Sandman -- "What happened if we have to be counted, but during Count, we don’t have the volume of Amazon we normally have now. "
-- The same things that happen when UPS and FedEx are seen more often out on the routes while drop-offs at the post office decline for the weeks during count and magazines, catalogs, and such just happen to arrive a week before count and a week after count, and which has been going on for decades:
a. The USPS makes out, but some how is always "cash-strapped."
b. Rural routes remain under-evaluated
c. The NRLCA says, "We know things happen, we just can not prove them."
Some offices, such as "gotstamps" are fortunate with little or no reduction.
"Documentation is the only way to prove the “hanky-pinky” when filing a grievance."
-- If filing a grievance, local manglement will say " I / we did not have anything to do with the flow of mail during the count time frame."
-- They might even be nice and say, "Yes, it did seem like mail volume was less than usual, but "it is what it is". ( boy, I used to hate hearing that phrase!! )
-- Most likely District will eventually send a reply to your memo as to why you didn't sign off on the count numbers. There is an excellent chance there will be a sheet with the "Mail Availability" box checked. It's the old "We can only pass along what we get from the mailers. We can't help it if the mailers chose to change their shipping dates."
-- And watch out for Mother Nature as she usually will provide severe weather that disrupts mailings in some part of the nation. And in some cases, shutting down mail delivery altogether for a couple or more days during count -- such as happened in New England a few years back.
-- But still document, document, document -- if only for the satisfaction that you know something was just not right about the volume during the count period.
