Why Was My Mailman Followed Around By Another Carry Only A Clipboard? Post Office May Not Be Savable

This has happened in the past and I don’t get it.  A few times a year, our dear mailman, a Vietnam vet who I love chatting sports with a couple of minutes once or twice a week, is followed around by another guy from his post office.

Dude had the smell of middle management.  Wearing dark glasses, unsmiling, looking rather like a bully, and carrying a clipboard, he just follows our guy around.  He doesn’t help out our mailman out.  He just hangs back and watches.

He’s walk in behind our mailman, hangs back while our guy takes care of our business.  And then he follows the mailman out.

Again, he just stood there and does nothing.  He doesn’t write on his clipboard.  And he definitely doesn’t help carry mail.

Why?

With all the problems I am hearing about the USPS, I don't know if they could afford guys just following mailmen and mailwomen around on their routes all day.

In its most recent quarter ending, the post office lost $3.2 billion.  Maybe they should get this guy off his ass and back on the street with a bag full of mail instead of just a clipboard.  Can you imagine the hundreds of millions in overtime pay savings if these guys are put back on the street instead of sitting in the office?

I know I am oversimplify it a bit.  But I think it's just a tiny bit.

Let's inject a little politics into this.  If the USPS was a private business and suffering from the kind of losses, what would Mitt Romney do if he was still at Bain?  First, he'd have to decide of the USPS is worth buying and saving.  Second, once he's done with it, for better or worse, postal delivery will not be the same again after that.

No matter how you look at it, the USPS as is it now will continue to bleed and lead to a slow agonizing death with nothing to replace it.