WASHINGTON — The United States Postal Service wants to make sending your Valentine some love as quick and easy as a stop at your local Post Office, where the new “In the Mailbox Love Bear” and other lovely gifts await.

The limited edition “In the Mailbox Love Bear” comes ready to ship — the furry guy is already in a box. He’s holding a red heart, has the 2012 Love Stamp in his right paw and comes with a greeting card for your personal sentiments. Use Express Mail, Priority Mail or Parcel Post to ship your present to that special someone.

The “In the Mailbox Love Bear” is available for just $11.99 at select Post Offices and online at usps.com while supplies last.

“One-stop shopping at the Post Office makes sending some love a little easier to ‘bear’ this Valentine’s Day,” said Kelly Sigmon, vice president, Channel Access.

The Postal Service also offers additional products perfect for Valentine’s Day giving. American Express Gift Cards are available in denominations of $25, $50, and variable dollar amounts between $25 and $100 at nearly 5,000 Post Offices. Place your gift card in one of the Valentine’s Day cards offered for sale at select Post Offices and you’re ready to mail some first-class love.

Also making its debut this year is the Love Tote Bag, featuring an image of the beautifully designed 2012 Love stamp. This eco-friendly item is made using 80 percent recycled materials and sells for just $2. It’s a great gift on its own or it can be used as an economical (and sustainable) gift bag.

Customers also may select from various ReadyPost boxes and bubble mailers featuring Valentine’s Day colors and designs. These items are priced from $1.79 to $4.29 and are ready to use as gift wrap or to ship anywhere.

Source: USPS

Last year’s sales figures from Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) were so encouraging the Postal Service has set far grander plans for the product this year.

Introduced by the Postal Service last April, EDDM already has grown to a $270-million-a-year product. Vice President, Sales, Cliff Rucker has stated USPS is aiming for $1 billion in 2012 EDDM sales. Rucker said the $1 billion mark would be reached by focusing on the following sources:

• Sales to national and regional franchises
• Alliances with printers
• New product development, including new mail sizes to appeal to businesses who don’t want to print new menus, and new route options, such as delivering only to commercial customers.
• New strategies, such as targeting political campaigns and local businesses
• New sales generated by 100 additional sales associates who will contact new customers

Rucker stressed that USPS can reach its EDDM sales goal only if employees remain committed through training and engagement with the product.

Ongoing Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act compliance testing continues to make sure that vehicle offices correctly complete reconciliation activities. Without accurate verification, duplicate, incorrect, or fraudulent charges may go undetected, which could cost USPS millions of dollars annually.

Regular reconciliation of transactions is essential for offices using Postal Service fleet credit cards. Postmasters and local site managers must reconcile credit card transactions monthly (or sooner, if possible) and promptly investigate and resolve any unauthorized or unusual transactions.

Purchases that cannot be validated should be disputed within 60 days of the original transaction and reported to Voyager using a USPS Voyager Account Dispute Form. Click here to access the Voyager Fleet Card Standard Operating Procedure for further information and Certification of Reconciliation requirements. All records — receipts, invoices and facsimiles — documenting payment reconciliation must be kept on file for 2 years.

By verifying the accuracy of purchases and disputing unauthorized transactions, employees responsible for reconciliation will help ensure the Postal Service is charged only for the goods and services it receives.

PEN: Please note – the Click Here link above can only be accessed from a USPS computer.

An upcoming change in the December 6 update of the Domestic Mail Manual will allow attachments on letter-size mail when postage is paid at automation letter prices. The revision, which will be published shortly, provides the physical characteristics and preparation methods for perforated pockets with edges that are permanently affixed to a letter-size mailpiece. In short, a pocket is formed within a two-ply unit and sales offers, coupons, and similar printed advertising may be placed within or underneath the pocket. The perforated panel must be lifted to reveal the material inside.

Perforated pockets may be applied to Standard Mail and Periodicals letter-sized mail and cannot contain personal information. Note that perforated pockets are not considered sealed against postal inspection.

The Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) is available on Postal Explorer® (pe.usps.com). To subscribe to the DMM Advisory, send an e-mail to dmmadvisory@usps.com. Simply indicate “subscribe” in the subject line.

