the mail system in general has, right? So this episode is in particular for customers, right? We all know how things go as far as the offices go, but a lot of our customers don't properly know or don't really know how mail flows, right? So I'm gonna give down a base example on mail leaving one state going to another state Right. We're going to do that. And then we're going to build on that being the foundation of that's how mail travels. Right. So let's just say you're in Jane is in New York and she's trying to mail a letter out to her son in Wisconsin. Leonard is her son. I don't know Jane, by the way. You know what I'm saying? Jane is in New York and she has this letter.
00:04:14
lastyles
Jane has to go take that letter if she don't give it to her mailman. So let's just use it so she puts it in the collection box or that she takes it to her local office and gives it to them, right? Those people are called clerks that work at those front counter windows. The clerks are gonna make sure that your mail gets on a truck that leaves that night to come pick up mail from their downtown or their main headquarters of distribution center, right?
00:04:43
lastyles
So let's just say this is New York City. So she gonna go to her local upholst office by her zip code in New York City, drop that mail off. The clerk's gonna make sure that that mail gets on the truck at the end of the day, right? Truck typically runs two times a day, but depending on how big the station is, it could run more. Depending on if that station does a lot of volume and pickups, business pickups and mail or whatever the case is.
00:05:07
lastyles
That mail is going to go on that truck and go downtown or go to wherever your headquarters is, typically in downtown locations. It's going to go to whatever your main facility that has a distribution inside of it. It's going to go there first. Now, because it's going out of state, it's going to go to a second distribution once it leaves your city. So your city has a distribution center.
00:05:30
lastyles
right, that breaks down mail for the zip codes, right? Then you have a second distribution center, which typically like an annex we call, that has a distribution center by the city, right? So let me give you an example. Our state of Wisconsin, our distribution hub for Wisconsin, main distribution hub is in Oak Creek.
00:05:57
lastyles
Right? It breaks down mailing packages by the city. Then mail leaves there on a truck and goes to the different cities. Our distribution for was for Milwaukee is downtown. It's going to get there and then they're going to break it down by the zip code. That's how mail is distributed.
00:06:17
lastyles
So your local post office is gonna send that mail to your distribution for your city. Then it has to leave there at some point in time, maybe one or two days, depending on how long it takes for it to get distributed to go to your bigger annex that consolidates everything for the state. It's typically one.
00:06:40
lastyles
right that say that that's in well that made maybe y'alls in part another part of new york as well new york is kind of big and it is a mainstream city slash state you know what i'm saying so it's going it has to go there they're going to consolidate everything to leave the state so every city in new york is going to send mail there and then that gets on major trucks and everything to leave the state Right?
00:07:05
lastyles
So that's already been one or two days, maybe three, but probably one or two days, hopefully, maybe three, just to even leave your state.
00:07:13
lastyles
Right? So when it leaves your state, when it comes through the Midwest, it has to go to Chicago, Illinois. Illinois dispersed mail, everything Midwest.
00:07:24
lastyles
Everything Midwest has to go through Chicago first. The Chicago gonna break it down and distribute everything. And since, let's say for us, Wisconsin, this is gonna leave.
00:07:33
ShereeVWatkins
Maybe four.
00:07:35
lastyles
Chicago's gonna come to Wisconsin, gonna go to Oak Creek first. Oak Creek is gonna disperse all the mail that they just got from Chicago and see what they got for every state, for every city, my apologies, for Wisconsin.
00:07:48
lastyles
Then they're gonna send everything on individual trucks to those cities. So once they leave there, who knows how long that took for it to get to Chicago, how long from Chicago to Oak Creek. Once it leaves Oak Creek, it's gonna go to our headquarters, which is downtown in Milwaukee, right? Then Milwaukee has to go through all of the mail by the zip code because every station runs a zip code. There's only one post office per zip code. It's not multiple stations. You only got one station. No matter how big your zip code is, you have one post office.
00:08:19
lastyles
Now, some of you might have consolidated stations where you might have two or three stations in one building, but it's one place, it's one station, quote unquote, per one zip code, right? You guys might like, we have a West Milwaukee, we have three stations in one building, but each one is four steel, one zip code. They're not one big zip code, right? And which is,
00:08:45
lastyles
five, three, two, one, four, five, three, two, one, nine, and five, three, two, zero, four, still three different zip codes, but in one building. But if you go in that building, they have that stations section off for each zip code. Like it's three different, like it's three different whatchamacall is just in the same building, right?
00:09:03
lastyles
So once it gets downtown, downtown has to distribute it, separate it, that's distribution to process it by the zip codes. Then it gets on a truck at some point in time, and then comes to your station. Every morning, those people bring mail to your local station.
00:09:19
lastyles
That's the mail that me Watkins coffee fee whoever is your mail carrier will have for you that day. We don't know what mail that is. We don't know what came from nor do we care nor we supposed to know. Right.
00:09:33
lastyles
FYI, your carriers typically can have 15, 20, I've seen some routes with 30 blocks of mail. There's not three or four, five blocks like some people think, right? So that's a lot of mail. So in order for your carriers to handle that mail, it comes pre sorted from downtown, right? Based on that carrier's route.
00:09:54
lastyles
So when the mail comes, it's already sorted in order for how that route's supposed to be delivered. We do not handle that mail in the office. We do not go through that mail in the office. We don't take pictures of that mail in the office. For those of you with questions about informed delivery, we don't know what we get every day because every day is a new session and a new batch of mail and packages, right?
Mail Carriers’ Role and Challenges
00:10:17
lastyles
Cool. So that's the flow of mail. Now, in the process of that mail flowing,
00:10:23
lastyles
Anything could happen. Truck goes to the wrong station, truck goes to the wrong facility, maybe in the back of the truck they got packages bunched up too much on, I'm not sure if they travel in game lures I believe, but they try to stack as many as they can that might fall off.
00:10:39
lastyles
one gay lord that's meant for one city but fall off into another gay lord that's meant for another city, right? Things of that nature. Also, when they feel like they're trying to catch up with mail or behind on mail in distribution, they try to run their machines faster than what they probably should be running, and they just got regular malfunctions with machinery.
00:10:57
lastyles
Right, so all the mail that you think you might get, you might not get because the machine sent to somewhere else. Sent there with the wrong batch of mail to another station, to another city, whatever the case is. This is the facts. I get mail for Pittsburgh. Even to this day, I still get mail for Pittsburgh. I live in Wisconsin.
00:11:15
lastyles
I don't live nowhere near Pittsburgh. That's on the East Coast. Don't know why it comes to me, but I get it. So then the process is I got to take that mail back to the station. It then has to get back on the truck at night, has to go back downtown, has to leave downtown, get to Oak Creek, has to leave Oak Creek, get to Chicago before it gets back to the East Coast to Pittsburgh. And today, two facilities, well, there are two distribution hubs before that person get that mail. And I'm pretty sure that person seen that mail in the form delivery, but they won't be getting in no time zone.
00:11:43
lastyles
That's not on me as the mail carrier. That's just the typical things that happen at every job that we know is not perfect, right? So that's how mail flows. Mail doesn't just leave your hand and goes directly to the station that you think should be delivering the mail. It doesn't work that way. Your local post office is just a delivery facility. We don't process mail. We don't handle mail in that order. We don't distribute mail in that order, right? Talk about this briefly on the last podcast.
00:12:12
lastyles
Only thing we really sort kind of like sort you know we kind of piece together is your magazines and bigger pieces of envelopes things that nature, and then your little pieces of loose mail which is not that many that machine might kick out or tore up or partially tore up for whatever reason.
00:12:27
lastyles
and we get those and then we got to kind of sort those in order of our case of high route flows and get that out to you. But the majority of our mail that you look for, that you typically get every day comes pre sorted. And we're not permitted to touch that mail to look through that mail or any of that.
00:12:44
lastyles
Right? So when you see your mailman and you might ask, do you have mail today? Unless they in front of your house, they might not know if you got mail today because I don't know who got mail today because I'm not permitted to look at that mail again. Let's say my route, my route has over 500 addresses on it. Total, I have over 3000 people. They get mail on my route. I don't know. I don't know who all got mail today.
