Category: Opines

A general introduction to the typical traditional vs upcoming modern letter carrier in Canada and its economic impact.

A letter carrier is a word typically used for those who deliver by foot in urban areas as an employee of Canada Post corporation.

Letter carriers at Canada Post deliver letters, magazines, registered, priority or parcel items that are under 3lbs, magazines, and flyers.

Each letter carrier is designated a route. Each traditional route roughly consists of 400 to 1000 points of call. Points of call mean each mail receptacle on a house, apartment, business, community mailbox etc.  For example, a house would count for one point of call, an apartment with 250 suites would have 250 points of call.

A complex mathematical calculation of distance x volume x coverage x average walking speed and a number of other important variables are used to arrive at an average 8 hour day. This formula has been in use and refined for well-over 30 years.

Each letter carrier starts his day at his mail sorting workstation. When he or she arrives, there is typically about 1200 pieces of machined letter mail, 250 pieces of letter mail that needs to be hand sorted, about 300 pieces of magazines and oversized envelopes that need to be hand-sorted, and also about 10 small packets, 10 traceable items, and a number of flyers that have to be hand collated.

This is just an average and it varies considerably between route.

When it comes to flyers for collation, there are wide differences between regions and even routes. In Winnipeg, some areas can average 4 sets of flyers per day per year, while other poorer areas are less. In Vancouver, this number can average over 10-15 sets per day. It is not fair to give an average.

The collation and delivery of flyers is not really calculated in the 8 hour formula. Sometimes five to ten minutes are allotted for management of flyers in the formula but not often. Letter Carriers are instead paid by the piece. It is usually around 2 cents per piece.

If, say, it takes a letter carrier 30 minutes to collate ten sets of flyers, and this extra time puts him or her in a situation that makes the work day 8.5 hours long, one cannot ask for overtime or extra hours. It is considered lost time or paid for by the per piece agreement. Some strongly do not like the idea of flyers for this reason, on the other hand others find this a good source of alternate revenue.

Also flyer weight really adds to the typical day. Canada Post letter carriers are not to carry more than 15.9 kilos (35 lbs) at any given time. However, because flyers are not in the mathematical formula, they have been exempted from the weight formulation. For example, the typical letter carrier at Christmas can be carrying 15.9 kilos of mail, and required to carry an additional amount of flyers which combined with regular mail can easily weigh over 22.73 kilos (50 lbs) at any given time.

Letter Carriers are given on average 1.5 to 2.5 hours per day to sort and organize all their mail items. This includes bundling all mail items and putting them into relay bags. These relay bags are then marked for delivery to a relay box on the letter carriers route. These are the neutral grey boxes one sees by many corners or near apartments. These relay bags are delivered by a driver.

When a letter carrier has finished a block, he or she goes to the relay box, empties the contents from the relay bag into the satchel and goes on to the next block or apartment etc. This can be repeated 6-12 times on a typical day.

There are many ways a letter carrier can get to his route. First of all, if the route is close enough to his or her postal station, one can walk. If it is kind-of-close, Canada Post will pay for the bus ride to and from the walk. If it is getting pretty far, Canada Post will pay the taxi fare. Canada Post has a policy of paying for gas if one uses their own personal vehicle for getting back and forth, but there are some caveats to this, so few take advantage of that. Many however, use their own cars at their own cost because of convenience and time savings.

Many letter carriers are miffed at why Canada Post paid for employees to have a new corporate vehicle along with company gas when this was supplied pro-bono by the employee in the past.

Letter Carriers traditionally do not deliver parcels. A unit called UTS, a motorized unit, specifically deals with parcel pick-ups and drop-offs.

All the mail sorted by the letter carrier is typically combined. That is, the oversize, non-machinable, and machinable letter mail and anything else that will fit in a sortation case are all harmonized together in one unit. This is the most efficient way.

In the new way, letter carriers are not to sort the machined mail. This is already done by a machine beforehand. The oversize and stuff the machine can’t read, still have to be sorted by hand. This is sorted and collated separately from the machined mail. The letter carrier is then asked to combine them while delivering. The machined mail is to be held on the left hand, and all oversize and non-machined mail is be held on the forearm of the same left arm. The right hand is then to combine them together.

The problem with the two bundle system is that it never calculated two important variables; flyers and environment. The new system requires a large portion of letters carriers to deliver in the dark, the two bundle system makes it more difficult to do this. Looking twice instead of once at an address takes more time. The two bundle system was imported from the United States Postal system where flyers are not an integral part of the job. How would one carry two bundles plus deliver 3-10 sets of collated flyers? There is no easy solution except that it takes longer.

Parcels are added for the modernized letter Carrier to deliver.

The time saved on sorting is theoretically to be added to the time delivering. Canada Post roughly believes an hour of sorting time is saved on every route and typically adds 250 to 400 points of call to each route.

However, because the two bundle system adds an extra two seconds or so to every delivery point, the requirement to deliver all the parcels in the given route, delivering in the dark which increases time between each point of call, loading and unloading a vehicle, driving and parking a corporate vehicle, it severely reduces any time savings that is anticipated.

