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New York Times
a day ago
- General
- New York Times
What Does Your Mailman Know About You? More Than Your Address.
MAILMAN: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home, by Stephen Starring Grant The worst thing about delivering the mail, Stephen Starring Grant says in 'Mailman,' his warm and oddly patriotic new book about being a rural carrier in Virginia for a year during Covid, isn't dogs, although some 5,000 carriers are attacked each year and a few die each decade. To fend them off, postal workers learn to carry multiple cans of Halt! dog training, they're told to take nothing for granted: 'Spray it till the can goes dry. Get them in the T zone: eyes and nose, eyes and nose.' The worst thing isn't the seething bees and wasps (also spiders) that lurk in neglected mailboxes. It isn't the awkward and painful stretching required to drive stock vehicles from the passenger seat, which one must do when, as often happens, a rural carrier supplies his or her own car. It isn't how heavily armed people are now, so that there is a 'continuous nonzero chance of someone shooting you.' It isn't rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail nor extreme heat in un-air-conditioned postal trucks. It isn't the 69-pound packages (the U.S.P.S. declines anything over 70). It isn't the high injury rate, especially for rotator cuffs. The worst thing about delivering mail is the 'casing' that's required before you head out each morning. To case the mail is to painstakingly set everything (envelopes, boxes, magazines, postcards, parcels, you name it) in order, so that you can easily retrieve it while on the road. 'The fact is that every day, each letter carrier effectively builds a library, loads it into a truck and then disperses that library in route order,' Grant writes. Casing takes patience. Many rubber bands are involved. It's a hassle. Doing it poorly can add misery and hours to your day. Grant found himself grudgingly delivering the mail in middle age (he was 50) because he'd lost his job as a marketing consultant. He had a wife, two teenage daughters and a tiny but worrisome nugget of prostate cancer. He needed the job for health insurance and to ward off the biggest dog, depression. Several years earlier, he'd moved his family from Brooklyn back to his hometown, Blacksburg, Va., in the Blue Ridge Mountains, so that his children would grow up with grass under their feet. Until he was laid off, he still commuted regularly to New York and other major cities. Delivering the mail was harder on Grant, physically and mentally, than he'd expected, he tells us in 'Mailman.' But he offers insight and cheer about the upsides. He liked being able to check in on lonely people and do good turns. He often felt he delivered something more than just the mail: 'Continuity. Safety. Normalcy. Companionship. Civilization. You know, the stuff that a government is supposed to do for its people.' He enjoyed the rich pageant of offbeat products that flowed through his truck. 'If you think your carrier doesn't notice when you order a sex toy,' he writes, 'you're wrong.' He liked the days when orders of baby chicks came in, though delivering the heavy bags of chicken feed that followed was a bummer. People gave him cookies; he often got free coffee at Starbucks. He got a lot of steps in, often 15,000 a day. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Verge
3 days ago
- General
- The Verge
The tech that the US Post Office gave us
When you crack open your mailbox, it's almost as if your letters just appear. Long before the days of speedy, overnight mail deliveries, postal service workers meticulously sorted through letters by hand and transported mail on horseback. For more than 250 years, the US Postal Service has worked behind the scenes to build a faster delivery network, and this mission has quietly pushed it to the forefront of technology. 'Most people treat the Postal Service like a black box,' USPS spokesperson Jim McKean tells The Verge. 'You take your letter, you put it in a mailbox, and then it shows up somewhere in a couple of days. The truth is that that piece of mail gets touched by a lot of people and machines and transported in that period of time — it's a modern marvel.' One of its big breakthroughs took place in 1918 with the introduction of airmail. The USPS worked with the Army Signal Corps to use leftover World War I aircraft to launch the service, and the planes were as barebones as they could get. An excerpt from a 1968 issue of Postal Life called the early aircraft 'a nervous collection of whistling wires' with 'linen stretched over wooden ribs, all attached to a wheezy, water-cooled engine.' At the time, pilots literally risked their lives delivering mail — 34 of them died between 1918 and 1927. 