Postmaster Louis DeJoy was defiant as ever in his letter to the Board of Governors informing them of his decision to leave the US Postal Service and advising them to find his successor. DeJoy had battled establishment thinking and chafed against regulatory oversight during his 5-year tenure as he sought to transform the Postal Service.
“Postmaster General is a demanding role made more difficult by the devastating condition I found the Postal Service in when I arrived and the almost unceasing resistance to change — without offering any viable solutions — from stakeholders motivated by both parochial and political purposes,” he wrote in his letter to the Board.
“The simplest and most obvious ideas and solutions receive illogical and irrational scrutiny from those that have no responsibility for ensuring the financial viability of the Postal Service. This, combined with industry lobbying, has held the organization back in the past from making the necessary changes. I have fought against this, and as a result I believe that I can fairly say that my tenure has been one of high expectations and vigorous action.”
In his letter to the Board, DeJoy took credit for putting the Postal Service in a stronger position, pointing to the most recent quarter’s performance, its delivery of COVID test kits, and having served the American people through “an unprecedented pandemic and through a period of high inflation and sensationalized politics.”
He also criticized the approach to the USPS had formerly taken to the package shipping industry, which he called “ill-conceived and not compelling to the market.” He said, “Our new package shipping products are extremely popular and are overtaking the marketplace.”
While DeJoy’s new Ground Advantage service has been generally well received by shippers, not so his 10-year Delivering for America (DFA) plan that calls for a major transformation of the postal network. The plan has been criticized and has led to major disruptions in select areas as it rolls out. Under DeJoy, the USPS has also downgraded its delivery standards leading to longer delivery times for mail – especially to rural areas of the country. Last month, the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) issued a damning report on the impact of the DFA plan.
The chairperson of the USPS Board of Governors Amber McReynolds praised DeJoy in the USPS press release announcing today’s news. It will be up to the Board of Governors to appoint DeJoy’s successor.
*** The Grass is Not Always Greener ***
Say what you want about DeJoy, but personally, I’ve NEVER had a problem with USPS. My Priority packages only took 2 days cross country, while my postal rates *decreased* when shipping closer to my State.
For those who think life will be better under Dejoy’s successor should think twice, because the grass is not always greener on the other side.
Its about time!!
Good riddance. Dejoyless should have been removed four years ago, but as so often happens, DC lethargy kept the BOG from acting. What we now get, I really hope will be someone more in tune with what the vast majority really want and need.
I have had numerous repeat problems with delays and mis-delivery in recent years and have had to require tracked insured shipping for smaller amounts than I or customers would like. My threshold is an order over $25 exclusive of tax & shipping. Under that I self-insure (eat the losses.)
The U.S. Postal Service is managed by a “Board of Governors” and not by DC. It’s up to “The Board” to determine who the next Post Master General will be.
Thank God!! Ding dong this prick is gone!!
He should have been fired a few months ago when he was getting grilled before congress and claimed the mail was being delivered on time 75% of the time and that was far better than what it was before he took over and then covered his ears like a child when being criticized for the failures of the past few years and severe delays around the new “garbage” processing centers that have been built that were supposed to speed up deliveries but instead resulted in delays from weeks to months for any mail going through them (as the sort machines continued to break over and over again)
Anyone who says they have not had any issues does not sell in high volume, right now Indianapolis is the leader of current facility issues with processing packages being delayed weeks.
I’m not a high volume seller, however, I sell jewelry to women with expendable cash who spend $300+ on one piece of jeweler. Most of my sales are to “Blue States” and I don’t sell to rural America. With all sales combined, I’ve sold 1632 pieces of jewelry and not a single sale has been lost and are rarely late. I’ve never sold a thing to Indianapolis.
So the real question here….Is the Post Office to blame, or are problems a “staffing issue” within each city?
Both really, when they open up these new processing centers they lay off or fire thousands of workers that have been running the processing centers that existed prior to it opening, here in Atlanta the sort machine broke the 2nd day after the facility opened and according to one manager it was because someone shipped out a case of Jack Daniels that got crushed while going through the sorter, the sort machine was down for 2 weeks while they tried to repair it and they were just piling mail up in Gaylord boxes anywhere they could find space to put them and were relying on hand sorting to try and clear the backlog, but with limited staffing and 2 weeks of back-ups it took (in some cases) 2 months for all the packages that kept getting built up to finally be processed… I ship out about 10,000 packages a week and yes it was a disaster with little to no help from USPS.. try going down to the USPS main office and tell them “hey, I have 2,000 packages from a certain date that show nothing, no induction scans, no travel scans, no NOTHING and see how much they care about your issue.. It was so bad the Governor and local news agencies here tried to step in and get something done (like they are starting to do in Indy) but it was all useless because even when the machine is fixed all they did was go back to processing incoming mail FIRST and work on processing all the backed up mail second.. it was more important to them to try and get current packages delivered on time and said “F” all the older stuff because it’s already late… Glad he’s gone.. just hoping someone with a brain comes in next.
The issue is lack of leadership to get the mail processed and delivered. Most of Management is not qualified and many workers dont care about doing the job right. I agree as we have shipped over 40k packages and never had one not get delivered. We had them delayed and even one get delivered 3 months later. So yes, the post office is to blame because management is not planning properly and not fixing and solving issues when they arise.
He was hand picked by Trump. Makes me wonder “why now”, when his former boss is back in power. Being in his position, maybe he sees the shitstorm on the horizon and realizes there is no “winning” if he stays where he is……..?
On paper he was a great choice for the job.. in reality he was the worst thing that came along, he was probably told to resign and try to save face or be fired for ruining the USPS, these problems have been going on for years, all the last administration did was harp on him to make sure all of their mail in ballots got delivered.. they cared less about anything else and let him ruin it.