John Nolan spent a good chunk of his career working for the U.S. Postal Service.

A total of 24 years, 19 years, and my first stint ending up as Postmaster New York City,

and I went to work for Merrill Lynch for 11 years and then came back for five years as

the Deputy Postmaster General. All of the controversy surrounding the post office, it's been

hard for him to watch. It's very frustrating. The lack of understanding of the Postal Service and how

it works and what's important to it by people who have control over it to a certain extent is very frustrating.

Take a lot of pride in the time I spent with the Postal Service, and I know postal people are very proud of the organization.

So it's frustrating.

Even while he was at the top of the organization, 20 years ago, a lot of people didn't understand how the Postal Service is run.

You know, while it's not rocket science, it's not a simple process in a simple organization.

It's very, very big, a lot of moving parts.

And so you see over and over again the things that are just irrelevant being raised

as big issues and the important issues really not understood.

John says those photos of blue mailboxes and sorting machines being removed, they're causing

more of a stir than is really necessary.

Part of it is that people shouldn't jump off on things, you know, saying right now that they

demand that the machines should be put back online or demand that the boxes be put

back is not going to help service for the election, period, end of discussion.

It is not.

Today on the show, what we're getting wrong about the post office and how a former deputy

postmaster general thinks you should be planning to vote later this year. I'm Ray Suarez, filling in

for Mary Harris. You're listening to What Next? Stick with us.

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