Going Postal
If there is one federal employee
more absurdly titled than the US
Surgeon General, it is surely
the US Postmaster General,
currently one William J.
Henderson. While General
Henderson does not bear the
physical humiliation of sporting
a Cap'n Crunch uniform at all
public (or, one suspects,
private) functions, he
nonetheless commands a ragtag
army of low-output,
high-maintenance employees whose
chief contribution to the last
years of the American Century
has been to displace psycho
Vietnam vets and flower-wielding
Hare Krishnas as a locus of fear
among the civilian population.
Little wonder, then, that the
nation breathed a collective
sigh of relief when the mail's
commander in chief, like Rommel
after the Normandy invasion,
admitted recently that the end
of the Postal Service's
government-granted monopoly on
first-class mail was in sight.
Such a happy development is
partly a function of technology
(the Postal Service defeatedly
concedes most faxes are already
substitutes for letters; email
and electronic billing have also
increasingly allowed people to
bypass the mailbox) and partly
political (even a porkchopped
Congress can't be expected to
enforce an unpopular monopoly
forever).
While not exactly guaranteeing
to bring the boys home in time
for Christmas, a dispirited
General Henderson did the next
best thing: He signed a test
agreement with Mailboxes Etc.
that would let the chain
essentially operate as a
full-scale post office in 11
urban areas. Admitting that an
operation as execrable as
Mailboxes Etc. - formerly
best-known for charging Weimar
Republic prices for bubble wrap
and packing peanuts - would be a
clear step up from the USPS is
itself the equivalent of an
unconditional surrender.
As the fourth-class box office
of mailman-oriented cinematic
bombs like Greg Kinnear's Dear
God and Kevin Costner's The
Postman suggest, perhaps the
only person in America fully
satisfied with the Postal
Service was Theodore Kaczynski,
who no doubt disdained FedEx's
and UPS' easy-to-use
computer-tracking software and
who seemed to be in no
particular rush to see his
packages delivered to the
correct address. Pity poor
Costner for not realizing that
the average moviegoer's
post-apocalyptic idyll is
precisely a world without a
USPS. While the American
moviegoing public can deal with
- indeed, will flock to see - an
imaginary world in which damn,
dirty apes have evolved from
humans, it simply cannot stomach
the notion of a massively
irradiated future in which a
descendant of Cheers' Cliff
Clavin, Seinfeld's Newman, and
Son of Sam killer David
Berkowitz has not only survived,
but has metamorphosed into the
last action hero.
There are, of course, obvious
and not-so-obvious reasons for
widespread disgust with the
Postal Service - an attitude,
interestingly, that extends to
the federal government itself.
Since 1990, whenever the Feds have wanted
to make absolutely, positively
sure that a priority package
got somewhere overnight,
they've turned not to their own
USPS but to Federal Express,
which delivers both better rates
and better on-time performance.
While the Postal Service's
willingness to be an official
sponsor of the Olympics may make
Americans swell with national
pride every four years, the
benefit of such image
advertising is more than offset
by more frequent discoveries of
yet another cache of
undelivered, urine-soaked mail
in the apartment of a postal
employee. Indeed, such image ads
- not to mention sad-sack
initiatives like National Card
and Letter Writing Week
("Letters express the thoughts
and feelings that have shaped
civilization") - are routinely
undone simply by the next
lunch-hour trip to any post
office.
Beyond questions of lost and
damaged mail (and even more lost
and damaged employees), the USPS
is almost brazenly O.J.-like in
its willingness to court bad
publicity. After a few years of
actually eking out operational
profits, it proceeded to lobby
for a postage increase. Earlier
this year, it gave the
equivalent of a 21-gun salute to
outgoing Postmaster General
Marvin Runyon, spending over
US$100,000 on a goodbye dinner,
including more than $3,000 to
cover the expenses of actor Karl
Malden, who served as the
evening's emcee. That the Postal
Service would bestow such
largess on a fellow who
undoubtedly would have been
happy to bus tables in exchange
for leftovers speaks volumes
about large-scale organizational
dysfunction.
