Hollywood’s Take on the Postal Service
It takes a lot of digging to find a positive Hollywood portrayal of postal employees. From Cheers’ Cliff Clavin to Seinfeld’s Newman, TV and the movies have not always portrayed postal employees in the most favorable light. Even Mr. Rogers’ postman sidekick, Mr. McFeeley, was seldom seen actually delivering any mail. “Going postal” was coined and seemed to be a recurring Hollywood theme in the 1990’s, when the movie mills cranked out “Jingle All The Way,” with Sinbad playing a crazed letter carrier, and “Postal Worker”, which portrayed the entire agency as a simmering pot of twisted individuals. And who can forget, “Zarkorr! The Invader,” the Godzilla rip-off, where a Newark postal worker was tasked with fighting this monster — almost as bad as facing a full set of circs (flyers) on a Tuesday after a Monday holiday. What’s at stake? If he fails, the world will be destroyed.
Read MoreThe OIG Wants to Know How You Feel about Sick Leave
Career employees earn 4 hours of sick leave for a full pay period (80 hours), or at a rate of 5 percent. Some career employees are currently taking sick leave at approximately the same rate, liquidating their leave bank. The Postal Service’s sick leave absence rate (absenteeism) was 4.3 percent in 2008. This seems high compared to the 1.1 percent rate the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports for employees in the private sector and 1.7 percent rate for employees in the federal sector. So why was the Postal Service’s rate higher? A 2007 private sector survey by CCH Incorporated indicates two thirds (66 percent) of U.S. workers who take unscheduled sick leave do so for reasons other than physical illness, such as personal and/or family issues, stress, or entitlement. Is the Postal Service’s sick leave rate higher because employees call in sick for reasons other than physical illness?
Read MoreFERS Flu: A Looming Epidemic?
The federal government has two main retirement systems. Most employees hired since 1983 fall under the Federal Employees’ Retirement System, known as FERS. Unlike their counterparts under the old system called CSRS (Civil Service Retirement System), FERS employees do not receive any service credit for their unused sick leave upon retirement. As a result, there are concerns that some FERS employees may try to use up as much of their sick leave balance as they can prior to retirement — a practice often called the “FERS Flu.” Because FERS employees are expected to comprise almost the entire federal and Postal Service workforce by 2014, a widespread outbreak of the FERS Flu could have serious consequences.
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