DOIS
by Lou Kush, President
NAPS Branch 61

March 2006

Why are the instructions to city carrier management to not count flats coming in with your parcels, SPURS, or from the BMC, but it is clearly noted in the Management Instructions that all cased volume is counted?

Why did Western Area decide sequenced coverages in DOIS no longer is credited to the street time – and as far as that goes, why, last year, did we only receive credit for only one sequenced mailing on one day even if two or more gets delivered?

How come we can’t update DOIS Base information when carriers bid to new routes or when new deliveries are added?  (And speaking of…Notice that DOIS itself was “updated” recently – a known problem with the system itself and now it’s ‘fixed?’  And it’s so much more user friendly to boot!  Why are we to believe that this program is any better than the former program?)

This particular theorist offers, we are simply being tricked.  When you trick people into doing more than the workload would indicate, you save money.  Even with using overtime hours, it saves because the Agency does not have to pay additional benefits or the cost of training new employees.

Could all this be tied to the pay of our Postal Executives?  Note PCES and Executives have a pay and evaluation process that differs significantly from EAS employees.  Their pay is based on a national cost system and the bell curve for their location in the evaluation system is different from the bell curve for EAS scale employees.  As in most “crimes” – if you follow the money you find the answers.

Request to Reduce 204-B Hours in Seattle District

Short EAS staffing, vacancies, nor relief for EAS on extended leave or annual, no EAS pool relief, cries for help to upper management are unanswered or ignored…what to do, what to do? The Seattle District has mandated to reduce 204-B hours. The explanation that I got (which I went into more detail in past articles) in short, there is a belief that 204-B’s were not used appropriately in this District. All 204-B usage needs to be approved by the MPOO or Postmaster. This would be consistent with the mandate. I also know from the District Manager that he expects his Direct Reports to do the ‘right’ thing and when a 204-B is needed the approval should be made. I know that 204-B’s are being used in the district. I keep hearing there are EAS staffing shortages with Supervisors and Managers working long hours and six day weeks. My question to you (managers) is, have you requested to use 204-B’s? If so, and you have been denied, I would like to hear the details. Was the request to fill a long term absence? To back-fill a vacancy and has it been posted? DOIS and reduction in 204-Bs (PDF)

Related links: Articles from NALC Postal Record

What's the Deal with DOIS?
http://www.nalc.org/news/precord/ArticlesPDF/0506-dois.pdf

Misguided DOIS Projections - You Decide
http://www.nalc.org/depart/citydel/pdf/CityDeliveryArticles/Rolando%200506.pdf

NALC Pressing USPS on DOIS Flaws, Abuses
http://www.nalc.org/news/precord/ArticlesPDF/0406-dois.pdf

DOIS Base Data Flawed
http://www.nalc.org/depart/citydel/pdf/CityDeliveryArticles/Rolando0306.pdf

 

TACS is Flawed

by Lou Kush, President
NAPS Branch 61
February 2006

Nothing is more inspiring than hearing on a telecom, “So you will be giving Lou an investigative interview?” on a Monday morning. This is what was said when finding one of my employees on a list for beginning tour before the official TACS begin time.

Never mind that I had approved it on the Saturday before. Never mind that my supervisor properly entered the ‘temporary’ change (as verbally instructed, not in writing of course) in TACS on that Saturday along with seven other carriers. Carriers that my supervisor explained to me the need for each to begin early before I gave my approval. Only this one carrier appeared on this list provided.

No one told me that if a carrier just happens to punch on the clock at 07:08 instead of 0700 or 0701 or 0703 or 0704, everything is null and void and the manager would be subject to an investigative interview because a senior manager quotes this list like it was the gospel. It couldn’t be possible the system itself is flawed?

 Why would I expect anything less? After all, I am held responsible for everything else that may go wrong as dictated to me from senior management, why would taking responsibility for this flaw in the system be any different? (Sigh)

TACS PDF) 

Micro-Managed
by Lou Kush, President
NAPS Branch 61
January 2006

I am writing this after one of the worst days experienced in the Postal Service by most of us, the day after Martin Luther King Holiday, the ultimate day in being micro-managed. A day after a holiday that only government workers, banks, etc, take the day off while the rest of the world is working and entering mail into our system. The day we needed the latitude to manage the mail and our people - but this has been taken away from us.

The day, how we are to “manage” was forecasted days ago, because our bosses have this crystal ball to tell us what is best for our units. That we need not start any of our carriers before their official start time, maybe a half hour early, but don’t even think about before 0700, for their power of 20/20 hindsight is all so awesome you better have called that decision correctly. You must meet the threshold of curtailed mail, for they know better than you how to manage your own unit, that you will have everyone off the street by 1700, though you do not have the vehicles for the auxiliary help you know you need to meet this criteria, and if you were able to get your people into vehicles, then you are sending them without scanners to make their MSP scans and accountable scans.

Of course the PTF’s you need to hire will not be there because your FTER says you do not need them. Those two hampers of parcels are not going to impact the street times. The two days of accountable items will only take a moment as each attempt is made. The savior of our budgets, the DPS mail, two days worth, which was run backwards, skips ahead, and pulled down wrong would not add to the street as we are directed to have our carriers not to come back to the unit until they deliver that missequenced mail on their routes.

Don’t forget the EXFC scores – we still have to plan to take that hot case mail back out to be delivered – mail that was originally mishandled in mail processing – but as you are surely aware, DOIS gives you plenty of allowance to absorb these extra trips. Traffic of course does not enter into the total picture, because in our perfect world, there wouldn’t be any traffic, especially since everyone will be back well before 1700. Hey (!) and do this without any use of Penalty Overtime! Oh and the full coverage, the ADVO and/or whatever local coverage you get definitely would not have any impact on your DOIS variance.

You need to take this coverage out today because then you would be forced in taking out two coverage’s the next day or the day after and we all know that it is perfectly safe to require our mounted routes to take two or more coverage’s on the side because of all the room they have in their CRV/LLV’s. For the foot routes or park and loop routes, it doesn’t take any time at all to case one or more of those coverage’s directly into the case, the case that your carriers are already ‘two fisted’ casing because of the mail volume – the volume that our bosses said that we don’t have too much of.

How do I know this? Because “they” told me it was so! If I don’t make these numbers, if I don’t get my people out of the office in time, if I don’t make the cutoff by 1700, than there must be something wrong the way I “manage.” So, that being said, I should not have to be “directed” to begin my day with the very first carrier reporting to duty and to end my day when the last carrier comes off the street, because you already know this will make the difference. Besides, most of us are still in the office anyway trying to play catch up with everything else. “They” will know how well I manage because I’m faxing in the Carrier Analysis report by 1300 everyday along with every other unit in my Area and within the District, because I simply do not have enough to do to fill out my day, like customer service issues, employee issues, growth management, selfaudits, ‘boss” issues etc, etc, (I usually doodle while I’m continuously pushing the ‘redial’ after each busy tone I get – what’s another ten minutes of my day anyway?).

Now tomorrow I get to tell how successful I was on this incredibly remarkable day after the holiday. How many did I start before 0700? Why did this person get out so late? Why did you not make 1700? The DOIS said you were suppose to! Why? Why? Why?!? Why did you not accomplish this? “Well,” I say cautiously, “Because I was trying to follow your instructions?” One manager commented to me, “Do they want us to succeed?” It seems that we have so little control of our units, with all the responsibility. I think it is incredible we can accomplish as much as we do.

And, we do accomplish a lot! But it’s so frustrating those moments of glee come crashing down as soon as you open the next Email to inform you, that yet again you are on another “Vital Few” list – get that Action Plan together!

Micro-managed (PDF)