My mother, Victoria, is a processing and distribution supervisor for the United States Postal Service. She’s been working in the Post Office for 25 years. She began working as a mail handler from 1998 to 2016. She changed craft to maintenance in 2017. From there, she became a 204b (acting supervisor) for a year, then she applied for a supervisor position in processing and distribution operations. She got accepted and right now she is working at Seattle Priority Mail Annex in Kent, Washington. She is currently supervising APBS (Automated Parcel and Bundle Sorter) machines. She’s dealing with out-of-state and out-of-country priority mail operations.

How long have you worked as a supervisor?

– “5 years”

How many people have you supervised so far?

-“55 people or even 60, I’m dealing with 2 APBS machines.”

What are your strengths as a supervisor?

-“I have good communication skills, I listen to employees, and I do safety talks with our team to impart any changes or improvements pertaining to our goals.

Have you ever fired, furloughed, or laid off an employee?

-“Yes, due to bad attendance. It’s hard to fire an employee since it involves a long process dealing with the union. It has to undergo an investigative interview, then a disciplinary action from a letter-of-warning, a 7-day suspension, a 14-day suspension, and then termination submitted to the labor specialist.”

What skills and experiences in your past positions prepared you for this specific supervisory role?

-“I used to work in APBS as a mail handler, so I know how to go with the flow of running the operations.”

Describe a time you introduced an important change to your team in your current supervisory role.

-“When I started as a supervisor, the APBS throughput goal was to run 6,200 pieces of mail per hour. Last year, we changed the goal to 7,000 pieces per hour and it’s doable. Since then, many times we were #1 in the pacific northwest and in the country for our throughput numbers.”

Describe a time when you disagreed with the opinion of a team member and how you handled the situation.

-“If you are running an APBS machine, everything is about numbers. We have to watch out for the mechanical rejects that we generated. In order to avoid a high amount of rejects, I asked everybody to press the sweeping button for 3 seconds only, and most of the employees disagreed due to safety issues. However, I believe that’s just an excuse because they don’t want to sweep fast.”

What do you think are the essential qualities of a good supervisor?

-“Leadership, being knowledgeable, having good communication skills, and having patience.”

What are your top three factors for improving teamwork and success?

-“Attendance, performance, and safety.”

Is there anything you would change about the supervisory positions in your organization?

-“No, because I don’t have the ability to do anything about other supervisory positions. Only people in higher positions could do this. ”

After interviewing my mother, a processing and distribution supervisor in the United States Postal Service, I came to discover a lot about working in this position. Victoria’s position as a supervisor requires a lot of patience, good communication, and demonstrating leadership along with being knowledgeable. She has been working there for 25 years, working in multiple positions throughout them. As I interviewed her, I learned that responsibility also plays an important factor in her job. I believe the topics Victoria covers in this interview take part in a huge part in any working atmosphere. Through this interview, I learned that having bad attendance negatively affects your work performance as it can eventually get you fired, along with the long process of firing someone after she states, “It’s hard to fire an employee since it involves a long process dealing with the union. It has to undergo an investigative interview, then a disciplinary action from a letter-of-warning, a 7-day suspension, a 14-day suspension, and then termination submitted to the labor specialist.”