It will be interesting to see if all these moves actually save any money, or keeps Canada Post in the same economic situation which in the past decade has just been barely breaking even. Canada Post claims they will not turn any profit until 2017. This time however, with so much money fixed into infrastructure cost, rather than having the flexibility of adding or deleting personnel depending on volumes, it is a precarious time in the history of this corporation.

An employee’s observation of Canada Post from a social and relational point of view. Is it healthy or is it lacking?

As a previous employee of a startup advertising business for over ten years, specializing in publishing leadership and time management books,  and before that many stints within charitable organizations, the opportunity to work at the Post Office was a god-send. It would be a great place to overcome burn-out, spend time with family, and give time to publishing a book.

Little did I know how completely opposite the Post Office can be when it comes to respect in the workplace.

One must realize that Canada Post is not unlike any other Canadian large corporation which consists of good, hardworking people that want to do their best for both themselves and others around them. Of course there are a few bad apples in any corporation. Canada Post has them too, but not any more than any other company.

However the difference between Canada Post and other similar organizations is their lack of internal mechanisms to solve inter-personal conflicts.

The problems are not just manager to employee but manager to manager,  and employee to employee.

Everyone has their stories, but for me five stand out. Firstly, while in the first 3 months as a postal worker, I had an industrial accident with a small forklift. I cried out for help and saw a number of employees 30 meters away. They looked and did nothing.  Two finally after a long pause came but said they were hesitant to do so. It was because one of the other senior employees told them not to. “It is not our responsibility,” he told them.

No management official made an official report of the accident and what safety measures could have been done to avoid a similar problem. I shared with the local union leader of the accident, and how no-one wanted to assist and he questioned, “was there any injury?” “No,” I replied. “Then you shouldn’t be talking to me about this.” He refused to discuss anything after that.

On another occasion, a woman was stuck in the freight elevator. She was pressing the alarm button, screaming and pounding the walls to get someone’s attention. The freight elevator sometimes had towering heavy loads. They surrounded the operator with only a shoulder’s breadth to stand in. It was easy to scare almost anyone.

It broke down often, and so the buzzing of the alarm was largely ignored. It was the pounding, and screaming that got my attention. She was panicking and needed someone to assist and tell her everything was going to be OK. It couldn’t come from me because I am an employee who had no power to get the proper tools and people in place. She needed a corporate official to assure her. A supervisor and trainer were nearby at a desk and I notified the supervisor of the problem requiring immediate attention. The supervisor grabbed a walkie-talkie and requested technical services to attend to the elevator and continued on with her conversation with the trainer. Both refused to go to the elevator shaft and re-assure the women of the situation. Technical services did not think it a critical issue and were tardy in their response. The woman was crying. I asked the supervisor again to do something, even talk to the woman. Neither bothered to get up from their seats and attend.

Days after the situation, I placed an official complaint with health and safety about the supervisor’s lack of respect for this employee’s emotional welfare. The person in charge of the investigation concluded, “You said it happened this way, the supervisor said it that way, who am I to believe?” He shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

Managers can be very aggressive and often hostile in their everyday conversation. Sure employees are like this too, but that is to be expected, but managers should be held to a higher standard. For example, one day a group of management staff were gathered around a work area that I needed to get to. Out of respect, I waited until they would move. One of the leaders of this group saw me standing and said in front of the rest, “Charles, why didn’t you f#*!in tell us to get out of the way! Just say f#*!-off and we would move!”In other words, the manager was saying that to be rude and abrasive is an acceptable norm.

On another occasion I asked a superintendant about what appeared to be a peculiar duty that seemed contradictory to the Canada Post corporate manual. He answered in a totally paternal and angered voice, “I am giving you a direct order to to do this!” “But why?” I said and then added, “it appears what you are saying is not in accordance with the manual.”He once again responded, “Because I have told you to.” The intonation and the stern voice insinuated that even questioning is insubordination. I am not here to question, only here to do whatever I am dictated to do.

It turned from what was approached as a sincere dialogue quickly transformed into a confrontation. This was my first conversation with this person and hopefully the last.

An older female letter carrier asked me why a co-worker of mine pretended to kick her in the head. She was coming into work and was passing by this postal clerk who was leaving in the opposite direction after a full-nights work. Although she didn’t know him, she said hello as a king gesture. The man came close to her and replied with a pretend kick to the head. It shocked her and she came to me later asking me why this man would do such a thing. I couldn’t give an answer except that he was strange. We both shrugged our shoulders silently agreeing that Canada Post would do nothing about it.

It seems like an unreachable goal to develop here a culture of respect. However, it can and has been done in certain instances. One supervisor, albeit a new one at the time, whose background is from an entrepreneurial family, took it on her own initiative to establish this culture in her department. On at least one occasion the highest recorded output of machinable mail ever in that department over an 8 hour period occurred under her watchful eye.

This demonstrates that a culture of respect not only gives dignity to everyone but also pays economic dividends.

Because there are no internal mechanisms, sometimes hostile confrontations or reactions become apparent. Other times passive aggression becomes a regular occurrence. Many conflicts are originally trivial in nature, but because they are never addressed, tension grows. Often most forget the original problem and the anger and tension are the only remains that one can recall.

This, in my mind, is the number one issue in Canada Post’s future.