October 10, 2010

New USPS Instructions for Reemploying Former or Retired Postal Employees

Management Instructions
Management Instruction EL-500-2010-4, Contracting With Individuals or Rehiring Into Career Nonbargaining Positions

Management Instruction (MI) EL-500-2010-4, Contract­ing With Individuals or Rehiring Into Career Nonbargaining Positions, is now available on PolicyNet and is effective immediately.

This MI provides guidance on the reviews and approvals required prior to contracting with or reemploying specified individuals, including former and/or retired postal or federal civilian employees, into career nonbargaining positions. Specifically, this MI:

• Establishes the process for requesting contracts with individuals.
• Defines the categories under which persons may be utilized to perform work for the Postal Ser­vice™.
• Identifies the Human Resources authorities responsi­ble for determining whether the request to contract with an individual may proceed.

MI EL-500-2010-4 is available on the Postal Service PolicyNet website:

Go to http://blue.usps.gov.

Under “Essential Links” in the left-hand column, click PolicyNet.

Click MIs.

(The direct URL for the Postal Service PolicyNet website is http://blue.usps.gov/cpim.)

— Corporate Personnel Management, Employee Resource Management, 10-7-10

With its focus on managing workhours, controlling overtime and improving productivity, the Postal Service continues to realize cost-reductions in mail processing, customer service, delivery and supervisory/administrative areas, according to DPMG and COO Pat Donahoe.

Preliminary figures through August show total mail volume continues to decline — 3.8 percent below the same period last year (SPLY). The good news, says Donahoe, is that managers and employees have done a great job in matching workhours to workload — posting a year-to-date (YTD) reduction of 72 million workhours compared to SPLY.

Discussing preliminary YTD overnight delivery performance scores through August in this week’s “Field Updates,” Donahoe says the key to beginning strong next year will depend in large part on successfully meeting quarter 1 challenges in FY 2011 — Columbus Day, Veterans Day, election mail, and the end-of-year holiday mailing season.

Those opportunities, combined with renewed efforts to consolidate routes and facilities, will help USPS realize additional cost-reduction opportunities in FY 2011, according to Donahoe.

Scripted or Encrypted

by Ronald Williams, Jr.
Postal Employee

Businesses spend millions of billions of dollars on products and services. If the delivery system is defective their organization doesn’t have a chance at success. Let’s put some cards on the table and figure out how they could have an impact on our business. With a little luck, which is nothing more than skill meeting opportunity we will win at whatever game we are engaged in. The jack, queen and king are the business chain of royalty, the ten is the perfect score card in unison with the rest of the family. All players love the multifaceted ace in the hole, and we hate to deal with the short life span of the joker attempting to redirect our focus and attention. I got some thoughts from the street level but first let’s pray to senior royalty in a huddle.

We need to shuffle the deck often to maximize the cards we are dealt to adapt to changes in the business. Employee participation beyond saying “just be lucky you have a job,” of course we are! But it should not be used as a call to inaction and a reason for exclusion to settle for the status quo. Park your car park your brain style leadership is a primitive format that discounts people, and hinders our ability to reach self actualization as an organization. Mentally and physically engage all of us on the playing field to cut the deck to ensure no one person or team manipulate the results for their own benefit. Leadership expert John Maxwell is right about the questions most people ask when they choose a leader. Do you care for me? Can you help me? And can I trust you?

While the people upstairs count the numbers from a remote location the worker-bees will be busy counting internal and external customers in the trenches of the service. You won’t find any hater venom in this opinion, just an opportunity to vent via social media because nobody else has time to listen and hear what the little guy or gal has to say.

Mayday on the frontline

At the customer service counter we got to figure out how to minimize wait times comfortably. There are never enough clerks cashiering and the line is often backed up to the front door. Wait times can be a long as thirty minutes and by the time the customer reaches the window for service we are not in the mood to hear a cluster of up-sell questions until we scream NO! The lobby assistant checklist (LAC) helps move the line if there are forms to be filled out, unfortunately it is an available cashier doing the screening while customers are waiting to be serviced. Sometimes the LAC can be a hold-up if the customer needs an explanation of available services. Hazmat questions about liquid, flammable, perishable, or potentially hazardous materials are very important to everyone’s personal health and safety throughout the mail process. Is it possible to play an entertaining video in segments about our services like the banks do? Or maybe customers could be screened at the door like the department of motor vehicles does before we are sent to a line. The Automated Postal Center (APC) is outstanding to customers who know exactly what service that they want, don’t use cash, and value 24-hour physical access. I notice many customers are unsure what they want and feel more comfortable with the human interaction.