00:13:06
lastyles
Right. So I know when I get in front of your house, cause I got to do these other houses in front of your house first. And by the time I get to your house, boom, your mail is on top. Now I know what you got today. Right. So, um, with that informed delivery, informed delivery takes pictures of the mail as it's been processed. Process can be anywhere when it went through any of those distribution slash processing facilities on its way to your city.
00:13:35
lastyles
Meaning when it got to Chicago, if it came from out of state, when it got to Chicago, they could have took a picture of it. They say this on its way, when it got to Oak Creek, it could have took a picture of it, said it's on its way when they got to downtown. That doesn't happen in the station. This is to the customers. We don't take pictures of the mail in the station. If you know, well, you don't know, but for those of you who work for the post office, know that it's illegal for us to take pictures of mail. Let alone do it in the stations.
00:14:02
lastyles
right? That takes place in distribution.
00:14:03
ShereeVWatkins
No cameras in federal.
00:14:05
lastyles
There's no cameras or anything allowed. There's no type of machinery that we can have to allow us to take video footage or pictures of the mail that in the stations that happens in distribution when it's on its way.
00:14:17
lastyles
So the machine that's sorting the mail is the same machine that's taking pictures for informed delivery. Now when they took that picture, We don't know when that was, but right after they took that picture, that male could have got in a wrong batch. That don't mean that that male was in the right batch once they took the picture. It could have been going in the wrong batch when the picture was took. You know what I'm saying? We don't know. Your carriers does not know this type of information, right? I only have what I have and I don't have what I don't have. You know what I'm saying? I don't know that you're supposed to get a check today that you're looking for from your lawyer or somebody. You know what I'm saying? If I had it, I'd be willing. You know what I'm saying? There you go.
00:14:54
lastyles
We, we, we got some, that's how I'm talking to my cousin. Let me get about 10%. You know what I'm saying? And we good. You got a lawsuit going on. You know what I'm saying? When I'll be joking with him like that, you know what I'm saying? But I have no reason to not give my customers something that's theirs.
00:15:08
lastyles
Right. Me personally. And I doubt that many carriers feel the same way. I have no reason to hide something from y'all. I have to go to your house every day anyway. I have to go to my same route anyway. I have scanners. We carry scanners that validate that we have to come through this area that you have. You know what I'm saying? We have to do our routes. There's no way of not doing your route.
00:15:29
lastyles
Right? I'll have her carriers call the station and say, I haven't seen my carrier in days. I haven't seen you. I'm saying, ain't nobody came through here. And I've went through this. When I was on the desk, I went through a scanner in the system. It was called a system called DMS. And I can see that person walking to the houses that they have mail for. There's a system for that. Right?
00:15:52
lastyles
If it didn't, it would tell me that. So there's not carries, it's just not delivering their mail for the most part. But that's the general process on distribution and processing of mail. From the time it leaves your hand, whether you're a person, just a regular customer, if you're a business, no matter what it is, the mail going to travel the same way.
00:16:16
lastyles
The same way it has to go through here, has to go through here, has to go through there, whatever the case is. Now it skips a few steps when we're talking about things like Express packages. And Express might get right on the truck or multiple Express right on the truck and post a go to where it posts a go to because it's supposed to be there in one day. But if most of you who use Express now know that that's not the case. Because we've been refunding Express for the past three months like crazy. Why? Because Express has been arriving two and three days late.
00:16:45
lastyles
That's due to calls from upper management that we have no control over, and that we got complaints about or whatever the case is, just like the customers do, right? So again, this episode is really just for process and distribution, the flow of mail, the real flow of mail. Now there's a lot of calls being made.
00:17:04
lastyles
behind the scenes. For things like informed delivery and things of that nature that us on the ground floor do not agree with because it don't make sense. Why? Because not only could it put me in harm way, it could add a lot of work and needless, I ain't going to say needless conversation, but to that degree,
00:17:23
lastyles
added on the street for people looking for things that I don't have.
00:17:23
ShereeVWatkins
Definitely.
00:17:26
lastyles
And I, and the first thing they're going to say is informed delivery said this, but I'm not informed delivery. I don't know what's in informed delivery. I'm a carrier. I just got what they gave me. I don't know nothing about no pictures in the mail happening or any of that.
00:17:40
lastyles
I just got what, what I got for today. And then I get a new batch tomorrow. So I hope we come tomorrow. If I don't got it for you today, you know what I'm saying? But I got no control over what I have or don't have. That's the flow of mail. And one of the issues we're having is There is a lot of complaints with carriers, a lot of complaints on, well, more on carriers than supervising managers, but supervisors and managers will get them as well, right? Now it's, now with something wrong with the station, now you complain about the station and it's all your right because again, you thought you were gonna get something that you didn't get and emotions can fly when you thinking about that you got something coming or let alone when you really counting on whatever you're counting on being there on a given day.
00:18:24
lastyles
But your carrier, the clerks at the counter, your supervisor manager has no control over the mail that they get on any given day. We don't know what that is. Again, we don't process and distribute mail. We're not holding mail back. No, none of that. First in, first out rule, everything that comes in the post office has to go out that day.
00:18:45
lastyles
Right. That's, that's something that the government put in the contract with the post office during the separation phase. Right. That all mail is supposed to be delivered every single day. Now let's extreme situations come up where maybe you wake up one day and you ain't got no carriers in office. You know what I'm saying? Then it's going to be a hard day that day. Uh, but outside of that customers be wary, you know, your,
00:19:12
lastyles
Your carrier just not stealing your mail just to be stealing your mail.
00:19:15
ShereeVWatkins
Hey, hey, hey.
00:19:16
lastyles
We're not hiding your mail just to be hiding your mail or holding it from you just to be holding it from you.
00:19:23
ShereeVWatkins
Most professional season carriers would not do that. But just to kind of break that down a little bit, just like Leonard said, if it's coming from Chicago to Oak Creek, he might have a flat tire among the way. That's an automatic delay. We might have one staff member at the center. That's five days delay, you know.
00:19:48
ShereeVWatkins
We deal with a lot of different factors, understaffed situations that's going between this mail coming from this place to us. So say you sending your daughter something off and you in New York and you sending it to Wisconsin.
00:20:05
ShereeVWatkins
Ain't no telling, it post said three days, but again, it's going through all these different stations and different centers and everything like that. We don't, carriers, we don't get updates. Oh, this stuff going to be delayed because so and so may have a fender bender or whatever the case may be. We never get those updates. So it's like we can't explain enough to the customers why this isn't here. It goes back to that app that you guys download on your phone.
00:20:41
ShereeVWatkins
I guarantee management is on us so hard. Everything that hits that station, it better be off the floor. And that's what we do. You know, we waiting on this to come from downtown. I have mail from Philly, Virginia. I know they waiting on this mail, but I got it. I'm all the way on 16th and Capitol in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
00:21:09
ShereeVWatkins
So I got to endorse that to send that back in. Ain't no telling how long it's going to be until you get it. Sad truth, but that's the reality, you know? And we get hounded a lot. Some customers are more understanding than others, but it's nothing we can do. I know this said your package will be here today and I'm supposed to have it on my truck. I don't got nothing for you today, or I may have Two of your four packages today.
00:21:40
ShereeVWatkins
I have no explanation to why it didn't come. I can't just tell you, okay, it didn't come because of this reason. It just didn't come to our station today.
00:21:48
lastyles
Correct. And anything else would be anything else would probably be me just making up something and that's not going, that's not going to help me or you.
00:21:51
ShereeVWatkins
It'll be a lot.
00:21:54
ShereeVWatkins
You definitely.
00:21:57
lastyles
It's a long enough day as is, you know what I'm saying?
00:21:59
ShereeVWatkins
Right.
00:22:00
lastyles
So I keep it to whatever the facts is. I don't have it today. Why I don't have it today.
00:22:05
ShereeVWatkins
But.
00:22:05
lastyles
I don't know why I don't have it today. Cause I'm not in charge on what I get from day to day. I just get whatever I get in the morning. And then that's what I hit the street with.
