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The daily miracle

Postal Service delivers under tough conditions, columnist writes

USPS employees get the job done, a Chicago Tribune columnist writes.

The Postal Service “does the impossible daily,” Chicago Tribune columnist Phil Rosenthal wrote in a Jan. 18 “love letter” to USPS.

“Our mail delivery system is a miracle, yet too many of us take it for granted,” Rosenthal wrote.

“It is better at what it does than most of us, operating under conditions and constraints that would have most of us … waving a white flag.”

USPS delivered 155.4 billion letters and packages to 153.9 million addresses last year, Rosenthal wrote.

More than 485,000 full-time and 130,000 part-time employees cover almost 4 million miles a day — with 7,500 letter carriers who make deliveries by foot.

Postal employees are “the ones out there every day, no matter how hot or cold, in dry weather and wet, getting it done,” Rosenthal wrote.

The columnist also pointed to the “unmatched and unmatchable” USPS network, which UPS and FedEx rely on to deliver more than 470 million ground packages each year.

“USPS simply goes places not commercially viable for others to go.”

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