The Death of DOIS? - Or: Better Uses for the Bomb

By Mel Carriere

I wrote this on August 6th, which probably quite by coincidence happens to be significant for two reasons.  The first of these is that August 6th, 2015, is the 70th anniversary of the day the US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.  I don't want to get overly political here, I guess there is no use crying over spilled milk, especially if you are not Japanese.  It seems to me, however, that even though Harry thought he was doing the right thing when he lit that big candle, I think there were better uses they could have put the "Little Boy" to than laying waste to this coastal city on the Seto Sea; but I guess the fat cats wanted to get the biggest bang for their buck.  One idea would have been to drop it over Tokyo Bay for pure shock and awe effect.  Or perhaps they might have picked a remote military target to minimize civilian casualties.  Better yet, they could have saved it to drop on Eagan Minnesota, to take out the DOIS mainframe there before that postal destroying cancer could metastasize and spread its evil tentacles.

Turns out they might spare Eagan and the DOIS facility the 20 kiloton radiation treatment, because the second significant event I heard about today was that DOIS might be on its way out on its own, the powers that be finally admitting defeat and recognizing that DOIS, unlike Little Boy, did not give them the bang for the buck they were dreaming of when they dropped this nasty monstrosity onto the once pristine, pastoral prairies of the Gopher State south of St. Paul.  The shock and awe management expected from their DOIS bomb did not materialize, although the fallout from the Postal blast reverberated around the country and inflicted many unfortunate casualties among carriers that were displaced or reduced to PTF.

I received this tidbit about the demise of DOIS from a Union officer who dropped by my case today and asked me how I was doing.  You know me, I never complain about anything, so I told him I was doing just fine, that nobody had bitch slapped me with a copy of the violated contract lately. I suppose he could see the long shadow of my broken down Honda Civic on my face, however, and took that to mean that I really wasn't doing so hot and needed something to cheer me up.  So quite without my prompting, he gave me the heartening news that postal management is recognizing that DOIS is not giving them the accurate information they need to evaluate routes, so that when they actually go out and do walk routes they are coming back with despondent faces, because the numbers that the DOIS machine has been pumping up their already swelled heads with don't match reality.  He didn't actually say it like that, I threw in those colorful descriptive terms on my own, but that was the essence of the DOIS part of the conversation.

Furthermore, it turns out that the route adjustments they have done throughout our peaceful little seaside burg of San Diego are resulting in adding routes, not eliminating them, like they assumed would happen while they were drooling over the overly optimistic DOIS projections that the computer spits out from the foul innards of a mother board that is as warped as the heads on my Honda engine.  He said don't be surprised if they don't do the "you say toe-may-to, I say toe-mah-to" routine and call the whole thing off; and this would not surprise me at all. I think abandoning bad adjustments has been done a lot lately, my evidence being that we haven't had any new ones in at least four years, maybe longer.

The NALC Rep told me that parcel volume seems to be the annoying fly buzzing around the server room and throwing the data off.  Try as it does, the challenged little DOIS choo-choo that couldn't just can't huff and puff and sputter its way up to the summit of the lofty parcel peak carriers climb every day as a matter of routine.  Meanwhile, the brain trust sits in the mahogany lined chambers at L'enfant plaza scratching at their straining skulls and coming to the conclusion, albeit reluctantly, that perhaps the parcels don't deliver themselves after all, like DOIS says they do.

Although the potential death of DOIS is encouraging news, the toxic DOIS mushroom cloud still billows above us and I don't think it is safe to take our radiation suits off just yet.  If there is anything I have learned after 22 years in this organization it is that there are a lot of stubborn people making decisions in high places who will stick to their bad ideas and their bad programs long after they have been absolutely proven not to work.  So let's not declare VE (Victory in Eagan) day just yet, although as a former sailor I wouldn't mind putting on my cracker jacks again (they don't fit), and kissing a cute nurse in the street.

 

For Your Friends Contemplating RCA or CCA - Which Postal Poison Pill Should You Swallow

 The Postal Tsunami gains its coastal destroying power with copious amounts of Starbuck's coffee,  which is not cheap.  Unless they completely annoy or offend you, please take a look at what my blog sponsors on this page have to say.  I have removed Amazon.


Image is attributed to:  "Atomic bombing of Japan" by Nagasakibomb.jpg: The picture was taken by Charles Levy from one of the B-29 Superfortresses used in the attack.Atomic_cloud_over_Hiroshima.jpg: Personel aboard Necessary Evilderivative work: Binksternet (talk) - Nagasakibomb.jpgAtomic_cloud_over_Hiroshima.jpg. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atomic_bombing_of_Japan.jpg#/media/File:Atomic_bombing_of_Japan.jpg

Image of sailor kissing nurse from:   http://www.news.com.au/world/its-been-a-long-time-coming-marissa-gaeta-and-citlalic-snell-share-us-navys-coveted-first-same-sex-kiss/story-e6frfkyi-1226228219550