00:22:13
ShereeVWatkins
But I'm that angry customer. I need my arthritis pills.
00:22:18
ShereeVWatkins
I'm going to call the office.
00:22:18
lastyles
Hey, I believe you do ma'am.
00:22:21
lastyles
And yes, I would appreciate if you did that then.
00:22:22
ShereeVWatkins
Where?
00:22:24
ShereeVWatkins
Oh, well, she told me, let me call your carrier. I didn't talk to my carrier already.
00:22:31
ShereeVWatkins
Now I'm going to call her back.
00:22:33
lastyles
And that's when you get the issue because management never wants to do their job, especially upper management, right?
00:22:40
lastyles
This part's the management.
00:22:41
ShereeVWatkins
You think?
00:22:42
lastyles
Stop telling people to ride up on your carriers.
00:22:45
ShereeVWatkins
Please, please is a safety hazard because they'd be already angry.
00:22:50
lastyles
It's going to be, it's going to be beyond a safety hat because if I feel some type of way, I'm packing up everything in this van. I'm going back to the station. I'd be going home. Should nobody be riding up again? You don't know what's, what's going on with people. Let me, let me, let me on the side note, right? We're not robots.
00:23:06
lastyles
Your carriers are not robots. Although we try to do the best we can on any given day, we go through things just like everybody else. Things going on with kids, things going on with the kids, school, things going on with your spouse, things going on with sickly parents, elderly parents, people passing away. We go through the same exact thing. I remember a customer that was on the desk at Titania station calling me and she was complaining because a carrier wasn't speaking to her.
00:23:33
lastyles
as he was putting the mail in the mailbox, he wasn't speaking to her. She called and complained to me about this, right? On a short note, that same carrier mother passed away that morning. And instead of going home, he said, I'm gonna get this route done. And I'm gonna, cause I can't do nothing right now in my head all over the place. I'm gonna get this route done. I'm gonna go home and take care of what I can take care of and talk to my kids who just lost their grandma.
00:23:55
ShereeVWatkins
But how would I know that? Customer service is everything. I'm having a bad day too.
00:24:00
lastyles
See, but there's nothing, there's nothing in no paperwork.
00:24:01
ShereeVWatkins
I want you to talk to me.
00:24:04
lastyles
Let me clarify this, right? As cheerful as we are, and we try to come off because we're looking to have a good day and be in good moods.
00:24:11
ShereeVWatkins
All right.
00:24:12
lastyles
There's nothing in no paperwork that says I have to talk to anybody when I'm delivering this mail. I'm only out here to deliver this mail.
00:24:16
ShereeVWatkins
You know,
00:24:18
lastyles
Just like garbage men don't stop at your house and come knock on your door and be all cheerful and so on and so forth. But they in public service too.
00:24:28
ShereeVWatkins
You know, I hate when you say that. We don't have to talk to you. Yes, I want you to talk to me.
00:24:33
lastyles
I don't have to. I know what you want, but if you try to talk to your mailman and they're not speaking back or in the tone, then maybe they got something going on. So maybe I should be respectful and not forced to issue.
00:24:45
ShereeVWatkins
Sure.
00:24:45
lastyles
You know what I'm saying? Instead of getting mad, some might be going on with bro. Hey man, you good? Maybe, you know what I'm saying? Maybe you should ask, hey man, you good? You know what I'm saying? You need anything or whatever the case is. If this is a long-term male man that you done seen for a while, he might be going through something. He or she might be going through something. He might have something going on. Besides behind the scenes issues, we also have work related issues that mess with people, mentors.
00:25:06
lastyles
that mess with us emotionally. And then I'm on the route because something just happened probably at the office and I'm feeling some type of way and I'm trying to keep it in and just get this mail done because I know y'all want your mailing packages. So I might have some type of outburst in a mere conversation that I don't want to snap on you. You know what I'm saying? I don't want the wrong person going to come up to me about informed delivery and it's going to be a bad day.
Logistical and Staffing Issues
00:25:30
lastyles
Right. And you just trying to keep that in. Because if I take this back, I don't know if we're going to have enough people today to get this done because these routes are not three or four blocks each. They could be 15 to 30 blocks.
00:25:43
lastyles
So if I take this mail back, I don't know if we got enough staff to get these 30 blocks out. Then you are going to be complaining that you didn't get your mail today or whatever the case in this roll back to the next day.
00:25:48
ShereeVWatkins
And it's no beef with the customers because you guys just don't know.
00:25:59
lastyles
Correct. This is what this episode is for, right?
00:26:01
ShereeVWatkins
When we clock in, everything is not in the office.
00:26:02
lastyles
This one is specifically for the, uh, for the customers.
00:26:09
ShereeVWatkins
When we clock in, we waiting for it. We waiting for you guys, Mel. We waiting for the partials. We waiting for your prom. We waiting on everything. And then we got to set that and get that out to y'all.
00:26:22
lastyles
Another example, right? For everybody to have a bad day. There's been days where carriers will come in and only thing they got is packages. And management said, now, mind you, this is a typical job, nine to five type of job.
00:26:32
ShereeVWatkins
Oh, man.
00:26:40
lastyles
The station is full. Everybody's supposed to have an eight hour day. Nine to five job. You go to work, you don't expect overtime every single day. So you expect them to have your eight hour shift, right? You make plans to pick up your son, pick up your kids after school.
00:26:52
lastyles
You got to go run your mom somewhere right after work. Okay, cool.
00:26:55
ShereeVWatkins
Right.
00:26:56
lastyles
You come in, there's none of the packages. They say, well, the mail truck is late. Ain't no mail. They gonna be here like at nine 30. It's seven a.m. So y'all got everybody, we're gonna send you out a message to y'all scanners when the mail get here.
00:27:10
lastyles
Now y'all on the street doing packages. In three hours, I probably be done did my whole route of packages, right?
00:27:13
ShereeVWatkins
Backtracking.
00:27:15
ShereeVWatkins
Backtracking.
00:27:17
lastyles
So now cool.
00:27:17
ShereeVWatkins
Yeah.
00:27:18
lastyles
So now I come back, they send a message out. I come back, it's been about, let's say three hours. So now it's 10 o'clock. Remember, I'm still on the clock though, from seven to three. It's 10 o'clock.
00:27:30
lastyles
My route is six hours on the street of regular delivery. Right. I come back, get this mail. Hey, are we throwing the flats? The flats again is something we call your magazines and bigger pieces of mail for the most part. Things that can't fit through the machine, things that's wrapped in plastic, so on and so forth. They say,
00:27:51
lastyles
Yeah or nay, right? If they say nay, then that's gonna be delayed mail, right? And that's because they know that we've already been on the clock for three hours and I only got five hours left, right? So if I have to case this stuff up, that's probably gonna take another hour. So now I'm at four hours, my route is six hours and I still gotta deliver whatever I can.
00:28:10
lastyles
You know what I'm saying? So either something will be short or something is going to be rolled back to the next day if they don't approve the overtime. Now, I don't know if you guys notice, but the post office like to say how it's budgeting and we're not making money. So right now they don't look to approve overtime for a company that feels like they're not making money.
00:28:30
lastyles
We can't be paying all this overtime and double time, and we're not making money. That helps us go into the red. So then if they tell me, hey, we're not paying overtime, get what you can do in your eight hours and go home, then that's my instructions.
00:28:36
ShereeVWatkins
What?
00:28:42
lastyles
Because if I don't follow those instructions, now I can get a write up that threatens my job. And I got bills to pay and I got kids to feed as well. You know what I'm saying? I just can't go to work and do whatever it is that I want to.
00:28:53
lastyles
We get what we call instructions during the day. Management could give us instructions. Again, the post office was quote unquote attempted to be built on the back of the military, the foundation of how the military works.
00:29:04
lastyles
Military have orders. The post office has instructions. If they instruct me not to do this or not to do that, then I can't do that.
00:29:08
ShereeVWatkins
Okay.
