Word: postally
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Once dependable only as an endless source of jokes, the U.S. Postal Service has just delivered its third straight year of billion-dollar profits. The service, shorn of government subsidies in 1982 to make it more competitive, hauls 630 million pieces of mail a day through snow, rain, heat and gloom of night with a savvy that has raised its on-time rate for first-class letters to a reliable 92%. Polls show that the Postal Service is rising steadily in the public's esteem. "The more a federal agency has to compete in the market, the more likely...
...very forces that compelled the Postal Service (fiscal 1997 revenues: $58.3 billion) to get market religion are threatening to bury it. Electronic mail is zapping first-class deliveries, the system's most profitable service, and could replace 25% of "snail mail" by 2000. At the same time, post office technology continues to lag far behind that of document and parcel movers like Federal Express and United Parcel Service, which can electronically track items through every stage of their journey. UPS alone delivers more than 80% of all packages shipped...
...fighting back, U.S. Postmaster General Marvin Runyon has gone to war with everyone from FedEx to members of Congress to some of the postal service's nearly 800,000 employees. Runyon has to improve technology--he envisions robots sorting the mail in the service's 360 mail-processing plants--cut costs more, expand service and somehow make peace with the country's largest work force. It will not be easy. Rivals say Runyon can use revenues from first-class service, in which he has a monopoly, to underprice competitors in such areas as parcel delivery. Sympathetic lawmakers have responded...
...that such a feat is impossible. Despite the relentless derision it suffers at the hands of the media, the United States Postal Service is, from a historical perspective, perhaps the best and certainly the oldest evidence of the success of the United States government. Before 1865, the post office was the only real federal presence felt in most states of the Union. So if you're casting about for the primeval symbol of a unified American republic, look no further than your own mailbox...
...actor to ask it. His Postman is supposed to be a traveling actor (the first of many ironies) who uses his charm and chutzpah to snowball the entire American West into believing that a new government has been created (in Minneapolis, of all places) and that postal routes are being reestablished all over the country. Costner, however, is so devoid of charisma and conviction that you wonder why anyone would believe in him. If he ever makes a movie about Santa Claus and casts himself in the lead, thousands of children across the nation will cry themselves to sleep...