Hey, listener, we are talking about the postal service in this episode.

And man, if you have tried to mail something, you know how frustrating it is.

So I guess what I'm saying is we curse a little bit.

You've been warned.

If you Google around, try to figure out who is doing what at the post office these days.

If you click the official organizational chart for the agency, you're likely to get one of those 404 not-found messages.

At least, that's what happened to me when I tried to figure it out yesterday.

Because a couple of days ago, who's doing what at the U.S. Postal Service changed radically.

Yeah, I mean, that's never a good sign, right?

Jordan Weissman has been covering the post office for Slate.

23 executives were either reassigned or replaced, which is huge.

Yeah, it's just like the entire top of the org chart, you know, got shuffled around.

I wouldn't say everything changed.

I would say everybody who had reasons to be concerned previously now have more reasons to be concerned.

People have been concerned because the United States Postal Service is finding itself stretched increasingly thin.

It's running out of money, like a lot of businesses that are dealing with this coronavirus.

It's being led by a new Postmaster General, a guy known for pushing workers to a breaking point.

And all this is happening as it's begun to dawn on many politicians, just how essential the mail is going to be come November.

The sense of dread is escalating very, very fast because everyone has realized that the upcoming

election is going to hinge largely on our ability to make vote-by-mail work, right?

It's just there's no way that everyone who would ordinarily go to the polls is going to do it this time around because we have a plague.

And there's one more thing.

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