00:29:11
lastyles
Now this is within my safety, you know what I'm saying? But typically, so they say, Hey, look, you can't finish that. We paying you for eight hours and bring it back. Okay. Bring it back. Now their job is to try to find somebody else that they don't have to pay overtime or something to, or whatever the case is to go do that mail. But that's out of my hands at that point in time. It's not my fault that the truck came three hours late, four hours late, that the truck didn't have packages or didn't have mail this time. Well, there's just typical hiccups that you guys don't know happens behind the scenes consistently,
00:29:41
lastyles
consistently.
00:29:41
ShereeVWatkins
FYI, Leonard is military. Just want to put that out there again. You know, so it's.
00:29:47
lastyles
For in the post office, you're not put that out there to stop, stop pretending like y'all are.
00:29:52
ShereeVWatkins
So we just.
00:29:54
lastyles
And y'all not y'all make us look bad.
00:29:55
ShereeVWatkins
I want us to, yeah, to kind of tap in on. Like Leonard said, we get instruction. You can have a big hole in your package. Your mail can be chewed up, tore up.
00:30:10
ShereeVWatkins
I definitely look guilty because I'm delivering it. And it goes back to what me and Leonard was talking about earlier.
Handling Damaged Packages
00:30:17
ShereeVWatkins
Leonard, can you tap in on that with the machines? This is happening right now.
00:30:21
lastyles
Correct. So that went on, right? So earlier I said that first for a reason, had to set the foundation for how mail flows, regular distribution and process that doesn't take place in the station, right? Yes.
00:30:36
lastyles
When we get mail, how we get mail is also not on us. It's not up to us. The machine chewed up some of your mail.
00:30:41
ShereeVWatkins
Yeah.
00:30:43
lastyles
You might not never get that letter back. And guess what? I don't know what letter you're not gonna get. You don't know what letter you're not gonna get. Your station don't know. No, nobody, their letter not recognizable whenever they took it out the machine downtown.
00:30:52
ShereeVWatkins
It's chewed up.
00:30:54
lastyles
I don't know if it was your check, your bill, whatever the case. So you just won't never know that you're not getting that piece of mail until you just never get it, right?
00:30:59
ShereeVWatkins
Oh.
00:31:02
lastyles
Cool, not cool, cool. Put that to the side. Also what comes with mail is packages, right? A package comes to us, it's open or tore up. I don't know if it got caught with other packages.
00:31:15
lastyles
You know what I'm saying?
00:31:18
lastyles
Side note, you guys order everything in the mail nowadays. Y'all order switch blades, bottles of water, sharp objects, um,
00:31:26
ShereeVWatkins
Live turtles.
00:31:28
lastyles
On a side side note, women, can you please stop ordering bras that come in plastic? Cause I feel some type of way when I grab a bag and I feel your bra cause I can feel the metal thing.
00:31:34
ShereeVWatkins
No, we may not. No, we may not.
00:31:38
lastyles
I'll be feeling dirty. You know what I'm saying? I really don't believe we want to deliver that.
00:31:40
ShereeVWatkins
No, we may not.
00:31:42
lastyles
And I want to actually do a whole episode about this.
00:31:42
ShereeVWatkins
No, we may not.
00:31:45
lastyles
Cause I'll be, I'll be feeling like it's, I feel like it's inappropriate females.
00:31:45
ShereeVWatkins
We will.
00:31:50
lastyles
Okay. I feel like it's inappropriate.
00:31:51
ShereeVWatkins
We ain't doing that right now.
00:31:52
ShereeVWatkins
No, we may not.
00:31:53
lastyles
I'm just saying, I feel like it's inappropriate. No, you can order it, but can you talk to the shipper to put it in the box or something instead of the plastic?
00:31:59
ShereeVWatkins
No, no, no.
00:32:01
lastyles
Because I feel dirty.
00:32:01
ShereeVWatkins
You see that light pink on there?
00:32:02
lastyles
Every time I grab the bag, I'm like, ah, my hand is being like, ah, it's a God dang.
00:32:09
ShereeVWatkins
Try delivering some anal beads to a man.
00:32:11
lastyles
Because I feel like I'm touching. I could swear I grabbed, I could swear I felt the deal though before somebody packaged it, but.
00:32:14
ShereeVWatkins
Look, it got to go out.
00:32:20
ShereeVWatkins
Hey, that's not another episode. We got live footage of that.
00:32:20
lastyles
I couldn't prove it.
00:32:23
lastyles
And that's, that's on a lot of episodes, man. Listen, y'all got to order things appropriate. It can be inappropriate, but, but try to put in the notes. Hey man, could you put this in a box?
00:32:34
lastyles
So my mail man, you know what I'm saying? Feel more comfortable holding this. Cause we got to hold this stuff, man.
00:32:39
ShereeVWatkins
That goes back to processing. You get a big bra and a plastic.
00:32:43
lastyles
Um, but no, that's, that's on the sender. The sender keep on putting it in plastic because they want to be cheap instead of putting it in the box. But we'll talk about that when we talk about that, man.
00:32:52
ShereeVWatkins
Another episode, guys.
00:32:52
lastyles
I just, I just want to bring that up. That'd be happening. I'd be feeling some type of way. That's a personal thing of mine. I feel some type of way.
00:32:58
ShereeVWatkins
Yeah, it'll be all right.
00:32:58
lastyles
I almost, I almost feel like I'm cheating a little bit. You know what I'm saying? So y'all kinda might be in the fear of my relationship, but that we'll talk about that later.
00:33:06
ShereeVWatkins
Yeah, we'll have Angie on the episode.
00:33:07
lastyles
So, so, um,
00:33:09
ShereeVWatkins
We'll talk about that later.
00:33:10
lastyles
facts. So when we get things, needless to say, uh, people order blinds, curtains, the metal rise, polls, whatever the case is, all of this stuff is in what we call gay lawyers. Um, no weird stuff. You know what I'm saying? I know y'all going to kill us in the comments with the terms. We didn't create the term. The term is called gay lawyers.
00:33:29
lastyles
Right.
00:33:29
ShereeVWatkins
It's like a big pumpkin.
00:33:29
lastyles
It's like, it's on a, it's on a pallet. It's a box that's on, that's on a, like a four foot tall box. Big square comes on a pallet. That pallet is going to be filled with packages.
00:33:40
lastyles
What's in there. It just packages for the station. Now you depend on how big your station is.
00:33:42
ShereeVWatkins
Yeah.
00:33:45
lastyles
It's how your package is going to come. You can get three, four, five, six, seven, eight, 10 of these things that your clerk's got a sort for the carriers to put in a pumpkins to break them up by the routes. Right.
00:33:53
ShereeVWatkins
Individual packages are thrown in one.
00:33:57
lastyles
Correct. So just like the loose mail we talked about you earlier, that's what the clerks do in the morning. All the loose mail that we get, they're going to separate for us and give to us. And then the packages, they separate into our pumpkins. So we'll be go. That's what they do first thing in the morning between like 5 and 7.30. That's as far as quote unquote process as we get. We don't really, we don't sort mail to do all that. Whatever this comes loose, they fix it and then give it to us, right? That's what they jive is before they go hit the counters.
00:34:23
lastyles
and do that stuff in the morning with you guys for customer service. So your package can be in this big tub or this big box of packages.
00:34:33
lastyles
It could be getting poked by another package that's sharp, pause or whatever case, whatever it is, we don't know.
00:34:34
ShereeVWatkins
Yes.
00:34:39
lastyles
We don't come in to seven, seven, 30, eight o'clock, depending on your station. We don't know what's going on with that. Right. So I come in, I get a package, might be open, might be tore open. And if it's a box or might be ripped open, if it's a box, might be partially open because just the tape gin came loose over going through all of the stations and jumping from truck to truck to going through facility for whatever's going on. Or sometimes the plastic bags come partially ripped open or partially like cut or whatever the case is, because it just, it just lumped up with other packages that whatever the case is, right?
00:35:10
ShereeVWatkins
Y'all slow down on them live rats, because they eating right through there.
00:35:11
lastyles
Cool.
00:35:13
ShereeVWatkins
I'm telling you, I'm scared to deliver them.
