No matter where thou art, the part of your postal service you see when you go in to purchase stamps is not even the tip of the iceberg; for every "front desk" clerk and every route carrier there are probably eight to ten other employees, sorters, cancellers, truck drivers, personnelists, supervisors, managers, secretaries, mechanics, maintenance people, electricians, programmers, computer operators, etc.
I've talked to some of these people, and though they are pretty well paid the working conditions in the bulk postal facilities are something out of the 19th century. In general supervisors and managers care not a whit for the employees but only for the bottom line. And the bottom line is important in the US postal service because it gets no subsidies from the government.
These people can be treated pretty miserably, and since it's invisible to the public it's more difficult to understand going postal. The worst part is that managers and supervisors tend to promote in their own image, so these bad practices are perpetuated.
TdE
