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I am an RCA/relief carrier on a K route. Saturdays have become the heaviest mail day, with hundreds of pounds of flats of all kinds, EDDM/boxholder, etc, adding up to 2 hours extra. Package volume is about the same. The weekday load seems lighter every time I run it, which explains why the regular carrier is finishing earlier and earlier... Would the postal service do this intentionally so that the route can be cut? Or maybe the rates are cheaper to send catalogs or EDDM on Saturdays?
Is anything like this happening at other offices?
You have light days?
 
I am an RCA/relief carrier on a K route. Saturdays have become the heaviest mail day, with hundreds of pounds of flats of all kinds, EDDM/boxholder, etc, adding up to 2 hours extra. Package volume is about the same. The weekday load seems lighter every time I run it, which explains why the regular carrier is finishing earlier and earlier... Would the postal service do this intentionally so that the route can be cut? Or maybe the rates are cheaper to send catalogs or EDDM on Saturdays?
Is anything like this happening at other offices?
The most obvious reason is the majority of rural carriers are off on Saturday, which means subs are working. Better to push the load on the subs (cheaper workforce) than have regulars get into 2080 issues.
 
It might depend on the distribution center, but where I am they seem to process a lot of flats for Saturday, but not a ton of DPS.
In our area, Amazon delivers most of its own packages, so that tends to be light except around the holidays.
 
Exactly. But can doing this have the effect of causing the route to be cut?
Not at all. The Weekly Evaluation is Saturday/Monday-Friday. It does matter if a Carrier, whether Regular or Sub, is over or under for the day or the week; it’s the growth on the route & mail Survey results that determine an adjustment down in most cases.
 
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There is a conspiracy theory that the PO is (you won't believe this) manipulating the mail stream.

Under RRECS, the PO doesn't pay for skipped boxes. So by making some days super light and other days exceedingly heavy, on average, more mailboxes skipped, more savings for the PO.

@Gotrope has mentioned it, as in this post. He has more insight into these larger, strategic operations than I do.

At the tactical level, the only evidence I have is anecdotal. But it sure seems like someone is monkeying with the "even flow of the mail." Or maybe I am just more aware of it now? Or possible the plants are (if it is even possible) becoming more inept?
 
There is a conspiracy theory that the PO is (you won't believe this) manipulating the mail stream.

Under RRECS, the PO doesn't pay for skipped boxes. So by making some days super light and other days exceedingly heavy, on average, more mailboxes skipped, more savings for the PO.

@Gotrope has mentioned it, as in this post. He has more insight into these larger, strategic operations than I do.

At the tactical level, the only evidence I have is anecdotal. But it sure seems like someone is monkeying with the "even flow of the mail." Or maybe I am just more aware of it now? Or possible the plants are (if it is even possible) becoming more inept?
WSS Saturation mail usually gets delivered on our light days so ”skipping boxes” really isn’t an issue here.
 
C$$ et al -- "There is a conspiracy theory that the PO is (you won't believe this) manipulating the mail stream."

-- OH NO ( wink, wink ), say it isn't SO!!

-- It used to be included in Mail Count Manuals: It is unacceptable for either management or rural carriers to take actions that affect the integrity of the mail count. ( how about "surveys"? )

-- Any carrier who was around for mail counts in long-ago Septembers can verify how the "mail flow" began to change a few weeks before mail count began. MONEY PAGES, MINT magazine, Home & Decor as well as BB&B flyers and others, that normally arrived during the days of the mail count "mysteriously" showed up a week or so before and after mail count. DPS became pristine, a far cry from the outside of mail count times. Inverted DPS -- never happened during mail count.

-- Among my written reasons for not agreeing with the mail count numbers, I listed the arrival change of many flats. All I got was a standard form back with the "Availability Of Mail" box checked.

-- With there being no mail counts for years, maybe the USPS needs time to get back into the past practice of changing the mail flow.

-- As far as not getting RRECS credit when not stopping at the mailbox, tell manglement that not all homeowners put the flag up for outgoing mail, so..... If manglement doesn't mind handling irate calls from customers complaining their mail wasn't picked up, so be it, if manglement decrees "no stopping if there isn't any mail for an address."
 
Thank you for the link to that interesting thread. I see there are levels of complication and manipulation going on. Again and again I wonder why they don't just pay carriers an hourly wage to deliver mail. They could drop all this complicated crapola about counting (and not counting). In doing that, they would save a lot of time and money becaues they wouldn't have to pay people to think/design/manage/manipulate these over-engineered systems.
Most carriers would slow down if paid hourly. So hourly would cost them more, alot more!
 