00:35:15
lastyles
Man, people mailing insects, insects, bugs, roosters, chickens.
00:35:15
ShereeVWatkins
The turtles, everything, I'm telling you. I'm scared. Fish?
00:35:21
lastyles
They send everything through us right now, man.
00:35:21
ShereeVWatkins
Fish? Oh, man.
00:35:23
lastyles
So, cool. We'll talk about that. So if I get a package and it's open or cut, let's say if it's plastic, we're gonna go with plastic for now, and then we get it on the box.
00:35:29
ShereeVWatkins
That another episode.
00:35:36
lastyles
If it's cut, I don't know something missing from it. I don't know what's supposed to be in it, not my job. So what I do is I go to the clerks. Hey, you got some tape. I can tape this closed. If I don't have a week care bag that's big enough to put this in, then I just take it out as is because it's taped up.
00:35:52
lastyles
It's secure right now. It was unsecure. I secured it. I'm going to deliver. Let's say it's a box. There's a box. Let's say in the little flap is open, there's a box closed. Let's say the tape don't peel back a little bit or just came off on one side because people just don't take this up super secure nowadays sometimes. Comes open. I don't know what's supposed to be in there or what's not supposed to be in there. Cool. Got to get some tape. I taped up your box back closed, your box back closed, and I'm going to take it out today.
00:36:18
lastyles
So now if you get something and if you feel like you're missing something, that's not on the carrier. A lot of people would assume, man, my carrier went through my stuff and he stole my whatchamacallit.
00:36:29
lastyles
However it is that I get it is how I delivered outside of me putting tape on it because I can't ride around with an open package and some more stuff can fall out of whatever case it is. So I'm just trying to secure it.
00:36:40
lastyles
What's left in there when it comes to me. I don't know about what happened to it before it got to me. And only to me it got was When I got my mail down and got my trays of mail, I pushed this pumpkin out to my vehicle.
00:36:53
lastyles
I loaded everything in my vehicle. That's when I looked at packages for the first time. I don't go through packages. I don't look at them. I don't so on, so on, so on, so on. Whatever that is, we don't process and distribute in the facilities.
00:37:05
ShereeVWatkins
We them.
00:37:06
lastyles
They threw everything into the pumpkins, what we call these big, like a tub on wheels. We push that down a ramp and we put that in the back of our vehicle and we go.
00:37:15
lastyles
We don't go home after that. We don't do whatever after that. There's no detours cause the scanners would show that we don't do any of that.
00:37:20
ShereeVWatkins
Yes.
00:37:22
lastyles
We go right to our route and start delivering.
00:37:24
ShereeVWatkins
Straightly.
00:37:25
lastyles
And once you finish your route, you go back to your station, go to your overtime, whatever, whatever it is you got going on, you go back to your station, right? Cool. Um, I get a package that's open.
00:37:36
lastyles
Let's go to the extreme side that's open and ain't nothing in the package. I'm still supposed to deliver it. By the terms, from what I was always taught, we still deliver the package, right? Me delivering the package is notifying you that this is how I received the package. Now you're supposed to go on USPS, file a claim. You can search whatever it is, search app that you use. I ain't gonna say no names of some search apps that we use because they ain't finna get no free advertising off me. Until somebody cut a check or something.
00:38:09
lastyles
So look up USPS, file a claim. If you have an issue with your package, this is the process. USPS, file a claim. When you file a claim, that stuff would go downtown.
00:38:20
lastyles
Typically to consumer affairs, it'll go downtown, it'll create a case. When they open the case, they'll send it back or partially send it back to whatever station that the case originated from based on the zip code that you put in.
00:38:31
ShereeVWatkins
Come on y'all, give us a minute.
00:38:34
lastyles
And then that station would then put in their information and say, hey, let's say it was the package where it arrived and went up and in it. They gonna send it, they gonna go downtown, downtown gonna send partially to us, the supervisor, gonna ask me about the package, they say I'm the carrier, I'm saying, hey, that's the package I told you about earlier, that member that day, it wasn't nothing in it. Oh yeah, okay, cool, so the supervisor gonna go in there, yeah, we received this package to the station, it came with nothing in it, carrier made me aware, we delivered as usual as per what our structures are. Side note to that, the reason why we still have to deliver it, because if I did not deliver it, then how would you ever know,
00:39:11
lastyles
that you had a package. How would you ever know that? That you had a package. So if I never delivered it, you would just have a package that was missing. You would assume that it was just missing all this time or whatever the case is. So that's the notification. Hey, contact whoever you need to contact, which is USPS file or claim. You start the claim process. If that was the issue, because I would assume that something was in it.
00:39:32
lastyles
at that point that something was in it. And then it came open somewhere in the process. Now, there has been issues where people have sent empty boxes. And we know it was empty the whole way through for the fact because it gets weighed throughout the process that people don't know.
00:39:44
ShereeVWatkins
All
00:39:47
lastyles
And a package come to you and you got a sticker on it that says something was 20 pounds. And on the side note label, UPS is saying this package was weighed at zero pounds the whole way through. That means the sender never put the package in there.
00:39:59
lastyles
Whatever the package item, was they never put that in the packaging, right?
00:40:05
ShereeVWatkins
right.
00:40:05
lastyles
But because it came to me, I still gotta deliver it to you. And if you have an issue with anything I'm delivering to you, then you gotta, if it's a package related thing, go to USPS file a claim, right?
00:40:16
lastyles
Because again, your carrier would not have any information on why something is open, why it was open, why something might be missing, I don't know. All right, you can order a package.
00:40:28
lastyles
Can't post it in five shirts, but when I gave it to you, I only had three. I say I taped it up. They only had three. I don't know what's supposed to be five shirts. I don't even know what shirts in here. I don't care what's in it.
00:40:36
lastyles
It ain't mine.
00:40:38
ShereeVWatkins
I don't got the shirt on.
00:40:39
lastyles
It ain't, it ain't mine.
00:40:39
ShereeVWatkins
I didn't take the shirt. So, this is really for the customers.
00:40:41
lastyles
You know what I'm saying?
00:40:44
ShereeVWatkins
You know, just letting y'all know a little bit on how it works. Just tapping in a little bit.
00:40:50
ShereeVWatkins
Leonard thought this.
00:40:51
lastyles
All carriers are customers too.
00:40:54
lastyles
All clerks, truck drivers, mail handlers, supervisors, we all customers too.
00:40:58
ShereeVWatkins
All
00:41:01
lastyles
So they ain't just for customers, just for customer, all of us are customers. I got a mailman, you know what I'm saying?
00:41:05
ShereeVWatkins
right.
00:41:07
lastyles
I got a mailman and I get packages and I just, I didn't know what to do, but maybe some people don't know what to do. I just don't want people to always keep blaming the mailman now.
00:41:17
lastyles
There are some mailman that just not good as a job. Everybody can be me, you know what I'm saying? I'm just saying. Everybody can be loved like me, you know what I'm saying? On Route 67.
00:41:27
ShereeVWatkins
And he trained me, so 91, we good, you know?
00:41:28
lastyles
Or everybody can be Watkins or everybody can be Fee. Everybody can be, you know what I'm saying? If you go to Route 67 at Hampton Station, I'm God. I'm God.
00:41:39
lastyles
Even if I take a week off, everybody come through, hey man, we're living there. No, I don't like this.
00:41:45
ShereeVWatkins
Wait till I come back to work.
00:41:46
lastyles
or anytime I hit the desk. You was on that desk, weren't you? I said, man.
00:41:53
lastyles
Yeah, man. You know what I'm saying? They know.
00:41:56
ShereeVWatkins
Got lots of them.
00:41:56
lastyles
You can't go to 67.
00:41:57
ShereeVWatkins
See you
00:41:58
lastyles
You can't go to 67 and pretend to be anything else. You ain't me. You know what I mean? My customers know me. They get their stuff. They get it on time. They get it when they supposed to at least what I got and anything else because I've been on the desk.
00:42:10
lastyles
And I'm not going to say I'm a more knowledgeable person, but I do like to ask a lot of questions, right? And this is how I got into being on the desk in the first place and have other opportunities of that nature that's higher than that.