'There was no commercial aviation, no airports. There was no radio. There was no navigation,' USPS historian Stephen Kochersperger says. 'The Postal Service had to develop all of those things just for getting the mail delivered.' Once the USPS established that it could reliably deliver mail by plane, Congress allowed it to contract airmail service to commercial aviation companies, laying the groundwork for the major airlines that we know today, like American Airlines and United Airlines. Along with getting paid for delivering mail, contractors found that they could make even more money by carrying passengers with their cargo. 'That was where commercial aviation took off,' Kochersperger says. Airmail routes gradually began to expand internationally, first to Canada and then to Cuba. But a couple decades later, the USPS experimented with a novel form of delivery: mail-by-missile. In 1959, the USPS and the US Navy loaded a Regulus I missile with two mail containers that had 3,000 letters in total. The missile traveled 100 miles in around 23 minutes, successfully landing at a Navy base in Mayport, Florida, with the help of a parachute. Despite its success, the idea never took off. It turns out missiles just can't carry that much mail. And overall, this rather ridiculous demonstration was more of a stunt to show force during the Cold War, according to the Smithsonian. Back on the ground, the USPS set its sights on improving the speed of mail processing. Though it began experimenting with a mail canceling machine in the 1920s, which put a mark on used postage, it wasn't until the 1950s that it deployed an electromechanical sorting machine. Instead of manually sorting mail using the 'pigeonhole' method, in which workers would insert pieces of mail into different compartments inside the post office depending on the address, the machine could do that for them. 'The Postal Service is a driver of technological change.' The Transorma multi-position letter sorting machine measured 13 feet high and was split across two levels. It carried mail on a conveyor belt from its lower level to a group of five postal workers at the upper level. The clerks would then use a keyboard to enter information about their destination. Based on the inputted information, the machine would then transport letters to different trays and drop them into chutes that brought them back to the lower level. But as the volume of mail increased in the years after World War II — going from 33 billion pieces of mail per year to 66.5 billion between 1943 and 1962 — the USPS needed a way to keep up. For years, the USPS had depended on clerks to memorize dozens of delivery schemes that they would use to sort letters, preparing them for carriers to distribute throughout town. 'That changed dramatically in 1963, [with] probably the biggest innovation the Postal Service has ever rolled out, called the ZIP code,' Kochersperger says. 'For the first time, mailing lists could be digitized in computers and sorted in new ways.' The ZIP code — short for Zone Improvement Plan — uses its first digit to indicate which region of the US a parcel is headed, the second and third to signal a nearby major city, and the final two to indicate a specific delivery area. The pace of innovation at the USPS ramped up following the introduction of the ZIP code, with many subsequent innovations building on its foundation. That includes the USPS's adoption of optical character recognition (OCR), a widely used technology that converts written or printed words into machine-readable text. In 1965, the USPS began to send large volumes of mail through OCR machines, allowing a 'digital eye' to recognize addresses and automatically sort letters. If the machine couldn't make out a person's handwriting, the USPS would send an image to a remote encoding center (REC) for human review. At one point, the USPS had as many as 55 RECs, but now only one remains in Salt Lake City, Utah. 'As our computer systems have gotten better at recognizing handwriting, we've gotten to the point where it's significantly reduced the number of letters that have to go to remote coding,' McKean says. Today, the USPS's OCR technology can read handwritten mail at nearly 98 percent accuracy, while machine-printed addresses bump its accuracy to 99.5 percent. That's thanks to advances in machine learning, which the USPS, too, has been using in the background for more than 20 years; it first started using a handwriting recognition tool in 1999. The USPS is currently in the middle of a 10-year modernization plan, which includes investments in technology, such as AI. However, the plan has faced criticism for raising the price of stamps and causing service disruptions in some areas. 'The Postal Service is a driver of technological change,' McKean says. 'It's hard to overstate the amount of technology that the Postal Service has been involved in either popularizing or innovating over the last 250 years.'
