Submitted by a PostalMag.com reader:

APWU National Business Agent Passes: 

McLennan, Shirley L. (Baucom), 66 of Louisville passed away December 24,2009 at Norton Healthcare Pavilion after a long battle with cancer with her loving family by her side.  She was employed as a National Business Agent with the American Postal Workers Union based in Dayton, OH.  She was a loving mother, grandmother, sister and friend to many.  She was a 24 year survivor of breast cancer and a strong advocate for breast cancer awareness.  She is preceded in death by her mother; Marion Baucom, grandson; Austin McLennan and brother; Gary Baucom.  She is survived by her children; Jeffery and Tony McLennan, and Lisa Veteto (Jim), grandchildren; Alex, Erin, Mary, Zoe and Matthew, Brothers; Jack (Dana) and Bo Baucom, Sisters; Fleta Casey, Peggy Merriman, Carol Masden (David) and Geraldine “Gerri” Parker (Terry).

Arrangements at:

Arch L. Heady & Son Funeral Home and Cremation Services

3601 Taylor Blvd

Louisville KY 40215

(502) 368-5811 – Fax (502) 367-1637

Visitation will be from;  4:00 to 8:00 PM Monday December 28, 2009 and,

                                               2:00 to 8:00 PM Tuesday December 29, 2009

A Celebration of Shirley’s life will be held Noon, Wednesday December 30, 2009, burial to follow in Resthaven Memorial Park.

Expressions of sympathy may be made to KPWU Scholarship Program, P.O. Box 35457,  Louisville, KY 40232

From the Metro Letter Carrier, Official Publication of Lone Star Branch #132, NALC

"From the President's Desk: I would also like to report on the latest action the branch has taken to respond to the unprecedented level of discipline issued at Parkdale Station in recent months. For your information, 19 letter carriers have been disciplined a total of 73 times. The breakdown is 23 Letter of Warnings, 41 Suspensions, 6 Removals and 3 Emergency Placements. At the present time, 46 actions have been adjudicated, of which only 6 have been upheld. There has been more discipline issued at Parkdale Station than all the other 29 Dallas stations combined.

The branch took its concerns to the managers of Human Resources and Labor Relations. Unfortunately, they ignored our requests for some form of intervention. The branch was left with no choice but to go outside the postal service. Currently, a member of congress has agreed to investigate the matter. The branch fully expects that more than one manager will eventually be held accountable for the stress and hardship placed on those letter carriers." - Sid Simmons, President NALC Branch 132

You may have noticed a new comments format for stories at PostalMag.com. I've noticed a few negative comments in the comments about the new format. First, I had no choice to change/upgrade the formats, as Haloscan is requiring all sites to upgrade to the new Echo format by December 31st. Second, although many people don't like change, the new format actually has some new features, including replies to individual comments, a "Like" feature, and avatars (not the Pandora kind). Overall, the new format is an upgrade and I'm hoping everyone will eventually embrace it.

Thanks for using PostalMag.com,

Tom Wakefield
PostalMag.com

Dallas District postal employees are being told by the USPS that the National Reassessment Process (NRP) is starting in Dallas. The NRP is a USPS program that assesses injured postal workers for job suitability. The USPS says it will honor all relevant contracts and regulations concerning injured postal workers, but notes that with overall declining workloads throughout the USPS, there are less applicable jobs for injured employees. Ultimately, if no work is available, employees will be sent home and they will be instructed to file claims with OWCP.

The Postal Service seems to have developed its own unique management style - one that I simply call Hate. Other organizations have management styles such as paternalistic, democratic, autocratic, participatory and teamwork. But it is the Hate management style that is alive and well here in Dallas among some of the more unscrupulous supervisors. For the record, there are still a few supervisors left here in Dallas who are professional, yet, I keep running into supervisors who missed their callings as dirty cops.

Here's what happened the other day. We've had supervisors and managers coming to our station to walk with all of our routes as follow-ups to our minor route adjustments. A couple of these supervisors and managers treated the letter carriers like human beings, instead of animals, and it was appreciated. These supervisors, like Ben D., understand you get more out of people by treating them like people than you do by treating them like animals.

Then, out of nowhere, comes the supervisor from Hell. Reportedly, she's one who is always talking against carriers and how she's going to get them. So she's out walking with a carrier when they come to a park point where two blocks are carried separately from the same park point. As has been done for decades from that park point, the two "loops" are carried separately. After one loop is completed, the carrier goes to the vehicle to get the mail for the other loop. Mostly, these two blocks are carried separately because of the high volume of mail these blocks receive. (For those who are familiar with Mockingbird Lane in Dallas, you know that Mockingbird is in one of the better areas in Dallas, and accordingly gets its share of mail.) 

However, the sup orders the carrier to put the mail for the second block of mail in his bag while he carries the first block too, thereby adding unnecessary weight to his workload. This isn't a light volume street, and it makes no sense to carry around the next block's mail. The carrier complained and stated it was hurting his shoulder. He called the union steward who was a couple of streets over. The union steward arrived shortly. When he got out of the vehicle the supervisor angrily ordered him to "GET BACK IN THE VEHICLE." The steward said he hadn't been spoken to like that since the police caught him in high school stealing a stereo. I think he was kidding. Anyway, an angry, unnecessary argument ensued. The next day, the carrier called in sick, presumably for a hurt shoulder.

Now, I know in low volume areas you're supposed to pack in what you can carry and eliminate unnecessary trips to the vehicle. But I know that this supervisor, if given this route to carry herself, would never pack in that much unnecessary weight into her own bag. No reasonable person would. There's only one reason this supervisor ordered this carrier to carry around extra weight. The reason is hate.

Unfortunately, the actions of some supervisors in the post office are predicated on one underlying thing - what would you do if you hated this person? How do you make this person miserably, because you hate them, at each step of the way? Many of you have seen this style of management. I've seen it. We recently had a supervisor who started even before we clocked on. "NO CONGREGATING AROUND THE TIME CLOCK BEFORE TIME - REPORT TO THE BREAK ROOM." Then there would be the angry diatribes about how we should all be thankful for our jobs, and if we didn't produce to his DOIS numbers, he would get people who could. "THIS MAIL WILL BE CARRIED WITH OR WITHOUT YOU," he would say. Then he would issue veiled threats and say "READ BETWEEN THE LINES." I could go on, but suffice it to say virtually every one of his actions seemed to be predicated on how would he act - what would he say - if he hated carriers.

I'm not asking for much. Is it too much to ask for professional supervisors? I've said it before, and I'll say it again. One of the weak links in the Postal Service is the professionalism of first line, operational level supervisors. Unfortunately, in recent years, many supervisory positions have come to be inhabited by 204B, limited duty employees. They're not even supposed to be carrying mail, much less should they be put into supervisory positions with only the training from their equally unqualified 204B supervisors. But even for those supervisors who have been promoted, there is NO training that I know of that fosters effective business management principles, NO reading of business management books, in fact, NO TRAINING AT ALL. As a result, because they never develop the necessary management skills to effectively supervise employees, they fail, then they blame the employees and that's where the hate comes in. It's a downward spiral from there. I'm hoping that someday soon the Postal Service will realize this deficiency and come up with organizational management training for its frontline supervisors.