00:42:21
lastyles
So cool.
00:42:22
ShereeVWatkins
That makes you knowledgeable.
00:42:23
ShereeVWatkins
You know, you take the time out, talk to your customers, and they appreciate that.
00:42:24
lastyles
Correct. But with that, when they do have those issues, I'm able to speak to them differently than most carriers have because a lot of carriers don't have the knowledge. I still get carriers calling me like, Hey man, did this was happening? So on, so, so on. So what should I tell them to do or what? I'm like, tell them to use USPS file a claim, but all carriers should notice, right? If you don't know, that's not, that's not on you. Maybe, maybe nobody ever told you or whatever the case is. Right? If it's something, if an issue comes up with a package,
00:42:54
lastyles
Let your customer know that they have to go on USPS .com, right? And go to file a claim. But the faster way is versus searching through all that. That's why I say what I'm going to say. Search total USPS file a claim. That first link is going to take you right there.
00:43:11
lastyles
USPS file a claim. Don't put .com file a claim. Just, just type in USPS file a claim, because if you do it the regular way, we're going to usps .com and then look for, you're going to be all day and somebody will tap on this, tap on that. This is going to have a dropdown and go through here. There's going to be a lot of, you know what I'm saying? You cut that out.
00:43:28
lastyles
The customers cut that out, carriers cut that out, don't tell nobody to do that. USPS file a claim would take you directly to where you file a claim. Now, you typically have to go that way. You're going to create an account if you don't have an account. You create an account.
00:43:42
ShereeVWatkins
What if they can't do that? The fastest thing. You call the office. I ain't got no phone. I don't know how to work the internet, man. What you talking about?
00:43:49
lastyles
Listen, you got the...
00:43:50
ShereeVWatkins
USPS what?
00:43:51
lastyles
You're going to have to find your grandkids, your great grandson, somebody like that, because that's the only way you can do the process. So the customer, you have to initiate the file in the claim process. Carrier can't do it for you. The station can't do it for you. Your name, credentials, your address, and personal information has to be used to create an account like any other account. And we don't got that information. And we shouldn't have that information, right? So you shouldn't say, hey, man, man, I'm going to give you the information you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:44:20
lastyles
Because if something else happened with your account or something, you're going to be trying to blame me because I know the information.
00:44:24
ShereeVWatkins
I know I know curious that they kick your dough in.
00:44:25
lastyles
So I don't want you wanting to be put in that position.
00:44:28
ShereeVWatkins
I'm telling you, don't kill them.
00:44:29
lastyles
I don't want to be put in that situation, ma'am.
00:44:31
ShereeVWatkins
I'm just playing, y'all.
00:44:31
lastyles
Sorry, Andorra, ma'am. I need you to contact your son, your next to kin, your grandson, girlfriend, whoever is of the younger age.
00:44:39
ShereeVWatkins
Don't discriminate, Leonard, because I don't have children. I don't have children.
00:44:43
ShereeVWatkins
I don't have a grandchild.
00:44:44
lastyles
Listen, niece and nephews work as well.
00:44:47
ShereeVWatkins
I got five of them.
00:44:48
lastyles
younger co-workers work as well your next-door neighbor I get listen if you say if you stay in the average neighborhood your next-door neighbor probably got five keys Any one of them product can help you you know saying it takes a community Somebody man, you just can't have no you can't keep saying you ain't got nobody to help You know I'm saying somebody gotta I can give you the information that's extending my help, but I can't I can't physically do it for you
00:44:50
ShereeVWatkins
You?
00:44:57
ShereeVWatkins
Yeah.
00:45:10
lastyles
You know what I'm saying? So that's what happened with packages, right? Now, with packages on the side note, we also get mail sometimes the same way. I don't know what's supposed to be in this envelope, but when it came to me, the envelope was empty. I'm just supposed to deliver the mail. You know what I'm saying? I'm not supposed to judge if the mail is empty or not. My job just says, if you got this, once it makes it to Leonard's desk, Leonard has to take this out and put this in the mailbox.
00:45:34
lastyles
When loser draw, I have to take that out and put that in the mailbox.
00:45:34
ShereeVWatkins
Carrier duties.
00:45:37
lastyles
Any package that makes it to the station, any piece of mail that makes it to the station, once it comes to the station, it has to be delivered by us. And the fashion that it comes in, the state that it comes in is not on me.
00:45:50
lastyles
I just got to do my part and deliver it. Now I might, let's just say a lot of carriers might not like that. Now customers don't know that we don't like that, but that's been what we've been told since we've been in the post office that we still have to deliver.
00:46:03
lastyles
You know what I'm saying?
00:46:03
ShereeVWatkins
Yep.
00:46:04
lastyles
If it was me on the package tip, it should be, once we find out a package might be suspect when it come open or whatever, then we should scan it. Um, hail that customer's Customers will get a notification for that.
00:46:16
lastyles
And then they should come up to the post office for management to explain, Hey, we received this package is empty. I need you. Okay. Prime example, right? Somebody had somebody called, um, before and they had an issue with, um,
00:46:29
lastyles
a package. I'm not sure if it was came as a package or like a certified, but he had ordered like a special edition or limited edition or expensive baseball card. It came in like a plastic case and everything. So he was telling me that it was damaged. He came up to the office. I said, Hey, okay. Can you come up here and show it to me? When he came up here, he still had it, but it was like he had clothes, closed up. What was it? I believe it was, um,
00:46:57
lastyles
like a thin box. So he had closed the back door. I was like, you got to open it for him. He was trying to give it to us. And I said, no, no, no, you have to open it for him. I can't, I can't open your stuff. Right.
00:47:07
lastyles
Not to mention if I, if something happened while I was opening it, then you could blame me for damages.
00:47:12
ShereeVWatkins
Yep, you did it, yep.
00:47:13
lastyles
So I need you to open it so I can see what's inside. So he opened it and then I seen that it was because expensive baseball cards limited edition stuff like that. The case is part of the value of the car because it's holding in the value of whatever the card is.
00:47:28
lastyles
The case was broken and stuff like that. Okay, cool. This is what I need you to do. You're going to contact consumer affairs. I need you to contact consumer affairs. I need you to go on USPS file a claim for this package because it does have insurance on it,
Management Disconnects and Policies
00:47:39
lastyles
whatever case. And then that'll get the ball rolling to whatever the case is because again, we don't know when they got broken or when they got cracked and whatever the process is.
00:47:49
lastyles
So that's the process, right? Might be a horrible process, but that's the only thing that's working right now. A lot of these complaints should go to upper management, right? So we say this to say,
00:48:04
lastyles
Your local post office take a lot of brunt of the disrespect, the anger that customers have, the frustration that you guys have. And a lot of times what you don't know is your carriers and clerks is just as paid off as you are. You know what I'm saying? We're just as irritated with the system of how things are as you are, right?
00:48:23
lastyles
And we got to find a way, again, this is what the podcast is for, to build that community, to get our voices heard beyond the offices, because a lot of the things that's put in place or not put in place by your station.
00:48:35
lastyles
Your station got to follow policies just like any other job. But those policies is made by people that's above us that you can't call and complain to.
00:48:39
ShereeVWatkins
Right.
00:48:43
lastyles
This is why they feel comfortable in making the rules and regulations that they feel, because then they have to deal with the consequences of it. They're going to let you talk crazy to the mailman. They're going to let you talk crazy to the supervisor.
00:48:53
lastyles
They're going to let you talk crazy to the manager, even though the carrier clerk supervisor, manager, all disagree with having whatever policy in place, but we don't got no choice but to go with it.
00:48:54
ShereeVWatkins
Yep.
00:49:03
lastyles
And then when it don't work, we got to deal with the complaints, but we can't even fix the issue because we never made the policy in the first place. People up there did. So we got to start finding a way to get to up there.
00:49:10
ShereeVWatkins
Yeah. Yeah, because we are customers.
00:49:13
lastyles
Right. This is, this is what the show about.
00:49:15
ShereeVWatkins
We are all customers.