BreakingNews.ie
6 days ago
- Business
- BreakingNews.ie
Taoiseach expresses ‘full confidence' in An Post
The Taoiseach has expressed 'full confidence' in An Post, adding that Cabinet has had no discussion about the organisation 'being on the brink'. It comes after reports claimed that Arts Minister Patrick O'Donovan told Cabinet colleagues that the postal service would have seen a 'substantial loss' last year without revenue generated by general and European election post. Advertisement An Post chief executive David McRedmond described the reports as 'utter garbage' and said the company is 'performing extremely well'. An Post chief executive David McRedmond (Niall Carson/PA) On Wednesday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin expressed confidence in Mr McRedmond and the board of An Post. Mr Martin said he could understand the chief executive's 'anger and annoyance' over the reports on the company's accounts, adding: 'What happened was wrong.' He told reporters: 'I'm not apportioning blame anywhere, I simply do not know.' Advertisement However, he said: 'There was no discussion about An Post being on the brink or anything like that. 'The company turned a profit last year and had improved its situation significantly from the previous year.' Mr Martin described An Post as a 'very effective company' that under Mr McRedmond's leadership had 'adapted very well to changing trends' in mail, postage and packages. He told reporters: 'In terms of the core business, the company has been very resilient in the face of fairly fundamental change of behaviour. Advertisement 'There will be challenges ahead, and (the) importance is to be able to identify changing behaviours and changing trends, and then position the company to deal with that.' Mr Martin said the overall picture for the company was 'better this year than last year'. Earlier, Mr O'Donovan said he is confident about the future of An Post, describing the company as 'viable and profitable'. Arts Minister Patrick O'Donovan (Niall Carson/PA) Mr O'Donovan presented the postal service's annual report to Cabinet on Tuesday. Advertisement Following claims that An Post is in a 'dire financial situation', Mr O'Donovan said that the postal service has been transformed in recent years under the leadership of Mr McRedmond. Mr O'Donovan said: 'The issue here is quite actually extraordinary. A set of accounts was brought forward by me yesterday to the Cabinet meeting, and I'm not going to breach Cabinet confidentialities because I'm constitutionally prevented from doing that, as is everybody else. 'But obviously somebody decided that that wasn't going to be the case.' Mr O'Donovan told RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne programme that An Post has returned to profit following some challenging years. Advertisement 'One of the things that has been conflated as well in some of the media reports, which isn't helpful either, and I think David McRedmond set the record straight, as people are conflating An Post with the independent postmasters. 'To be quite honest about it, it is showing, particularly from some politicians, a lack of understanding of what An Post is and a lack of understanding of what an independent contractor who works for An Post is.' Mr O'Donovan added: 'But how would a nameless minister or alleged nameless minister or source or whatever, would conflate that into saying that the situation is dire. I don't know how they would come up with that.' Speaking to RTÉ Radio 1, Mr McRedmond said he was 'absolutely furious' by the claims. 'That report is utter garbage. I'm here in Italy, on my holidays, I'm absolutely furious to read something like that,' he said. 'The company presented its results. The results were presented to Cabinet yesterday. They showed the highest revenue we've ever had, over a billion revenues for the first time. 'They showed that we grew our earnings from €38 million to €55 million. 'They showed that our net profit was at 10 million. The company is performing extremely well. 'We've got the highest level of parcel growth of any postal operation in Europe. So I just don't understand it.' He rejected claims that without profits generated from last year's general and European elections, it would have made a substantial loss. 'It's just simply not true, and it's not how companies work. Yes, we got a big boost in the elections last year, but if it wasn't the elections, it would be something else, and with the elections, we've huge costs with them,' he added. 'It was irresponsible leak from a Government minister, which is wholly unacceptable. 'These are not the actions of a responsible shareholder. The company is doing really well.' He also rejected claims that cash reserves have fallen below one million euros. 'We have at the end of the year with 38 million cash reserves, and this year, so far this year, we are performing well ahead of our budget, and our budget for this year is to beat last year. 'I'm talking to Government about it. I hope there's just some big misunderstanding somewhere, and the company, as I say, is doing really well.'
