Aaron, I've been told that the USPS has to fund pensions for employees they don't have yet and maybe even employees they may never have, since it seems that reducing staff is inevitable. This is an obligation no one else has. Obviously, it puts financial pressure on the system. Given the constraints, it's amazing they do as well as they do.

Your complaints are familiar to me. I've noticed that the culture at certain post offices is entirely dysfunctional. At other post offices, it's partly dysfunctional. And at some, it's stellar. It's a gigantic system, so it's not uniform.