It’s one of those things that is usually hidden in plain sight. You see it, but rarely give it a thought. It has probably made you very angry at times, and made you weep for joy at others. So what is it?

It has more people in uniform than Brazil, which has the biggest military in South America.

On any given day, it has more people out sick or on vacation than the population of Liechtenstein or Monaco. Google that!

It has more vehicles than some industrialized countries.

You deal with it almost very day at home and work.

It has more people than Wyoming.

At one time in your life you almost certainly licked it.

It’s America’s last vestige to make house calls.

So what is it?

Is it:

• The Blob.

• Indonesia.

• The U.S. Postal Service.

If you guessed the USPS you are a winner.

Despite a decade of personnel downsizing, volume continues to increase. Despite competition from FedEx, UPS and other delivery services — who have the right to refuse to deliver a package to certain places — the USPS keeps rolling along. Unlike other delivery services, the USPS will deliver a letter from the U.S. Virgin Islands to the bottom of the Grand Canyon by mule back no less, or even to Nome, Alaska and forward it for free to Guam, for the same price — 47 cents — as moving a letter from Arlington, Virginia, to Bethesda, Maryland. Maybe our troubled Metro subway system should study how the USPS does it!

So, the USPS is big. So how big is it?

It has 493,000 career employees and 131,700 who are non-career. It operates 31,606 (as of yesterday) retail offices.

Although snail mail has been replaced by texting and email for some people, first class mail still brought in $28.3 billion (with a “B”) last year.

If the USPS were a private company it would be number 43 in the Fortune 500.

With just over 214,000 vehicles it has one of the largest civilian — or military — fleets in the world.

Because of its 24/7 factory-type operations, the USPS has its fair share of accidents. That includes traffic incidents as well as 6,000 serious-enough-to-be reported dog bites each year. In many cases the attacks, which can be very, very serious, were made by dogs “who never bit anyone before.” Right!

The Postal Services processes and delivers 47 percent of the world’s mail.

Along with the Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security departments and the Pentagon, the Postal Service has one of the highest percentages of military veterans. More than 113,000 employees served in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps or Coast Guard.

The Postal Service is also self-funding. It says, “The USPS receives NO tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.”

Because it is one of the largest, yet most autonomous federal operations, the USPS is often a target of people who want to “reform” it. “Reform” is a favorite word in political Washington. It is applied to lots of proposals, even where the entity to be “reformed” might find itself folded, stapled or mutilated in the process. In the past there have been proposals to set up a USPS-only health plan.

While their jobs are often different from the regular civil service, postal employees are under either the FERS or CSRS offset retirement plans. They have the same Thrift Savings Plan options as their colleagues in the IRS, Interior or the Pentagon. They earn the same amount of annual leave and have the same number of sick leave days.

About those Forever stamps: Those of us who still write letters and sometimes pay bills by mail have been delighted by the wide variety of Forever stamps that will carry a first-class letter now and in the future no matter what you paid for the stamp, or what postage rates are down the road. But recently the unthinkable happened. The price of the Forever stamps dropped from 49 cents to 47 cents. Great, right?

Not necessarily, according to lots of people inside the USPS who need to make money so they can continue to carry nearly half the world’s mail. The price cut could produce a revenue loss of $2 billion, and that could impact you. So how’s it going to work, and what’s next?

Today at 10 a.m. EDT on our Your Turn radio show we’ll talk to Katie Maddocks, and Bruce Moyer from the National Association of Postal Supervisors. NAPS represents the first line supervisors, the sergeants that keep the giant civilian army going. They are going to talk about the downside — to employees, businesses and you — of the less expensive Forever stamp. They will also talk about pending postal reform bills that could produce dramatic changes in the people-side of the USPS. Listen if you can (FederalNewsRadio.com or in the D.C. area on 1500 AM. If you have questions, send them to me — before showtime — at mcausey@federalnewsradio.com.

Even if you don’t work for the USPS, this show is definitely for and about you too!

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michael O’Connell

The actual Blob, the monster from the 1958 movie of the same name, was made out of silicone and red dye and is still kept in the 5-gallon pail Union Carbide used to ship it to the film’s producers.

Source: IMDB

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