Strange and profound truths

By Carolyn Pierce, President

Your Leave year...

Remember our pay year and leave year do not usually correspond.  Rarely does a pay period begin in the first of a year.  In 2006 our pay year begins on December 24, 2005 and our first check of 2006 will be received on January 13, 2006.

Our leave year begins on the first day of the first pay period that is totally in 2006.  The first day that a full-time regular may use new annual leave that is given to them in 2006 will be January 7, 2006 but it will not show up on your paycheck until January 27th.

January 7th will be the first day that you can use covered (new) 80 hours of sick leave for dependent care and FMLA designated absences.  If you already used the 480 hours of your FMLA absences before January 7, 2006 and you are out of FMLA coverage from 2005, you will need to wait until January 7th before your FMLA protection begins.  Remember, FMLA hours do not carry over from year to year, nor does dependent care hours.  However, annual leave and sick leave DO carry over from year to year.

Wilma...the Woman

It's been about 2 weeks since I met Wilma.  I usually get along well with other people...but not this woman.  In a catfight, a Southern phrase about women fighting, she would have scratched my eyes out.  Was I prepared individually?  Was the Postal Service prepared?  Were you prepared?  Let's follow this journey and reminisce.

I've been in south Florida since 1974.  I'm used to hurricane seasons.  Year after year the wave of weather moves off the Africa coast.  We watch, we talk about this one or that one and we wait.  Wilma was a little different.  She was real sneaky.  She slid under Cuba and no one really paid much attention.  We smugly decided it would "go up" in to the Gulf.  We collectively felt so sorry for those poor people along the Gulf coast.  The television coverage would be great since Hurricane Katrina devastated the area just last month.  Good scare TV about hurricane damage is good therapy for us in South Florida...to keep us prepared...

I have a friend who lives in Cancun, Mexico.  I called him to tell him to take cover from the storm and we laughed since he had just flown to Miami to be out of harms way. 

Starting in June of every year, we are hammered with hurricane preparation by the news media.  We must have enough food, water and ice on hand to survive 3 days; fill up the car with gas, secure your some, get cash from the ATM, have a phone at home that does not need electricity to work, and God forbid, know where a shelter is in your area.  The Postal Service explains that hurricane plan to us every year...no one listens.

Wilma's path looped toward South Florida.  The television stations had been in their "YOU'RE GOING TO DIE" mode for about 4 days already... and no one listened.  The Postal Service closed down at the last minute.  I commend the South Florida Cluster (management) for closing since a few years ago we would have been told to report to work anyway.  The local union would have been buried with discipline on employees who chose to stay home and protect life and limb.

On Monday October 24th she knocked on my door.  What me worry?  She's only a Category 2 storm, 100 miles per hour or so and she had walked across the Everglades already.  Hurricane Andrew...now that was a storm.  Still not too many listened.  I called my friends.  Thank God for this cheap $5 phone.  No one has power.  I call my family "up north"...what storm they tell me.  No one is listening.  The roof tiles are rattling like the old men playing dominoes in the park on Sunday.  I forgot to buy ice for the cooler and the freezer is not packed.  Horrible sounds hit the house.

Wilma screams like a mad woman.  I can relate.  I realize from the radio that "the" woman has engulfed all of South Florida.  The small battery TV says that a calmer "eye of the storm" is approaching.  I never see it or hear it.   The sound doesn't change.  The backside of this woman is a killer.  The doors and windows start to breathe in and out.  This she-devil is trying to kill us.  I pray and listen.

What were you thinking?  Remember...

All of us have after-Wilma stories.  Our neighborhoods look like war zones.  We had 3.3 million people without power and most have no power.  Thirty-eight people have died as a result of this woman.  Most of us returned to work in a couple of days with flashlights in hand we hugged and were genuinely glad to see each other.

The Postal Service succeeded in some arrears and failed in others, just like we did in our homes.  At the beginning, the employee, line supervisor, and managers brought their own precious food and water from home or there would not have been any at work.  Later some offices were buried with water, ice, and MRE meals and some had none.  It's been two weeks and some offices still have not received any provisions.  A few ego lacking people take credit for doing a great job for the Postal Service.  Actually, the individual villages or offices are the ones to be commended.  

Whoever signed the contract to install the "electric-eye flushable toilets" in the plants should be fired.  No electricity, no flush and heaven forbid we let the employees go home.  Who cares, there is no power at home anyway.

The media was right...3 days of hurricane supplies on hand is a must.  But what do you do after 3 days.  At least we met new people in the lines.  One bright point...we had a lot of gas, just no way to pump it without power.

I could not understand why our friends and family "up north" were not panic stricken at our situation.  I soon realized that the Harriet Miers Supreme Court saga bumped us right off the national evening news.  If Hurricane Katrina had not been fresh in everyone's minds maybe we would have gotten more attention...after all we needed someone to feel sorry for us besides ourselves.

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Last modified: July 13, 2007