It was nothing short of jarring to read this beginning to a recent article in The Washington Post: "The U.S. Postal Service, expecting about $9 billion in losses this year amid slumping mail volume, still is paying thousands of its workers millions of dollars each year to do nothing."
Of course, the Postal Service doesn't actually say those workers are "doing nothing." It says they're on "standby time."
And what does all of that "standby time" look like? Well, we'll defer once again to the description provided by The Washington Post: If equipment is broken or there's just not enough mail to occupy workers' time, "[S]ome idled employees report for work and are instructed to sit in a break room or cafeteria and do nothing."
Just how much "nothing" do they do? "Standby time totaled 170,666 hours in the first six months of 2011 ...," the newspaper reported.
And why is the Postal Service keeping employees whom it plainly doesn't need? Bizarre union work rules and bureaucracy prevent the agency from laying off or transferring employees despite a lack of work.
Changing those ridiculous work rules obviously would not solve all of the Postal Service's financial problems -- particularly in a time when a great many people are simply using traditional mail far less than they used to.
But it would be a start.