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A few years back there was a major motion picture that is so relevant to the Postal Service that it was about time someone brought it up.  The scene is New York City, the street is Broadway and a new production is opening up and there is a need for many dancers in the musical.

So auditions are held and the whole stage is filled with men and women.  The music starts and everyone follows the leader to the tee.  The director looks on to see who has the best form and who really looks good. 

Now remember this is a motion picture and every thing is staged.  Pun intended.  Everything in this scene is rehearsed to look good, except for one individual.  That individual has no idea what is happening and he is so off that out of the hundreds of dancers on stage, as the camera zooms out to see everyone, it is not hard to see the one out of sync.

As the music plays on and the dancers struggles to keep up I felt for the guy.  I even hoped that the scene would end soon so that I would not have to watch him make a klutz of himself.

Changing scene to the present, within the last few years while at work I have watched a video that has an inspirational speaker talking to a large group of Postal workers.  He was invited to talk about the Postal Service and so he started to tour some large distribution centers.  He was dumbfounded by the forms that the Postal Service uses and so he stepped back out of the tours and interviews, to start to understand the forms that we all use on a daily basis. 

He then went on to name every form in the book in such a way as to make the PMG’s head spin.  It was so enlightening to me to hear what I would consider gibberish.  Yet, as I have said, enlighten me to want to use the correct wording and phrase in everyday tasks. 

Page backwards now to about 5 years ago as the Postal Service started new clerk training via the telephone and computer.  As I was going about my business doing the registered envelope for the end of the day deposit, out walks the clerk in training and informs me that I was doing the placement of the Label 200 all wrong.  That set real well with me since I did have over 13 years under my belt in the Postal Service.  So as a stubborn Norwegian and Foster, I was not going to take this information at face value.  I went to the DMM and found out that the “New Be” was right and that I did have the label in the wrong position. 

Fast forward to today.  Everyone knows that time is becoming more valuable and that we all have to be on the very same song, all on the same verse and the exact note.  So here is my suggestion, especially on the Deposit envelopes.  As the example shows below, lets all put the label 200, not off to the side or just barely touching the address, but up near the edge of the envelope.  So that when the envelope is finally scanned delivered to the recipient, the scanning clerk can do a more expedient operation knowing exactly where the label is and then on to another task.  If the clerk knows exactly where it is, the job should be done in a normal day with eyes closed.