If you’re finally seeing fewer rubber bands on the streets of the neighborhood, you can thank me.
If you’re not, you can call the Postal Service and berate them.
Responding to my ongoing series (this one makes three jeremiads … and counting!) about the scourge of Postal Service letter carriers haphazardly tossing their leftover rubber bands all over our streets, the agency told me the other day that it has set up a hotline to track customer complaints about problem.
I found this out after my second hard-hitting column (“Rubber band man fights on”) hit The Paper on Aug. 25. That’s when I got a call from Andrea Burrows, a “customer relations coordinator” at the main postal service office in Brooklyn. She said that the “Brooklyn Postmaster” wanted to talk to me about “the situation.”
I said I’d be happy to talk to anyone under one condition: the meeting leads to the resolution of the problem of these letter carriers becoming litter depositors, a problem I exposed in my hard-hitting first column, “Time to ‘band’ together in Slope,” which ran on July 28).
Am I obsessed? What can I say? Some men are born to greatness. Others have rubber bands thrust upon them.
Anyway, I agreed to the meeting with Archie Warner, who, it turns out, is not the postmaster at all, but merely the manager of “customer service operations” for 10 stations in Brooklyn, including the Van Brunt station on Ninth Street, where letter carriers’ inability to recycle their rubber bands — as per Postal Service guidelines! — has attracted my single-minded focus.
Warner is a genuinely nice man. He took my concern about rubbery litter seriously, saying that the situation “wasn’t being handled properly.”
To demonstrate his concern, he told me that he had sent out an e-mail to all the postal supervisors at the stations he oversees telling them to remind their letter carriers to bring all rubber bands back to the station.
“Those rubber bands cost a lot of money, so I appreciated the chance to remind them not to waste them,” Warner said. “Plus, you can’t leave a mess on the street.”
I had only three problems with what Warner told me:
1. He did not let me see the e-mail.
2. The problem has continued unabated.
3. Why is any Postal Service official sending e-mails to his subordinates? Can’t he — oh, I don’t know — send a letter?
I told Warner I’d be monitoring the situation — the reader demands it! — and he told me about the Postal Service “hotline,” which turned out to be nothing more than the main customer service number (1-800-ASK-USPS).
A little disappointed, I walked Warner to my office door. But first, I gave him about 10 rubber bands — just the ones that I had found on my walk home on the day before our meeting.
He took them, but he didn’t take them comfortably.
Then, not five minutes later, I headed out of the office for a cup of coffee — and, sure enough, there was one of the rubber bands that I had just given Warner, sitting by the elevator door.
Do you get the feeling that the Postal Service still isn’t taking this seriously?
Gersh Kuntzman is the editor of The Brooklyn Paper. He lives in Park Slope with his wife and two kids.
The KITCHEN SINK
It was nice to see Time Out New York Kids shining a spotlight on Seventh Avenue between 14th and 15th streets (though not so nice to have the magazine snarkily describe it as once “little more than boarded-up storefronts”). The mag celebrated the stores Toyspace and Baby Bird, plus the fine café’s, Anthony’s, Parco and Tost. But we found one glaring oversight: How could they ignore the office of Assemblyman Jim Brennan?! … The Gallery Players, Park Slope’s beloved troupe, want you to submit your play to their 11th annual “Black Box New Play Festival.” The winning play will be produced next year, which is a big deal for struggling playwrights like our editor, who wrote the seminal hit, “SUV: The Musical.” The deadline is Nov. 1, but there’s one catch: no musicals! And there are lots of rules, so e-mail info@engine37.org with questions. … Our pal, Rick Field, was pickling string beans at the Grand Army Plaza farmer’s market last Saturday. Now that’s a man who loves his mother (and her Dilly Beans recipe!). … Care Bears on Fire — everyone’s favorite kiddie rock band — burned down the house at the DUMBO street fair on Sunday. The Park Slope-based trio’s new album, “I Stole Your Animal,” will be out on Oct. 2, but the “release party” is at Southpaw (125 Fifth Ave., between Sterling and St. Johns places) on Sept. 28 at 8 pm. Eight pm?! What about the children?!