00:49:15
lastyles
We got to find a way to get our voices heard up there to make whatever those changes are. Like informed delivery. We got to make that change. Like sample, of course, we got to make that change because a lot of this stuff just don't make sense on the ground floor.
00:49:25
ShereeVWatkins
Oh, God. Let me get somebody beat up show. Do they like this on this thing?
00:49:31
lastyles
Right.
00:49:33
ShereeVWatkins
It's supposed to be here. It's like, you know, it can lead into safety, but that'll be a whole nother episode.
00:49:39
lastyles
The quick example, I got a carrier maybe a month ago. He delivered, he got a package. We got a package in the office. It was empty, completely empty, right? They gave it to the carrier. Carrier took it out. Carrier notified the guy, knocked on the door. Hey, I received this package like this. You know what I'm saying? You can contact the station for further information, whatever the case is. The dude didn't believe him.
00:50:03
lastyles
Do call the station. I'm on the phone with the carry with a carry call the station. I'm on the phone with the, with, with the carry in the background, the dude is listening. I'm telling the guy like, Hey, yeah, it's how we, it's how things can happen like this. Sometimes you got to go on USPS file a claim.
00:50:17
lastyles
and go through the process that has to go downtown to consumer affairs, because we could be a quote unquote, you can act like I'm attempting to cover up whatever it is that's going on in my station.
00:50:23
ShereeVWatkins
All
00:50:26
lastyles
The reason why you got to file a claim is because that takes it
00:50:26
ShereeVWatkins
right.
Safety Concerns and Threats
00:50:28
lastyles
out of the station takes it downtown.
00:50:30
lastyles
I let them do the investigation on if we was wrong or not. That's why that process exists. So somebody telling you to do that, then most likely is straight up being legit with you. Hey, contact consumer affairs. Do the USPS file a claim? That's going to go downtown. Then downtown going to reach out to us. Hey, what's going on with this? Then we can give them our side on, okay, yeah, I got this like this. So the guy didn't want to do that, right? So I get off the phone and get off the phone. Uh, I found out about this part later when he came back to the station. So the carrier come back to the station and say, Hey man, soon like off the phone with you, uh, the dude going to look at me and say, Hey, between you and me, you need to make this right.
00:51:07
ShereeVWatkins
Whoa.
00:51:09
lastyles
And that's all I'm gonna say about that.
00:51:12
ShereeVWatkins
That's one another episode.
00:51:12
lastyles
So my carrier took it as a threat, right?
00:51:15
ShereeVWatkins
Wow.
00:51:17
lastyles
So now that whole area for that few days, y'all not getting no mail.
00:51:17
ShereeVWatkins
I would have too.
00:51:21
lastyles
Cause can't nobody threaten no carrier. We ain't tolerating that type of stuff since that carrier passed away, right?
00:51:24
ShereeVWatkins
Rest in
00:51:27
lastyles
Rest in peace, Andre.
00:51:28
ShereeVWatkins
peace, Andre.
00:51:29
lastyles
Right? We ain't tolerating that. Now before we get there, again, we got policies in place. Use your policies. Contact your station. You feel some type of way, contact your station. Talk to your supervisor manager. They can explain something to you. Maybe your carrier couldn't. Or if they do give you the information, follow the information. That's going to get back to management, higher management, consumer affairs, whoever it needs to get back to, if you feel like somebody might've took something from you, right? Not saying 100% that anybody innocent in anything or whatever the case is, but a lot of times a lot of this stuff just misunderstand it. Needless to say, once he said he feels some type of way and he don't feel safe,
00:52:05
lastyles
Right. I had to call the post.
00:52:06
ShereeVWatkins
All right, I ain't walking out there.
00:52:06
lastyles
I call the post inspectors, call the police. Hey, this the address, this department number. Yeah, they ain't getting nothing until y'all figure it out. My carrier not going back over there.
00:52:16
ShereeVWatkins
Shit, exactly.
00:52:18
lastyles
And that's how it is. Now, now that whole area feel like, you know what I'm saying? And then when they was calling about, I said, what's your address? They'll tell me the address. What's your address? This is in different calls. Okay. You on, you on Hampton, you on Hampton, you on that part. Okay, cool. Told them all the same thing in, in different points of the day, uh, over the next three days. Hey, one of your people in your area throwing, throwing the carrier mines and we, we suspended mail delivery into further notice. There got to be an investigation going on because we can't tolerate nobody threatening mail carriers.
00:52:45
lastyles
This is a public service job. We not getting nothing for it outside of our regular pay. And that ain't enough majority of the time, let alone to be accepting threats for something that ain't had nothing to do with me. Right. You ain't get it. I get it. You know what I'm saying? I feel your pain. Go through the process though. Cause that's not going to get you nowhere, but investigate it. And it wasn't been four weeks and we still ain't deliver an email.
00:53:11
lastyles
That's not to be funny, but again, I got a feel for the safety of my carrier. And then again, once a carrier say that they, let me tell you all this customers, once a carrier say that they feel unsafe going to an address or going to an area management can no longer make them. There's no make in them going to your address or going to your area. There is no make. So never let it get to that point where you attempting or might be threatening, uh, one of your male carriers or threatening A clerk in the office because now they can say you you can't never come back this office again Every time you would try to they'll call post inspectors or call the police to remove you from the premises because you trespassing
00:53:48
ShereeVWatkins
Yeah. And you don't want to have to come pick up your mail every day.
00:53:53
lastyles
or, or you can be forced to get a, or you can force to get a PO box because we're not going to hold mail long-term.
00:53:54
ShereeVWatkins
Rain, sleet, or snow.
00:53:57
ShereeVWatkins
Yep.
00:53:58
lastyles
So you're going to have about a week or two, two to, to get it figured out to get it.
00:53:59
ShereeVWatkins
And those are not free.
00:54:03
lastyles
So if you want to afford it to somebody else's address, or you can get a PO box and pick up your mail. If you throw it in a carry, you've got a beef with a carry and they not delivering yourself. That's on you.
00:54:11
lastyles
It's about $80
Historical Changes and Current Struggles
00:54:11
lastyles
a year or something like that. A hundred, well, a hundred something that would depend on the size box you pick about a hundred dollars a year.
00:54:13
ShereeVWatkins
Whoa.
00:54:16
ShereeVWatkins
too much when you can get it for free.
00:54:19
lastyles
Correct.
00:54:19
ShereeVWatkins
If it's $3.00.
00:54:20
lastyles
But let, let, Correct. But that's neither here nor there. You know what I'm saying?
00:54:25
lastyles
I'm just saying, you know what I'm saying? That's the process. Again, a lot of the stuff that might be going wrong, your carrier has no control over. We just do the best we can every day.
00:54:36
lastyles
The other day it was 90 plus degrees, almost a hundred degrees outside and we struggled and still got it delivered. On top of just having a bad day, on top of people just having a regular life problem, on top of people having work problems, and then you have to deal with it being 100 degrees outside.
00:54:55
ShereeVWatkins
with overtime.
00:54:55
lastyles
your cardio is up because you got to go do 20 or 30 blocks or 15 or 30 blocks. That's a lot of walking. You know what I'm saying? I know a lot of people out there think that the male men only probably deliver the five or six blocks and then go home.
00:55:07
lastyles
That's not the case and it hasn't been the case in a long time, in a long time.
00:55:11
ShereeVWatkins
When has that ever been the case?
00:55:11
lastyles
I don't know. I don't know. Well, if you go further back, probably in the, in the, going into the, to the, to the nineties or the early 2000s, when, um, when we really didn't have packages and mail was heavier, people had like 10 and 12 blocks.
00:55:15
ShereeVWatkins
Eight to ten blocks?
00:55:26
ShereeVWatkins
I thought you was going to say 1906 or something.
00:55:29
lastyles
Not in the late nineties, early 2000s.
00:55:30
ShereeVWatkins
When it was only that little town right there. And that's including two or three businesses and just that, you know, poor man.
00:55:35
lastyles
Mm-hmm. But even if you think about the year 2000, that was 24 years ago, we didn't always have packages.
00:55:42
ShereeVWatkins
True.