Irish Times
6 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
An Post boss ‘furious' at ‘irresponsible leak' about company's finances
An Post chief executive David McRedmond has expressed his fury at what he described as the 'irresponsible leak' by 'a Government Minister' into the finances of the company. Media reports had said that the Cabinet was briefed on Tuesday on the bleak financial realities facing the State's postal service. The Cabinet was told that without the significant once-off revenue generated from election-related posts last year when general, local and European elections were held, the organisation would have made a substantial loss. That was 'simply not true', Mr McRedmond told RTÉ radio's Morning Ireland. READ MORE 'It was an irresponsible leak from a Government Minister, which is wholly unacceptable. These are not the actions of a responsible shareholder. The company is doing really well. ' I'm absolutely furious to read something like that. The company presented its results, the results were presented to Cabinet yesterday. They showed the highest revenue we've ever had, over a billion in revenues for the first time. 'They showed that we grew our earnings from €38 million to €55 million. They showed our net profit was at €10 million. The company is performing extremely well. We've got the highest level of parcel growth of any postal operator in Europe. So I just don't understand it.' Mr McRedmond acknowledged that An Post had received a boost from the elections last year but said that if it had not been the elections 'it would be something else'. 'Yes, we want more cash because we're growing so fast, because we're growing in commercial parcel markets. We used to get paid for everything up front when people buy stamps. We're now in a commercial parcel market. 'We get paid on 60 or 90 days credit. We are constantly growing. So we need more working capital. We talked to Government about that, but this is all coming from a position of strength. 'The thing that annoyed me about the report is it talks about a report from New Era, a report from somewhere. They're all just reports of reports. I have audited accounts. It's a wholly different level of a wholly different standard.' Mr McRedmond also denied a claim that An Post's cash reserves had fallen to below €1 million. 'That's untrue. So our cash reserves we have at the end of the year, we have €38 million cash reserves. And so far this year we are performing well ahead of our budget, and our budget for this year is to beat last year. So I just don't understand this. I don't know or understand what the purpose of it is. I don't understand why they'd want to say these things.' Mr McRedmond said he had two concerns: the 10,000 employees of An Post reading a negative 'article this morning when the company that they worked really hard for is doing really well, and they've been so disrespected by this. Nobody's thanked them for what they did during Covid, it's so disrespectful. 'And the other is our customers, because we have big global commercial customers. And if they read this morning that An Post is on the brink. They're going to think, well, maybe we should go with someone else. So it's reckless in the extreme. 'I'm talking to Government advisers. I hope there's just some big misunderstanding somewhere. And the company, as I say, is doing really well. Yes, I am very clear that we say we want our borrowing cap lifted, which was put in place in 1984 – so it's way out of date. 'And we need greater flexibility on our working capital. We need some things like that. We want Government to approve certain changes to regulations. These are normal conversations, coming from a position where the company has had one of its best years. 'We have no plan to close post offices. None. No plan. We occasionally relocate or we do something. Very occasionally, post offices will close because somebody retires and we can't get somebody to replace them. But the post office network is doing well. And it will continue to do well, but quite rightly postmasters are saying to Government, 'you want us to do more Government services, pay us for them, pay us an economic rate for them.' And we support them in that. But no, there's no threat.'
Wall Street Journal
11-07-2025
- General
- Wall Street Journal
Anna Mae Robertson, Member of WWII's ‘Six Triple Eight' Unit, Dies at 101
In April, House Speaker Mike Johnson presided over a ceremony at the Capitol to award the Congressional Gold Medal to one of the most idiosyncratic and industrious units that served America during World War II. The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, nicknamed 'the Six Triple Eight,' was composed of 855 Black women, the only Women's Army Corps unit of Black women deployed overseas during the war. The 6888th was sent to England in 1945 to clear a monstrous backlog of undelivered mail for American service members: some 17 million individual pieces of mail, many of them incompletely addressed, which had piled up in a forbidding shambles for roughly three years, effectively cutting off troops from their loved ones back home.