As does the USPS' penchant for
offering the customer everything
but courteous and reliable mail
service. Rather than dazzle the
public with, say, weekday hours
that extend past 5 p.m., a
full-day operation on Saturdays,
or a public flogging of Karl
Malden, the Postal Service has
taken a different tack, one
designed to cash in on the
"corporate branding" and
"franchise extension" crazes. It
has plastered its walls with
cartoon characters shilling
everything from Bugs Bunny
Postal Cards ("That Wascally
Wabbit is back! And he's all
yours! While supplies last") to
Sylvester and Tweety Character
Profiles ("Jumpin' Jupiter - What
a Stamp!") to movie-monster
mouse pads. In a curiously
past-tense tribute to the
courageous men and women of our
mail system - "Heroism was not
limited to those who rode the
plains and flew the skies, but
was shared by those who braved
our streets through rain, sleet,
and snow" - the USPS also offers
such gotta-have items as Holiday
Tree Boxers, "clerk vests" in
denim or wool, "postal blue"
T-shirts, and an entire line of
Pony Express wear (the last
being a particularly ironic
tribute, since the USPS helped
run the competing Pony Express
out of business).
Such mercantile shenanigans duly
inspire contempt, but the root
cause of public disaffection
ultimately stems from that which
allows the Postal Service to
continue existing: the monopoly
on non-urgent first-class letter
delivery. Though the USPS no
longer receives direct operating
subsidies from the federal
government, all analysts agree
that this guaranteed exclusive
franchise (which also gives the
Postal Service sole access to
residential mailboxes, among
other perks) is the service's
cash cow, subsidizing, among
other things, its laggard effort
to compete with FedEx and UPS in
the potentially lucrative
overnight delivery business. But
as F. Scott Fitzgerald - a man
with the wisdom and will power
to drink himself to an early and
obscure death - once suggested,
Americans may be peasants, but
they resent being serfs. Choice,
even the relatively tiny choice
between DHL and RPS (or, in
Fitzgerald's case, champagne and
scotch), matters.
As evidenced by their latest
image campaign, the Postal
Service powers-that-be recognize
the desire for
self-determination and have,
like an uneasy military junta,
tossed the public a bone, one
that merely revisits the
territory of no-choice explored
some years back with the
infamous Fat Elvis/Skinny Elvis
vote (that the latter won is
prima facie evidence of ballot
stuffing). Hence, the ongoing
Celebrate the Century program,
in which customers are asked
to vote for their "favorite"
stamps of the 1950s through the
1990s from a set number of
choices. Begun earlier this
year, the postal plebiscite is
currently collecting votes on
the 1970s: "How do you picture
the '70s? Is it polyester?
Women's Rights? Sesame Street?
Or the the CB radio, good
buddy?" Among the other
definitive choices: the
Bicentennial, A Chorus Line,
jogging, and The Oakland A's. As
with most rigged elections, no
write-in votes are allowed: no
Herpes Scare, Three-Mile Island,
Deviated Septum, or Nelson
Rockefeller Busts Blood Vessel
While Banging Mistress need
apply.
While such postal perestroika is
an attempt to pacify an
increasingly disobedient public
- one that is as dedicated to
writing conventional letters and
cards as it is interested in
buying "postal blue" T-shirts -
such initiatives merely
underscore what good old General
Henderson has already granted:
The end of America's occupation
by those "heroes" who "braved
our streets through rain, sleet,
and snow" - in other words,
employees who, like the rest of
us, show up for work on a
semi-regular basis - is not a
matter of if, but only of when.
And we're betting on
two to three days, one week at
the latest, with a small possibility
of never, and a strong
likelihood of whenever - no
guarantees.
Nick Gillespie is editor-in-chief of reason. This story originally appeared in Suck, and can be viewed in that format here.