00:55:44
lastyles
You know what I'm saying? So before that time period, we have more, there was more, if you go to any station now and ask somebody who has probably been there for awhile, they'll tell you like, yeah, this station has probably got 20 routes.
00:55:56
lastyles
Like your, like how Tony used to have way more than 16 routes, but the zip code was the same size because the routes was smaller.
00:56:00
ShereeVWatkins
How left it?
00:56:04
ShereeVWatkins
I was just going to ask, how can you squeeze that mini wheat, wheat tight enough in there?
00:56:07
lastyles
Because the Rosses did this. This is how route 84 got like it was where it got pieced together because they just added pieces after they did consolidate because they consolidate like every whatever amount of time.
00:56:17
lastyles
And when they do that, they make the routes longer and make the make least amount of or lesser amount of cases.
00:56:21
ShereeVWatkins
Aye, aye, aye.
00:56:25
lastyles
Right. So routes used to be shorter, but had more mail.
00:56:30
ShereeVWatkins
Okay.
00:56:31
lastyles
but you only had mail. So you might have 10 blocks, but you got 10 trades a mail. So it's almost like a full trade for every block. You know what I'm saying? Because you have packages and things of that nature. And everything used to be like 10 to 12 blocks back then.
00:56:47
ShereeVWatkins
Yeah, so this can easily go into an hour and a half.
00:56:52
ShereeVWatkins
We had 30 minutes, and that's Leonard, once again.
00:56:52
lastyles
No, no, we, we, we, we, we going to cut it at the hour. Uh, what walk has got to go. I must, I must stay to the hour mark because I got to hit the hour. Cause we're going to make it a full episode.
00:57:02
lastyles
I'm not going to go over that though.
00:57:03
ShereeVWatkins
Hey, that's two minutes.
00:57:05
lastyles
Yes.
00:57:05
ShereeVWatkins
Two minutes.
00:57:05
lastyles
You go ahead. I'm just going to talk to him a little bit as, as, as we, we trail off.
00:57:08
ShereeVWatkins
No, I'm going to put all my stuff and get my keys together.
00:57:12
lastyles
All right. Go ahead then.
00:57:12
ShereeVWatkins
I come right back to say bye. One minute.
00:57:15
lastyles
Yeah.
00:57:16
ShereeVWatkins
Okay, I'm already late.
00:57:16
lastyles
So. Yeah, so with that, again, you know, that's just the process, man. And as much as customers don't like it, and you shouldn't like it, a lot of this stuff, because it's not a perfect system, and it's never been a perfect system. And then under the joy is, is becoming an even worse system.
00:57:38
lastyles
It's just something we all, ain't gonna say you have to deal with, because I don't feel like we should have to deal with it, but it's what's going on right now, right?
Addressing Ineffective Policies
00:57:45
lastyles
And we just find the best we can day to day, rules changes, policy changing, whatever changing just from day to day to day to day, every day, it feel like it's almost something different or every week something is different.
00:58:00
lastyles
that's irritating or that's bothering them. And once the carriers and curves get affected, that's in the stations, then the customers get affected, right? And again, when you're affected, you need your voice heard.
00:58:13
lastyles
right? Because the people that's making these policies and making these rules and regulations are not people that you have the power to contact, which you should have the power to contact them and say, Hey man, why do y'all got my mailman doing this? Why do y'all got my station doing this? Why do y'all got my, my, my in-house clerks doing this? Why do you got my supervisor who I like to talk to when I have issues and they make sure I'm good? Why do you now have them doing this that doesn't work?
00:58:38
lastyles
You know what I'm saying? Because again, they don't have the power to do that. But we're going to get into the situation where we can start reaching those higher ups and putting things in place where you can reach those people. You should be complaining to OIC in some areas or CSOMs in other areas.
00:58:57
lastyles
What that is, is that's the manager's manager. Now in every district you have, well let's say a station, you have your supervisors and your manager. And all the stations in that district has supervisors and one manager. There's one manager per station. Those managers have a manager above them called an OIC or called a CSUN, depending on where you at in the United States. It's a little bit different. It's typically called an OIC.
00:59:23
lastyles
Of course, called the CSUN. That's your manager's manager. A lot of the stuff that's going on is coming from them. When they're trying to tighten up budgets and this, that, and the other, whatever the case is, and not giving carriers a proper amount of time to do this, not giving carrier a proper amount of time to do that, this stuff is coming from them, right?
00:59:41
ShereeVWatkins
Alright, I'm gonna hit the hour, you guys.
00:59:44
ShereeVWatkins
This is Watkins. See you guys next time. I gotta make a run real quick.
00:59:50
lastyles
later walkers. I'm due to outro and I'm out of here.
00:59:52
ShereeVWatkins
Ugh! Okay, I'm still on.
00:59:54
lastyles
Matter of fact, listen, we'll continue this on the next one y'all and go a little further, maybe in the 0.5 or in the future. If you guys need any questions, if you have any questions or concerns that you can check us out on Twitter, postal blue podcast has a community on Twitter. Just search postal blue podcast. You can also hear us on all your streaming services and we also on YouTube. Okay. With that, you know what I'm saying? It was a good show. Let's get, let's get a clap for that. You know what I'm saying? Let's get a clap for that.
01:00:21
lastyles
It was a great show hopefully great information y'all make sure sharing is Karen share this to all your customers share this to your other co workers get this information out there right with that we're gonna get a body here i'm gonna hit this out this outro and we appreciate y'all man what's going on.
01:00:36
ShereeVWatkins
Wait, Leonard, we got flyers in a state, city, station, block near you. They coming.
01:00:43
lastyles
Correct. You know what I'm saying? We also going to get some postal blue patches where you can represent your side. We're going to have some vicarious, clerks, truck drivers, and mail handlers, right? And that'll be appropriate for your uniform.
01:00:54
lastyles
They're going to be uniform color, right? You get these patches to where they represent your side.
01:00:58
ShereeVWatkins
What happened to the stewards?
01:00:59
lastyles
I even got some for the supervisors and managers.
01:01:01
ShereeVWatkins
Come on, where are the stewards at?
01:01:01
lastyles
You know what I'm saying? Stores need your own patch?
01:01:05
ShereeVWatkins
I mean, just put the U on there.
01:01:07
lastyles
Stores and safety cabinets?
01:01:09
ShereeVWatkins
U.S. on there.
01:01:10
lastyles
She's trying to do a little too much. Y'all know women, though. They do the most anyway.
01:01:13
ShereeVWatkins
Definitely. We want that. Stamp that.
01:01:16
lastyles
So with that, again, we're going to hit the outro. And then we out, y'all. Peace. Love you.
01:01:20
lastyles
Make sure y'all be safe. If I ever forget it going into the future, I always mean it. And I want to remember to say it on every episode, especially for carriers. Also go for anybody working in the annex and distribution hubs like that, because again, it can cut off heat on y'all and cause a safety issue or not run AC on y'all as well can cause safety issues.
01:01:40
lastyles
So everybody in the public safe, in the public service sector, make sure to be safe. Mail carriers, make sure you be safe. Make sure you got your dog horn, your dog spray, and make sure you checking them gates. Make sure you're watching where you're going.
01:01:51
lastyles
Make sure you watch your back. Keep your head on the swivel. Watch out for little, for little ladies that come to tell you to open your vehicle up so they can see how much mail you got. Walkers know who I'm talking about.
01:02:00
ShereeVWatkins
or boy head or boy head people that's coming up, you know, be careful.
01:02:01
lastyles
You know what I'm saying?
01:02:05
ShereeVWatkins
They out here, you know,
01:02:08
lastyles
Yeah. And with that, we out here, man. Be safe. We love y'all.
01:02:10
ShereeVWatkins
All right.
01:02:11
lastyles
Appreciate y'all.
01:02:11
ShereeVWatkins
Love you guys.
01:02:12
ShereeVWatkins
Like, share, subscribe. All right.
01:02:12
lastyles
Later.
01:02:28
lastyles
And we out. Peace.
01:02:30
ShereeVWatkins
All right. Yep.