$10,000 Padlock: Go Post Office.

I was watching the evening news the other day because I was feeling too optimistic.  The lead story was on a “brazen daylight robbery” of a U.S. Postal Service truck.  I immediately thought to myself, what would some fool want with a bunch of junk mail?  After all, that’s the Post Office delivers to my house. 

Then I started to imagine the frightened postal worker who was robbed.  As the story unfolded, it turned out that the postal service vehicle in question was an eighteen wheel semi tractor-trailer truck which was stopped at a stop light.  While the truck waited for the light to change, the robber causally opened the rear door of the trailer and helped himself, presumably, as the video of the incident did not show what precisely the robber took, to a hand full of letters.

The report then cut to the Post Master General who stated that he was “very disturbed by this crime” and that he would be offering a $10,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest of this criminal.  $10,000 dollars?  It was at that moment that I realized that the $1,000,000 a day the post office is losing largely – yesterday’s lead new story,  is the result of simple stupidity.  Had the door to the trailer been locked, say a cost to the tax payer of, em, er $2, the robbery would have been thwarted.  And the $10,000 would be available to help pay the retirement of these brain-trusts working for the post office.