Submit a lead is all about employees helping to bring business to USPS. A letter carrier told me that carriers always look for new business leads. He said one coworker used to return to the station with loads of Priority Mail packages in her Long Life Vehicle (LLV) from a local business and they were impressed for a while until her business fell off. They asked her about it and she said her understanding was a competitor offered the business owner some local NFL season tickets for their business and that left us out of luck. I ask my fellow employees, is it that easy to get the competitive advantage?

Dollars reduced through sense

A 2008 Pallet Enterprise article titled “Pallet Lessons from the USPS” stated the “Postal Service has been the largest purchaser of plastic pallets in the country, possibly even the world.” It goes on to mention that “leakage” from the system and budget concerns have led the USPS to reevaluate its purchasing practices. As a staggering statistic we lost 2,000,000 pallets per year to the tune of more than $100,000,000 over the previous five years. The pallets have been showing up as props at a theme park, and some are probably lost to many other situations. It appears wooden pallets are slowly replacing plastic platforms. Is that because wood is cheaper? Or are they inexpensive? Wood is prone to damage and splinters, exposes nails, and increases workplace and respiratory hazards from wood shavings. Plastic is safer, easier to recycle, cleaner, lighter, and easier to stack for storage.

There is a similar problem with the plastic mail tubs (775). The poster in some retail centers states “Return to Lender.” A 2008 article by the Democrat and Chronicle correctly points out our desire for customers to stop hoarding them. One postal worker spotted the tubs being utilized as move-in-boxes at a State University College. The article goes on to mention that the tubs are also being utilized as recycle bins and seen on garbage day. Maybe it’s time to embed radio frequency identification chips or tags on specific equipment while we are scanning everything else these days. Many people have probably seen the caricature of a craft employee in postal blue apparel with our logo ball cap, smirking over his left shoulder, bent over pants down displaying a barcode on his backside with the caption “scan this” I think scanning is probably striking his sciatic nerve.

Scan and deliver

If you ever use our own products and services to mail packages or important documents to someone these days one important way to be transparent about the mailing is to use delivery confirmation/tracking, a system that mandates responsibility from us and accountability to the customer. Scanning is a critical cost of doing business for millions of online sellers, shoppers, mailers, and consumers worldwide. Sellers and shippers are measured and graded for shipping time and shipping cost. These two areas can mean the difference between using one shipping provider or another.

Sellers choose the service that keeps them competitive and their livelihood alive and well. We are the lynchpin to customer success. Scanning is super important in this age of electronic diversion. Online payment services use delivery confirmation and tracking numbers as a main source of investigation before refunding payments to customers who report something undelivered. William H. Davidow, the high-tech industry executive said “Service standards keep rising. As competitors render better and better service, customers become more demanding.”

The picture is scripted because we hold the cards to our success. By putting ourselves in the role of the customer there won’t be a mayday on the frontline, we will protect all equipment used to bring in revenue when we think about dollars reduced through sense, and then scanning and delivering will keep us as an industry in full accountability mode. Everyone has a responsibility to identify areas for improvement, and the leaders must be willing to listen to us and not act like a travel agent who sends people to places they’ve never been. If you’re the leader can you be the tour guide familiar with the route, and lead us in the direction that will keep our people motivated, and educated so we can maintain peak operational efficiency? If we have a strategy the daily routine will be scripted. If we show up just to go through the motions then the standard will be encrypted making our work so secret we won’t even know what we are doing. See you out there!

Ronald Williams, Jr.

Real Forever Stamp

Today there is so much talk and worry about a troubled Postal Service from employees on the workroom floor, and discussed by many in the general public. Pundits say many factors will impact the future of our business, including but not limited to labor crafts in the midst of contract re-negotiations, management officials focusing like a laser on five day delivery, the agency dealing with an unfunded liability, an involuntary interest in shuffling employees around, and never ending competition through electronic diversion. Technology is blamed as a competitive disadvantage and significant reason for declining mail volumes. With all these issues added together the financial future looks bleak. The powers-to-be, I’m talking about union, and management, really have their work cut out to toil in cohesion to do everything necessary to maintain a real forever stamp on the Postal Service as we know it.

