I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more desperate, pathetic hiring campaign than the one happening right now at the Montpelier post office. There are posters and flyers on every available wall, door, fixture, and column, plus a small stack on the service counter. The vast majority are black-and-white photocopies, so they’re obviously sparing every possible expense. There’s also one sad little bunch of slowly deflating helium balloons sitting off in a corner, communicating the exact opposite of gaiety and celebration.

It’s almost as if nobody with any options wants to work for a deeply troubled entity with terrible working conditions, a management focused entirely on cost-cutting, and a chief executive who just issued a warning that the enterprise is running out of money. All under a president who, at best, doesn’t give a damn, and at worst is actively undermining the operation in order to wreak havoc with mail-in balloting.

Yeah, if I were looking for work, I might opt for convenience store clerk (or trash hauler, see below) over mail carrier. Which is a damn shame, considering that the Postal Service used to be a haven of reliable, rewarding blue-collar employment.

The desperation of the hiring effort is reflected in the quality of service being delivered — or not being delivered — in my neck of the woods. The mail carrier on our route resigned about a month ago. On her last day, she told a neighbor that she’d been working 70 hours a week and couldn’t take it anymore. She also said there was no one in line to replace her, and we should expect to get deliveries once a week or so.

Neat. It wasn’t too many years ago that a USPS plan to end Saturday deliveries sparked so much outrage in Congress that it was quickly abandoned. Now, once a week? Maybe? Indefinitely? Forever? The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves?

I’ll pause for a moment to point out that the brains of the outfit, Postmaster General David Steiner, made his bones in the trash-hauling business as CEO of Waste Management. He was Trump’s pick for the job, so naturally the Postal Service board of governors rolled over and begged for a belly rub. Trump’s half-assed endorsement: “Nobody has ever delivered the mail like Steiner.”

Jokes accepted in the comments.

About a week later I visited the Montpelier P.O. to mail a couple of packages, hopefully not to an undisclosed landfill. (There’s my joke.) I spoke briefly with the guy behind the desk, who said that they’d had a bunch of retirements lately and were trying to replenish the ranks. And he sadly acknowledged that deliveries would be sporadic until more people are hired. Which, from the looks of things, is possibly never.

The service has been as terrible as expected. We’re probably averaging a delivery every five days, but none have been complete. My measuring stick is our subscription to the Barre Montpelier Times Argus, delivered by mail. (I know, I’m old.) We usually get about half of the papers published since the last delivery. I suspect there’s a growing mountain of unsorted mail in the obscure USPS facility that occupies a ton of square footage in the under-tenanted Berlin Mall Central Vermont Marketplace. (Gee, Postal Service and a shopping mall. Match made in heaven!)

My suspicion is that USPS has been consolidating routes, especially in rural areas. That would explain why carriers are being worked to the bone, with the predictable effect on employee retention.

And this is before the USPS faces a financial crisis.

I will acknowledge that the Good Old Days are long gone. There’s so much less mail volume these days that USPS would require a thorough reinvention even under the best, most dedicated management. But do I trust Trump, his appointee, or a Republican Congress to do the right thing? Hell, no. I expect either an incompetent botch or a willful mercy killing with the scraps hoovered up by UPS and FedEx.

Not for nothing, this is yet another example of Trump policies taking a bite out of his own base, rural voters likely to be hit with infrequent and unreliable mail service. And yet most of ’em aren’t batting an eye. I guess as long as they own the libs, it’s okay if their mail-order medications rot away in an understaffed sorting center.

I understand this is way down the list of Trump-related crises, far below the Iran war, the anti-immigrant crackdown, the push to make global warming even worse, the outrageous corruption, the anti-trans nonsense, Markwayne Mullin, and several dozen other things. But USPS’ future is of vital interest to every single American, and I can’t say I’m optimistic about it under this administration.