Show me the numbers.

They looked at this back in the 70's. GGD-78-84. From page 7:
Carriers serving these routes are paid on an hourly rate basis.​
This compensation method discourages efficient​
service because auxiliary carriers can maximize​
their salaries by stretching out the workday.​
Auxiliary carriers needed 106.2 percent of​
evaluated​
time to service their routes, compared​
to Heavy duty Schedule carriers who use only​
94 percent.​
By ayina (*sic paying) auxiliary carriers under​
a system based on evaluated time, the Service​
could reduce salary costs by $255,000 annually.​
So hourly employees worked 6% over evaluation, non hourly employees worked 6% under evaluation. I've never seen the hard data from that study. And things are very different now, so maybe it is no longer valid?

Personally, I think if rural carriers were paid hourly, they would slow down. But they would ALSO do a better and safer job. I'd call that a win, but I'm in the minority.
 
so just saying, could be because rca's are most likely not to do the scans? sorry to you good rca's out there
This is the first thing that popped into my head.

Tons of routes are getting split when the subs are off. It's the wild west in terms of scans when a route is split. It's doubly good that you can pile all that mail on that day and reduce stops on other days.

It's a win-win for the USPS and something that has no wording in the contract.

I'd assume that the goal for the USPS is to cram as many 12 hour days into a week for carriers as possible.
 
Running? I’ve always been accused of this… called the vomit comet when training rca’s. Why is this my mentality? My training, when first hired eons ago, I was told get out, no dilly dallying, no one is coming to help you, and don’t bring anything back. Scared me sh$tless and it’s been my mentality ever since. I’ve tried to dilly dally. Just can’t do it. So if hourly came around, I’d most definitely be screwed. But I’m screwed with RRECs too. I’m just relying on one of @DBCoopers statements 😂😂😂
 
Tuesday is the lightest day in my office; Saturday is the next lightest day.

As has been said many times on this forum, don’t assume what’s happening in your office is happening everywhere. There are 80,000+ rural routes.
Same with ours, although we do our boxholders on Tuesdays.

Monday is definitely our heaviest day.
 
Saturday is flats galore, tub after tub foot after foot stacked. dps Tends to be normal sometimes on lighter side unless holiday is Monday. heaviest days for mail in general is Monday and Saturday. Parcels wise it’s Friday and saturdays followed by Mondays. Lots around here prefer Amazon to be delivered on Friday or Saturday when they are home. doesn’t matter to me by Wednesday morning I hit 40 hrs. Plenty of times I hit 40 by end of day Tuesday.
 
C$$ -- thanx for that link -- et al

-- At least twice the USPS OIG has recommended that city carriers go to the evaluated system. As usual the USPS ignored its own OIG - again. Or the NALC was successful in fighting it.

-- Per the link, 6% worked over eval and 6% worked under eval - so things evened out. That is how things were looked at back in the 1990's: Although it was 50% of the carriers were over eval and 50% were under, so things still evened out. Sort of like when the mail dried up during the summer time, so carriers battling 2080 problems could actually finish under eval and get manglement off their back. ( but with the pandemic and Amazon, not going to happen any longer )

-- Back then the USPS was supposed to just "break even" money wise ( because it was providing a SERVICE ), but congress decided it knew better and that the USPS should be run more like a business that made a profit. And that the USPS should pre-fund healthcare for its workers some 70+ years into the future by paying ( the government or congress $5 BILLION a year for 10 or so years -- how did that work out -- for the USPS ?)

-- Overall, it is an example of the USPS wanting it both ways: 1) getting mail delivered in the most efficient manner, but 2) not having to fully pay to get it done.

-- Look back through past Arbitrator's "awards". The USPS does not like to pay for work not done - which became the "bump". For the newer carriers that was when the carrier finished the route under evaluation, the carrier got paid for the entire evaluation ( and went home, but that was before all the MOUs that enabled regular carriers to "volunteer" to assist where needed, per the MOU ). What the USPS and the NRLCA never seemed to mention was that when the carrier went over the evaluation, the carrier "ate" the overage ( well until 56 hours was reached ) and that the USPS got FREE WORK from the carrier ( sort of like today in delivering Amazon parcels )

-- Just remember the NALC mantras of:

- Go Fast, Won't Last.
- Go Slow, More Dough.
 
WSS Saturation mail usually gets delivered on our light days so ”skipping boxes” really isn’t an issue here.
well, you must have stellar management at your plant then.

ours is loading us 2 days a week, to include saturation; and light the rest of the days. saturation very rarely happens on a light day.

that would be playing fair.
 
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