Listening to all the talk in the trenches, on the street, and from the media brings to mind the “Set Your Course” anecdote that goes like this “imagine a pilot coming over the intercom and announcing: I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is we have lost one engine and the direction finder. The good news is we have a tail wind and wherever we are going we are getting there at a rate of 600 miles an hour.” That is scary and disheartening news. Does that anecdote explain what is happening with our Postal Service as a big business?

I wrote the following poem because I believe in the business and hope things will only get better for the sake of our proud history, the livelihood of several hundred thousand employees, and many millions of citizens who depend on us every day.

Stamp This!

Ben Franklin was the first postal boss
Mail was even carried to Betsy Ross

Before creation of the great American flag
We delivered freedom and continue to brag

Via trains, planes, cars, or pony express
Today our value is still the best

Distributing with the grace of an Eagle
Flat rate packages make business growth unbelievable

Before the revolution of current day transportation
We were slower and didn’t utilize automation

From stamps to parcels everyone simply wins
Our organizational language is loaded with acronyms

With barcodes, truckloads to worldwide zip codes
Technology improves our time on the roads

Reduce, reuse, recycle and transitioning to green
Enough said, everyone knows what I mean

Always ready this supersonic Eagle never sleeps
Designing new services for everyone to peep

Binding the nation together through appointed rounds
Six days a week in your town

Corporate strength is reflected through cultural diversity
It brings out the best in “We”

A temporary economy makes everyone rather nervous
You can count on the Postal Service

In closing, I don’t think there are many more important jobs than delivering mail six days a week to every household and business in America, and throughout the world. I hope we will keep business alive for many more years to come. With that said, it’s time to get ready to do some chop, chop, in the mail processing and delivery chop shop. See you out there!

Ronald Williams, Jr.
Postal Employee

ETCHED IN STONE
THE STORY BEHIND POSTAL SERVICE’S UNOFFICIAL MOTTO

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers
from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

The Postal Service has no official motto. The popular belief that it does is a tribute to America’s postal workers. The words above, thought by many to be the motto, are chiseled in gray granite over the entrance to the New York City Post Office on 8th Avenue. In 1982, the building was renamed the James A. Farley Post Office Building in honor of the 53rd Postmaster General.

The motto comes from Book 8, Paragraph 98, of The Persian Wars by Herodotus. During the wars between the Greeks and Persians (500-449 B.C.), the Persians used a system of mounted couriers.

The firm of McKim, Mead and White designed the New York General Post Office, which opened to the public on Labor Day, 1914. One of the firm’s architects, William Mitchell Kendall, was the son of a classics scholar and read Greek literature for pleasure. He selected the “Neither snow nor rain …” inscription, which he modified from a translation by Professor George Herbert Palmer of Harvard University, and the Post Office Department approved it.

Recently, there have been reports of people placing non-mail items that did not bear U.S. postage in local mailboxes. The U.S. Postal Service recognizes customers may place non-mail items into mailboxes as a convenient way of “dropping something off,” but those items may cause a smaller mailbox to become full. When a mailbox is full, Postal Service regulations say the letter carrier cannot place mail in the box.

Additionally, the Postal Service has received complaints of flyers without paid postage being placed in mailboxes. Though many may be unaware, it is important to know that this type of activity is illegal by federal law. It may seem to be an easy way to advertise, but only U.S. Mail delivered by authorized personnel may be placed in mailboxes.

“We know many customers might not object to having a particular item placed in their mailbox from time to time, but the reasons for restricting use of mailboxes is really two-fold,” said Postmaster Keith Jackson. “First, if there is not enough room in a mailbox due to unauthorized items, the Postal Service can’t deliver the customer’s mail. Secondly, the Postal Service wants to ensure the integrity of our customer’s mailbox. That’s why only Postal Service personnel are authorized to place mail in or remove mail from mailboxes. In fact, U.S. Postal Inspectors advise customers to report people going mailbox to mailbox who are not postal employees. It could be someone completely unaware of the statute placing advertisements, but it could also be someone trying to steal mail.”

“We recognize that, from time to time, the statute and the Postal regulations may cause conflict with some customers,” the Postmaster continued. “When all factors are brought to their attention, however, we hope that the great majority of the public would agree that restricting mailboxes to U.S. Mail not only ensures customers receive their mail, but it also increases the security of the service.”

The Postmaster noted an exception to the general rule: newspapers can be placed in mailboxes only on Sunday; a non-delivery day for the Postal Service. He additionally noted that a newspaper receptacle can be mounted on rural or curbside mailbox post or support.